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Pbs Learning Media: Poetry in America: Hymmnn and Hum Bom!
Although we think of a poem as something read from a book, poet Allen Ginsberg knew that poetry's power did not depend upon print, and he drew on the traditions of religious and ritual communities in writing verse that would elevate the...
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Pbs Learning Media: Poetry in America: Those Winter Sundays
Robert Hayden's sonnet "Those Winter Sundays" offers a meditation on the fraught love between fathers and sons. Conjuring Depression-era industrial Detroit and the struggles of early 20th-century African Americans, the poem's...
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Pbs Learning Media: Poetry in America: Skyscraper
Travel back to 1914 when Chicago's skyscrapers and Chicago's poets were defining modernist reach and audacity. In this video [7:46] excerpted from Poetry in America, host Elisa New considers the rise of the skyscraper -- and the...
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Pbs Learning Media: "n.y. State of Mind" by Nas
Multi-platinum hip hop artist Nas has a global reputation as one of the greatest emcees and lyricists in his contemporary art form, but what about within the history and canon, of American poetry? Learn alongside host Elisa New as Nas,...
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Pbs Learning Media: Musee Des Beaux Arts
In this video [4:03] excerpted from Poetry in America, ponder W.H. Auden's World War II era reflections on suffering in "Musee des Beaux Arts" with Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power, with journalist and ethicist David...
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Pbs Learning Media: Harlem
"What happens to a dream deferred?" Langston Hughes question calls former President Bill Clinton, pianist and composer Herbie Hancock, poet Sonia Sanchez, and students from the Harlem Children's Zone to interpret Hughes' most iconic...
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Pbs Learning Media: I Cannot Dance Opon My Toes
"I cannot dance opon my Toes," Emily Dickinson writes, "no man instructed me." Still, Dickinson makes the white page of the poem her performance space. In this video [5:36] excerpted from Poetry in America, an ensemble of interpreters do...
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Pbs Learning Media: Fast Break
Edward Hirsch's poem "Fast Break" captures a single slow-motion play on a basketball court. In this video [6:06] excerpted from Poetry in America, join Hirsch, host Elisa New, NBA players Shaquille O'Neal, Pau Gasol, and Shane Battier,...
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Pbs Learning Media: "The Gray Heron" by Galway Kinnell
How is the poet's eye like or unlike that of the scientist, the photographer, or of the small child first rambling around the natural world? In this environmentally-themed, visually splendid video [7:07] excerpted from Poetry in America,...
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Pbs Learning Media: "The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus
While "The New Colossus" once welcomed immigrants into New York Harbor from its perch on the Statue of Liberty, this video [5:22] excerpted from Poetry in America brings the discussion of poetry and immigration into our current moment....
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Pbs Learning Media: "To Prisoners" by Gwendolyn Brooks
Lyric poetry carries the expression of the solitary human voice. Does it then follow that solitary confinement is a school for great poetry? This video excerpted from Poetry in America brings together a group of interpreters who learned...
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Pbs Learning Media: "Shirt" by Robert Pinsky
What is a cherished garment made of? What is a poem made of? Labor and raw materials, tradition and innovation, influences both local and global, and art are stitched into both. In this video [6:54] excerpted from Poetry in America, host...