Steps
A portal into 1950s New York City, Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” have the feel of playing hooky: of roaming from museums to Central Park and sneaking into cinemas. Choreographer Mark Morris, poets Terrance Hayes, Robert Pinsky, Todd Colby, and Eileen Myles, and musical duo Rachael and Vilray join host Elisa New to read “Steps,” O’Hara’s ode to NYC art and dance.
Episodes
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Steps
S4 E8 - 24m 42s
A portal into 1950s New York City, Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems” have the feel of playing hooky: of roaming from museums to Central Park and sneaking into cinemas. Choreographer Mark Morris, poets Terrance Hayes, Robert Pinsky, Todd Colby, and Eileen Myles, and musical duo Rachael and Vilray join host Elisa New to read “Steps,” O’Hara’s ode to NYC art and dance.
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Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
S4 E7 - 25m 21s
Long before he won the National Book Award, Latinx poet Martín Espada worked after school in a factory making legal pads. Espada, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, economists Natasha Sarin, Betsey Stevenson, and Justin Wolfers, historian Jill Lepore, and actor John Turturro join Elisa New to reflect on social mobility, and what connects manual labor with the raw materials of poetry and law.
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Emperor of Ice Cream, Motive for Metaphor
S4 E6 - 25m 43s
Modernist poet Wallace Stevens balanced his long career as an insurance executive with a thrilling life of the imagination. Actor Murray Bartlett, ice cream maker Gus Rancatore, cognitive scientist Laurie Santos, scholar Al Filreis, poet David Baker, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Bob Rubin, and the 2021 National Student Poets join Elisa New.
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Hill Country
S4 E5 - 25m 21s
God drives down from the mountains behind the wheel of a Jeep, in this poem by Tracy K. Smith, former U.S. poet laureate. Smith illuminates the ambrosial bounty of Texas Hill Country, where she’s joined by country music singer-songwriter Jimmie Dale Gilmore, members of both Christian and Jewish communities, and host Elisa New.
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July in Washington
S4 E4 - 25m 21s
Against the backdrop of 1964 Washington D.C., Robert Lowell wrote this timeless reflection on the contradictions between American idealism and American policy. Journalists Andrea Mitchell and Justin Worland, political commentators David Axelrod and Bill Kristol, scholar Sir Jonathan Bate and psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison join host Elisa New.
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Mushrooms, Weakness and Doubt
S4 E3 - 25m 21s
Poems by Sylvia Plath and Kay Ryan take the peripheral status of the fungal kingdom as an invitation to consider the scientific knowns and unknowns, and cultural significance, of mushrooms. Microbial ecologist Serita Frey, chef Gabrielle Hamilton, plant pathologist Barry Pryor, health advocate Dr. Andrew Weil, writers Maria Popova and Maria Pinto, and journalist Frank Bruni join host Elisa New.
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Six Years Later, Epitaph for a Centaur
S4 E2 - 25m 21s
Russian-born poet Joseph Brodsky wrote about the centaur as a Cold War self-portrait: a divided global refugee, created by a geopolitics of shifting borders and cultures. Theater of War artistic director Bryan Doerries, writer Yelena Akhtiorskaya, and scholars Sven Birkerts, Zakhar Ishtov, Jonathan Brent, and Joseph Ellis read two poems by Brodsky: one about love; the other, exile.
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Phillis Wheatley: To the University
S4 E1 - 25m 21s
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.
Extras + Features
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Season 4 Preview
S4 - 30s
Performers, public figures and everyday Americans join host Elisa New to read and discuss unforgettable American poems. The poems in Season 4 take us from colonial Boston to the halls of Congress, from Texas Hill Country to Central Park. Guests range from poets to celebrity chefs, from actors to ice cream makers, from political strategists to preachers and more.
