Access to this video is a benefit for members through
Back to Show
Poetry in America
Cascadilla Falls, by A. R. Ammons
Season 3
Episode 3
Picking up a hand-sized stone near a rushing waterfall, the speaker of A.R. Ammons’s poem “Cascadilla Falls” is catapulted into the cosmos. Planetary scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton, composer DJ Spooky, geologist Daniel Schrag, poet Joshua Bennett, CEO Larry Berger, and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein join host Elisa New to consider Ammons’s window onto the vast workings of the universe.
Support Provided By
Season
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:41
Leslie Jamison, Olivia Gatwood, & more read a sonnet by Millay with host Elisa New.
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:14
Linda Hogan & Alberto Ríos explore their poems with host Elisa New, Jeff Corwin & more.
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:38
Elisa New, Emily Oster, Sharon Olds, & Bernadette Mayer explore poems on motherhood.
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Caroline Kennedy, Tracy K. Smith & more read Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” with Elisa New.
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:22
Cassandra Wilson, Elisa New & more read Evie Shockley’s “you can say that again, billie.”
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:02
Gloria Estefan & more read Richard Blanco’s "Looking for The Gulf Motel" with Elisa New.
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:11
Tony Kushner, David Strathairn & more read Whitman’s “The Wound-Dresser” with Elisa New.
Unlock with PBS Passport
26:46
Join host Elisa New to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth.
Unlock with PBS Passport
26:49
Williams' poem “This is Just to Say” is only 28 words and ireads like a refrigerator note.
Unlock with PBS Passport
27:01
Explore the mingled beauty and horror of war, with this Yusef Komunyakaa poem.
Unlock with PBS Passport
26:46
Stephen Sondheim blends lyrics and music in his poem "Finishing the Hat".
Unlock with PBS Passport
26:46
In Doty's poem “This Your Home Now,” a barber shops sparks a meditation on love and more.