Poetry in America Season Three: "More Perfect Union" Episode Sequence

FAIN: TT-271465-20

Verse Video Education, Inc. (Brookline, MA 02445-4223)
Elisa New (Project Director: January 2020 to present)

Production of five twenty-four-minute episodes of a television series on American poetry.

Verse Video Education requests $250,000 from NEH Short Documentaries program to support production, post-production, & educational programming for a sequence of “More Perfect Union” episodes in Season Three of the public television show Poetry in America. These episodes will form a sequence within the season’s eight-episode lineup. Each episode will focus on an American poem that is preoccupied with the stories that we as a nation tell ourselves. The poems in these episodes represent a range of American styles, traditions, and communities, but they share a rigorous combination of celebratory and interrogatory consciousness, foregrounding questions of historical, civic, social, and aesthetic significance.

Associated Products

Season 3 Promotional Trailer--Poetry in America (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Season 3 Promotional Trailer--Poetry in America
Writer: N/A
Director: Elisa New
Producer: Cathleen O'Connell
Abstract: The 30-second trailer for Season 3 of Poetry in America
Year: 2021
Primary URL: http://vimeo.com/641261407
Primary URL Description: Poetry in America's Vimeo page. In January 2022, the primary URL will be on the Poetry in America Season 3 web page, which is now under construction
Secondary URL: http://vimeo.com/641261407
Secondary URL Description: This Vimeo link will be the secondary URL once the Season 3 page goes live on the Poetry in America site
Access Model: Open access on multiple websites online & to be distributed via social media
Format: Video
Format: Digital File
Format: Web

"The Wound-Dresser" (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: "The Wound-Dresser"
Writer: Elisa New
Director: Elisa New
Producer: Cathleen O'Connell
Abstract: Explore 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.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://vimeo.com/653790824/1858fb4cbd
Primary URL Description: Poetry in America regularly rotates which episodes are available for free streaming on its website. When this episode is available, it can be seen at our website here: https://www.poetryinamerica.org/episode/the-wound-dresser/ That is the primary link, but we are sharing a link to the Vimeo page so that NEH staff can review it any time, not only when it is in the current rotation.
Secondary URL: https://vimeo.com/653790824/1858fb4cbd
Secondary URL Description: This Vimeo link is for sharing with private audiences only. We are using it here because we regularly alternate which episodes are available to stream at any given time. This vimeo link will allow NEH staff to review the episode at any time.
Access Model: Public television broadcast & available for free streaming, as well as use in classrooms
Format: Video
Format: Digital File
Format: Web
Format: Other

"Looking for the Gulf Motel" (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: "Looking for the Gulf Motel"
Writer: Elisa New
Director: Elisa New
Producer: Cathleen O'Connell
Abstract: Richard Blanco’s poem “Looking for The Gulf Motel” transports readers to 1970s Florida, recalling a Cuban-American family’s vacations on the sparkling sands of Marco Island. Blanco and international superstar Gloria Estefan join Elisa New and a chorus of Cuban American adults in Miami and middle school students in New York City to reflect on family and what it means to call a place home.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://vimeo.com/658990011/4b01e56b11
Primary URL Description: Poetry in America regularly rotates which episodes are available for free streaming on its website. When this episode is available, it can be seen at our website here: https://www.poetryinamerica.org/episode/looking-for-the-gulf-motel/ That is the primary link, but we are sharing a link to the Vimeo page so that NEH staff can review it any time, not only when it is in the current rotation.
Secondary URL: https://vimeo.com/658990011/4b01e56b11
Secondary URL Description: This Vimeo link is for sharing with private audiences only. We are using it here because we regularly alternate which episodes are available to stream at any given time. This vimeo link will allow NEH staff to review the episode at any time.
Format: Video
Format: Digital File
Format: Web
Format: Other

"Mending Wall" (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: "Mending Wall"
Writer: Elisa New
Director: Elisa New
Producer: Cathleen O'Connell
Abstract: Do good fences really make good neighbors? Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” asks surprising questions about the role of walls in civil society. Host Elisa New gathers Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, author Julia Alvarez, political commentator David Gergen, Frost biographer and poet Jay Parini, poet Rhina Espaillat, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith to delve into this classic poem.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://vimeo.com/658991386/5de7a1d7fa
Primary URL Description: Poetry in America regularly rotates which episodes are available for free streaming on its website. When this episode is available, it can be seen at our website here: https://www.poetryinamerica.org/episode/mending-wall/ That is the primary link, but we are sharing a link to the Vimeo page so that NEH staff can review it any time, not only when it is in the current rotation.
Secondary URL: https://vimeo.com/658991386/5de7a1d7fa
Secondary URL Description: This Vimeo link is for sharing with private audiences only. We are using it here because we regularly alternate which episodes are available to stream at any given time. This vimeo link will allow NEH staff to review the episode at any time.
Format: Video
Format: Digital File
Format: Web
Format: Other

"you can say that again, billie" (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: "you can say that again, billie"
Writer: Elisa New
Director: Elisa New
Producer: Cathleen O'Connell
Abstract: Billie Holiday’s haunting song “Strange Fruit” winds beneath the unsettling, satiric humor of Evie Shockley’s poem “you can say that again, billie.” Shockley, jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, historian Robin D.G. Kelley, actor LisaGay Hamilton, novelist Beverly Lowry, and radio host Nick Spitzer join Elisa New to discuss the history of racism, violence, and artistic tradition in the American south.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://vimeo.com/658990910/893fa4e123
Primary URL Description: Poetry in America regularly rotates which episodes are available for free streaming on its website. When this episode is available, it can be seen at our website here: https://www.poetryinamerica.org/episode/you-can-say-that-again-billie/ That is the primary link, but we are sharing a link to the Vimeo page so that NEH staff can review it any time, not only when it is in the current rotation.
Secondary URL: https://vimeo.com/658990910/893fa4e123
Secondary URL Description: This Vimeo link is for sharing with private audiences only. We are using it here because we regularly alternate which episodes are available to stream at any given time. This vimeo link will allow NEH staff to review the episode at any time.
Access Model: Public television broadcast & available for free streaming, as well as use in classrooms
Format: Video
Format: Digital File
Format: Web
Format: Other

"Bear Fat & Rabbits and Fire" (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: "Bear Fat & Rabbits and Fire"
Writer: Elisa New
Director: Elisa New
Producer: Cathleen O'Connell
Abstract: Two poems, by Linda Hogan and Alberto Ríos, follow wolves, jackrabbits, and other animals across the harsh Great Plains and Sonoran Desert. Both poets join wildlife biologist Jeff Corwin, film director Chris Eyre, Native American scholars Philip Deloria and Stephanie Fitzgerald, and a chorus of students to discuss how the poems call back difficult histories of human migration in the American west.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://vimeo.com/668382615/534ac74c37
Primary URL Description: Poetry in America regularly rotates which episodes are available for free streaming on its website. When this episode is available, it can be seen at our website here: https://www.poetryinamerica.org/episode/bear-fat-rabbits-and-fire/ That is the primary link, but we are sharing a link to the Vimeo page so that NEH staff can review it any time, not only when it is in the current rotation.
Secondary URL: https://vimeo.com/668382615/534ac74c37
Secondary URL Description: This Vimeo link is for sharing with private audiences only. We are using it here because we regularly alternate which episodes are available to stream at any given time. This vimeo link will allow NEH staff to review the episode at any time.
Access Model: Public television broadcast & available for free streaming, as well as use in classrooms
Format: Video
Format: Digital File
Format: Web
Format: Other

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