Schedule
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Poetry in America
One Art -- Elizabeth Bishop
Thursday
Apr 3
30 Minutes
Katie Couric, Sheryl Sandberg, Yang Lan, and Mary Chapin Carpenter discuss Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art." -
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Poetry in America
The Fish -- Marianne Moore
Thursday
Apr 3
30 Minutes
Former Vice President Al Gore, poet Jorie Graham and scientists from Conservation International delve into Marianne Moore's poem "The Fish." -
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Poetry in America
This Is Your Home Now -- Mark Doty
Thursday
Apr 3
30 Minutes
Poet Mark Doty, psychologist Steven Pinker, choreographer Bill T. Jones, designer Simon Doonan and interior designer Jonathan Adler discuss "This Your Home Now." -
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Poetry in America
Finishing the Hat -- Stephen Sondheim
Thursday
Apr 3
30 Minutes
Broadway stage actors and writer Adam Gopnik talk about composer Stephen Sondheim's ability to blend lyrics and music, using "Finishing the Hat" as their case study. -
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Poetry in America
You and I Are Disappearing -- Yusef Komunyakaa
Thursday
Apr 3
30 Minutes
Former Secretary of State John Kerry, director Julie Taymor, composer Elliot Goldenthal, and writer Yusef Komunyakaa talk about the beauty and horror of war. -
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Poetry in America
This Is Just to Say -- William Carlos Williams
Thursday
Apr 3
30 Minutes
Insight into what may or may not lie beneath William Carlos Williams' brief tribute to marital relations; guests include actor John Hodgman, poet Rafael Campo and poet Jane Hirshfield. -
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Poetry in America
Whitman
Monday
Apr 7
30 Minutes
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, playwright Tony Kushner and poets Mark Doty and Marilyn Chin celebrate the work of Walt Whitman. -
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Poetry in America
The Wound-Dresser
Monday
Apr 7
30 Minutes
An exploration of Walt Whitman's "The Wound-Dresser," set in the battlefield infirmaries of the Civil War. -
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Poetry in America
Looking for the Gulf Motel
Monday
Apr 7
30 Minutes
"Looking for the Gulf Motel" by Richard Blanco centers on a Cuban American family vacation in 1970s Florida. -
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Poetry in America
Cascadilla Falls
Monday
Apr 7
30 Minutes
Exploring the science of A.R. Ammon's poem "Cascadilla Falls." -
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Poetry in America
You Can Say That Again, Billie
Monday
Apr 7
30 Minutes
A discussion of Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit," Evie Shockley's poem "you can say that again, billie" and the history of racism and violence in the American South. -
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Poetry in America
Mending Wall
Monday
Apr 7
30 Minutes
Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" addresses the role walls play in society. -
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Poetry in America
The Language of the Brag and the Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters
Tuesday
Apr 8
30 Minutes
"The Language of the Brag" by Sharon Olds and "The Desires of Mothers to Please Others in Letters" by Bernadette Mayer offer tributes to motherhood. -
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Poetry in America
Rabbits and Fire and Bear Fat
Tuesday
Apr 8
30 Minutes
Poems by Linda Hogan and Alberto Rios follow the survival stories of animals across the Great Plains and Sonoran Desert. -
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Poetry in America
Sonnet IV; I Shall Forget You Presently, My Dear
Tuesday
Apr 8
30 Minutes
The sonnets written by Edna St. Vincent Millay in 1920s Greenwich Village challenge cliches of love and romance. -
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Poetry in America
Phillis Wheatley: To the University
Tuesday
Apr 8
30 Minutes
Two poems by Phillis Wheatley. -
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Poetry in America
Six Years Later, Epitaph for a Centaur
Tuesday
Apr 8
30 Minutes
Two poems by exiled Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. -
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Poetry in America
Mushrooms, Weakness and Doubt
Tuesday
Apr 8
30 Minutes
Poems by Sylvia Plath and Kay Ryan explore the cultural significance of mushrooms. -
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Poetry in America
July in Washington
Wednesday
Apr 9
30 Minutes
Robert Lowell's poem about the contradictions between American idealism and American policy. -
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Poetry in America
Hill Country
Wednesday
Apr 9
30 Minutes
Tracy K. Smith's vision of Texas Hill Country.
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