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Poetry in America

Phillis Wheatley: To the University

Season 4 Episode 1

In 1770s Boston, Phillis Wheatley was at the same time enslaved and an international celebrity: a writer who mastered the most persuasive rhetoric of the day to publish enduring arguments about freedom. Inaugural poets Amanda Gorman and Richard Blanco, writer Clint Smith, and scholars Glenda Carpio and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. join host Elisa New to read two of Wheatley’s poems for public occasions.

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Cascadilla Falls, by A. R. Ammons
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25:21
DJ Spooky, Joshua Bennett, & more discuss A.R. Ammon’s “Cascadilla Falls” with Elisa New.
Looking for The Gulf Motel, by Richard Blanco
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25:02
Gloria Estefan & more read Richard Blanco’s "Looking for The Gulf Motel" with Elisa New.
The Wound-Dresser, by Walt Whitman
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25:11
Tony Kushner, David Strathairn & more read Whitman’s “The Wound-Dresser” with Elisa New.
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