Skip to main content
Access to this video is a benefit for members through

Up Next

The Gray Heron by Galway Kinnell

The Gray Heron by Galway Kinnell

Season 1 Episode 10
25:26
N.Y. State of Mind by Nas

N.Y. State of Mind by Nas

Season 1 Episode 11
25:45
The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

Season 1 Episode 12
25:27
Urban Love Poem, by Marilyn Chin

Urban Love Poem, by Marilyn Chin

Season 2 Episode 1
26:46
One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

Season 2 Episode 2
26:46
The Fish, by Marianne Moore

The Fish, by Marianne Moore

Season 2 Episode 3
26:46
This Your Home Now, by Mark Doty

This Your Home Now, by Mark Doty

Season 2 Episode 4
26:46
Finishing the Hat, by Stephen Sondheim

Finishing the Hat, by Stephen Sondheim

Season 2 Episode 5
26:46
Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Season 2 Episode 8
26:46
The Wound-Dresser, by Walt Whitman

The Wound-Dresser, by Walt Whitman

Season 3 Episode 1
25:11
Back to Show
Poetry in America

To Prisoners by Gwendolyn Brooks

Season 1 Episode 9

This episode brings together a group of interpreters who learned in prison to hear poetry’s “call.” Learn from Senator John McCain, playwright and activist Anna Deavere Smith, poets Reginald Dwayne Betts and Li-Young Lee, and four exonerated prisoners about poetry’s special resonance for those behind bars.

Support Provided By
Season
Steps
24:42
Play hooky with Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems.” Poets and NYC-lovers join host Elisa New.
Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
25:21
Poet Martín Espada worked manufacturing legal pads, and the job is burned into his memory.
Emperor of Ice Cream, Motive for Metaphor
25:43
Murray Bartlett, Laurie Santos, and more guests join Elisa New to read Wallace Stevens.
Hill Country
25:21
Drive through West Texas with Tracy K. Smith, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and host Elisa New.
July in Washington
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
David Axelrod, Bill Kristol and Andrea Mitchell read Robert Lowell with Elisa New.
Mushrooms, Weakness and Doubt
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Consider the poetics, and politics, of fungi with poems by Sylvia Plath and Kay Ryan.
Six Years Later, Epitaph for a Centaur
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Read the elegiac poetry of Joseph Brodsky, a Cold War Russian exile, with host Elisa New.
Poetry in America Season 4
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Poems by Wheatley with Amanda Gorman, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Richard Blanco, and more.
Sonnet IV; I shall forget you presently, my dear, by Millay
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:41
Leslie Jamison, Olivia Gatwood, & more read a sonnet by Millay with host Elisa New.
Two poems, by Linda Hogan and Alberto Ríos
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:14
Linda Hogan & Alberto Ríos explore their poems with host Elisa New, Jeff Corwin & more.
Poems about Motherhood by Sharon Olds and Bernadette Mayer
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:38
Elisa New, Emily Oster, Sharon Olds, & Bernadette Mayer explore poems on motherhood.
Mending Wall, by Robert Frost
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Caroline Kennedy, Tracy K. Smith & more read Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” with Elisa New.
Active loading indicator