The Heart of Things
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 Biennia...
The Field of Time
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...
Come Celebrate with Me
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 ...
Here in the Mind
Gary Snyder and Daisy Zamora have each, in their own way, engaged in battle. In this program, the staunch defender of the natural world and the combatant in the Nicaraguan civil war wield their preferred weapon, language, which in their hands has th...
The Arming of the Earth
The 20th century began with enormous hopes for a future made safe and humane by technology. Although it realized some of these hopes, the century neared its end under the shadow of superweapons that still threaten the earth with annihilation. In thi...
Swirl Like a Leaf
Poetry offers a way for individuals to make sense of themselves, understand their motivations and fears, gain insight into their past and their future. As this program shows, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Robert Bly, and Marilyn Chin have all found routes to...
Bill T. Jones: Still/Here
What is it like to live with a life-threatening illness? Can fear, anger, and joy be translated into movement? In this program, journalist Bill Moyers and filmmaker David Grubin give viewers a rare glimpse into dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones’s...
Some Can Sing
Poetry’s ability to bridge gaps and cross boundaries is emphasized in this program through the works of Robert Hass, Claribel Alegría, and Carolyn Forché. Distinctly different in terms of background and style, these three artists are identical i...
The Buddha: A Film by David Grubin
Two and a half millennia ago, a new religion was born in Asia, generated from the ideas of Siddhartha Gautama, a mysterious Indian sage who gained enlightenment while he sat under a fig tree and became known as Buddha—the awakened one. The Buddha ...
Love's Confusing Joy
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...