Access to this video is a benefit for members through
Up Next
Back to Show
Poetry in America
The Wound-Dresser, by Walt Whitman
Season 3
Episode 1
Episode 1 explores Walt Whitman’s “The Wound-Dresser,” set in the battlefield infirmaries and operating theaters of 1860s Washington, D.C. Actor David Strathairn, playwright Tony Kushner, composer Matthew Aucoin, opera star Davóne Tines, physician-writers Rafael Campo and Abraham Verghese, and historian Drew Faust join Elisa New to discuss how the trauma of the Civil War shaped American history.
Support Provided By
Season
25:21
David Axelrod, Bill Kristol and Andrea Mitchell read Robert Lowell with Elisa New.
25:21
Consider the poetics, and politics, of fungi with poems by Sylvia Plath and Kay Ryan.
25:21
Read the elegiac poetry of Joseph Brodsky, a Cold War Russian exile, with host Elisa New.
25:21
Poems by Wheatley with Amanda Gorman, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Richard Blanco, and more.
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
25:21
DJ Spooky, Joshua Bennett, & more discuss A.R. Ammon’s “Cascadilla Falls” with Elisa New.
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
26:46
Join host Elisa New to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s birth.