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Summary: Read by noted actors Michael Gough, Edward Fox, and Eileen Atkins, T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land powerfully expresses the disillusionment and disgust of the post-World War I era in Europe. In this program, Professor Frank Kermode, of Cambridge University; Eliot biographer Peter Ackroyd; and poets Sir Stephen Spender and Craig Raine examine the complex nature of Eliot's influential poem, analyze...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: Hosted by Eli Wallach, this program dissects Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun through the sharp insights of Joe Morton (Walter Lee Younger); Kim Yancey (Beneatha Younger); Phylicia Rashad (Lena Younger); Ruby Dee, Audra McDonald, Starletta DuPois, and Ernestine Jackson (Ruth Younger); Ralph Carter (Travis Younger); John Fiedler (Carl Lindner); directors Lloyd Richards and Jack Hofsiss;...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008

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Summary: In Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, the time is 1901 and the place is America's collective memory. But Thornton Wilder's Our Town is not the sentimental nostalgia piece most people perceive. This program hosted by Eli Wallach offers wide-ranging and extraordinarily deep insights into the play from those who arguably know it best: Our Town alumni who over the years have brought the play to life...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: In the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy set up the Un-American Activities Committee to combat the growing "threat" of communism in the U.S. Playwright Arthur Miller was one of many writers summoned to testify at this political witch-hunt. Miller, who was nearly ruined, said that until that time he had not understood the "inexplicable darkness" that prevented people from seeing evil and denouncing...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: This outstanding program traces the life of Tennessee Williams, revisiting the locations in the southern states that were his inspiration. Scenes from Williams' most memorable works, including The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, evoke the atmosphere, characters, and conflicts of the Deep South, while footage of a rare television interview and a dramatic reenactment of the life of...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Following acclaimed poet and memoirist Maya Angelou on a visit to her childhood surroundings in Stamps, Arkansas, this Bill Moyers interview remains a classic of broadcast journalism and a valuable teaching tool for African-American studies. "I was terribly hurt in this town," Angelou tells Moyers, "and vastly loved." She recalls her rapturous discovery of Shakespeare (while savoring a favorite...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2010

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Summary: In this incisive program, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson returns home to the Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1990 to review his life and career. Archival footage and interviews with Wilson, former New York Times theater critic Frank Rich, fellow writers, and others provide insights into the African-American experience, from the Great Black Migration to more recent...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

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Summary: In this exclusive interview, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Arthur Miller speaks about his life and career. Beginning in New York, Miller traces his early years through the Great Depression, offering insights into how this lean time influenced his work. A portion of the program is devoted to a discussion of the 1950s McCarthy hearings and their impact on the development of Miller's...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: The U.S. Poet Laureate has a unique opportunity to shape America's literary terrain-by fostering public appreciation of poetry and by continuing to produce his or her own work. This NewsHour collection profiles six such honorees at the onset of their terms. Each author reflects on experiences that have influenced his writing and describes what he hopes to accomplish during his tenure. In...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007

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Summary: Coleman Barks, Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Georgia, has become the primary conduit for translating into English the ecstatic poetry of the 13th-century Sufi poet Jelaluddin Rumi, the bard of Islam. In this program, Bill Moyers and Dr. Barks discuss topics including the intricate challenge of transforming antiquated Persian idiom into modern English while retaining its...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, a portrait of friendship and loneliness, is a tribute to the half million who headed to California in search of work and the American dream. In this program, Dr. Susan Shillinglaw of the Center for Steinbeck Studies discusses labor exploitation in the Salinas valley during the Depression era to reinforce an appreciation of the precarious lifestyle faced by...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: The effect of Jane Hirshfield's reading is almost transcendental, like the sound of distant echoes in a canyon. "I know that many of my poems don't evoke clapping," she says, "and I want to assure you that I take silence as a high compliment. In this program, Bill Moyers and Ms. Hirshfield discuss topics including her experience as a practitioner of Zen and the relative merits of sound and...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Facing the reality of what happened in Southeast Asia-and bringing others together to reconcile with it-has become the life work of novelist Maxine Hong Kingston, who teaches Buddhism and creative writing to Vietnam veterans. "In the workshops, [they] break out of the solipsism, the narcissism, the isolation," says Professor Kingston, who was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009

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Summary: Two courageous women artists who have turned potential tragedy into triumph are testimony to the healing powers of poetry. In this program, authors Sandra McPherson and Linda McCarriston revel in the beauty of love, family, and nature, exploring and elevating their lives through wondrous and passionate words. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Adrienne Rich, Victor Hernandez Cruz, and Michael S. Harper have changed the way poetry is heard, read, and absorbed. This program showcases these three poets who exult in language's ability to illuminate culture and history. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Coleman Barks has dedicated much of his life's work to introducing the 13th-century Islamic mystic Jelaluddin Rumi to contemporary audiences. In this program, Barks brings the prolific Rumi to life in poems that are alternately ecstatic, wise, and hilarious. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: In this program, two poets reflect on the cultural legacies they have inherited. Lucille Clifton and David Mura bring their talent and humor to bear as they look at the past and the lives they live in America today. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Poetry's ability to bridge gaps and cross boundaries is emphasized in this program through the works of Robert Hass, Claribel Alegria, and Carolyn Forche. Distinctly different in terms of background and style, these three artists are identical in their ability to transport audiences to new places, new feelings, and new hopes. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Recorded in 1993, this classic program profiled Donald Hall and his wife, Jane Kenyon-two celebrated American literary figures. Kenyon, who died in 1995, was an award-winning poet and translator; Hall is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and in June of 2006 was named U.S. Poet Laureate. In the program, Bill Moyers visits Hall and Kenyon at their farmhouse in New Hampshire for a...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: Ezra Pound wielded tremendous influence on the 20th century's literature while he cut a controversial path through its politics. His challenge, "make it new," became Modernism's touchstone. This program follows his life's extraordinary course, from his collaborations with Yeats and Eliot through his years of detention at St. Elizabeths Hospital. A wealth of photographs and manuscripts is...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: When Queenie and her friends, dressed only in bathing suits, enter Lengel's A&P to buy kipper snacks, the life of Sammy the cashier is changed forever. This program presents a dramatization of John Updike's frequently anthologized story of irony and innocence. Updike himself comments on the story in an interview with Donald M. Murray, columnist for The Boston Globe and Pulitzer Prize-winning...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: N. Scott Momaday is the most widely published and read of the Native American writers, and the recipient of the most valued awards and prizes for both his poetry and his prose. A Ph.D. in English literature, he has combined his study of Western literature with the themes as well as the structures of his Kiowa Indian heritage. Here, Momaday discusses what it means to a Native American to be an...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006

View online at AVOD

Summary: A Pulitzer Prize-winner before she was 35, Rita Dove is the youngest poet to have held the post of Poet Laureate of the United States (1993-1995) In this program with Bill Moyers, Dove talks about her life and work, the relationship between poetry and power, and her plans for taking poetry to the people. The program also features Dove reading extensive selections from her works (including her...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

Summary: Three-time American Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky has labored on many fronts for the advancement of his art. This program offers an in-depth look into three main areas of Pinsky's efforts: his translation of Dante's Inferno, featuring extended excerpts of his lecture on rendering the classic into English, as well as readings from it; his own highly accomplished poetry; and his initiative as Poet...

Format: software, multimedia

Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005

View online at AVOD

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