American Literature DVDs

American Literature DVDs
Item Code: FI-D5

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 #3400 The Ghost Hunter (Canada-New Quebec)
 #763 My Jack London: A Daughter Remembers(+$20.00)
 #817 Kate Chopin: The Joy That Kills(+$20.00)
 #933 Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin(+$20.00)
 #935 Thomas Wolfe: Look Homeward, Angel(+$20.00)
 #1169 Katherine Anne Porter(+$20.00)
 #1252 Herman Melville: Bartleby the Scrivener(+$20.00)
 #1487 The Negro Ensemble Company(+$20.00)
 #1699 The Raven and Other Poems(+$20.00)
 #1700 The Tell-Tale Heart(+$20.00)
 #1701 The Black Cat(+$20.00)
 #1702 The Cask of Amontillado(+$20.00)
 #1703 Bret Harte: Chronicler of the Golden West(+$20.00)
 #1946 Thoreau's Walden(+$20.00)
 #1947 Ramona: A Story of Passion and Protest(+$20.00)
 #1948 Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles(+$20.00)
 #2145 William Styron: A Portrait(+$20.00)
 #2799 Kate Chopin: Five Stories of an Hour(+$20.00)
 #2800 Mildred D. Taylor: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry(+$20.00)
 #2936 The Rug of Grand-Pre (Canada-Nova Scotia)(+$20.00)
 #2938 The Moon-Dog (U.S.-Louisiana)(+$20.00)
 #2957 The Mound of Shells (U.S.-Louisiana)(+$20.00)
 #3021 Greenwich Village Writers: The Bohemian Legacy(+$20.00)
 #3382 Susan Sontag(+$20.00)
 #3383 Joseph Heller(+$20.00)
 #3385 Alex Haley(+$20.00)
 #3389 Saul Bellow(+$20.00)
 #3399 Father Gonzalo from Betanzos (Puerto Rico)(+$20.00)
 #3720 Alice Walker(+$20.00)
 #4052 Emily Dickinson: An Interpretation with Music(+$20.00)
 #4182 James Merrill: Voices from Sandover(+$20.00)
 #4550 Edna St. Vincent Millay: Renascence(+$20.00)
 #4620 Toni Morrison(+$20.00)
 #4621 Gloria Naylor(+$20.00)
 #4622 August Wilson(+$20.00)
 #4623 John Wideman(+$20.00)
 #4624 Charles Johnson(+$20.00)
 #4917 Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon: A Life Together(+$20.00)
 #4921 Poet Laureate Rita Dove(+$20.00)
 #4924 The Simple Acts of Life(+$20.00)
 #4925 The Living Language(+$20.00)
 #4926 Ancestral Voices(+$20.00)
 #4927 Voices of Memory(+$20.00)
 #4928 Dancing on the Edge of the Road(+$20.00)
 #4929 Where the Soul Lives(+$20.00)
 #4937 Isaac Asimov(+$20.00)
 #4948 E. L. Doctorow: The Uncomfortable Truth(+$20.00)
 #4956 Joseph Heller: The Loyalty Oath Crusade(+$20.00)
 #4972 August Wilson: Writing and the Blues(+$20.00)
 #4985 Food for Thought: M.F.K. Fisher(+$20.00)
 #4996 Toni Morrison: A Writer's Work(+$20.00)
 #4997 Conquering America: Bharati Mukherjee(+$20.00)
 #5184 Joyce Carol Oates(+$20.00)
 #5186 Alice Walker: A Portrait in the First Person(+$20.00)
 #5224 Erica Jong: A Portrait in the First Person(+$20.00)
 #5228 John Irving: A Portrait in the First Person(+$20.00)
 #5329 Tony Hillerman: Mysteries in the Navajo Nation(+$20.00)
 #5748 Welcome to the Mainland(+$20.00)
 #5749 Love's Confusing Joy(+$20.00)
 #5751 Some Can Sing(+$20.00)
 #5752 Here in the Mind(+$20.00)
 #5754 The Heart of Things(+$20.00)
 #6007 William Kennedy's Albany(+$20.00)
 #6742 Sidney Lanier: Poet of the Marshes(+$20.00)
 #7145 Allen Ginsberg(+$20.00)
 #7294 Arthur Miller and The Crucible(+$20.00)
 #7360 F. Scott Fitzgerald(+$20.00)
 #7361 Raymond Carver(+$20.00)
 #7362 Ernest Hemingway(+$20.00)
 #7676 James Baldwin(+$20.00)
 #7950 Why We Write(+$20.00)
 #7951 Allen Ginsberg and Friends(+$20.00)
 #7952 The Lure of Poetry(+$20.00)
 #9301 Amiri Baraka(+$20.00)
 #9302 Robert Pinsky(+$20.00)
 #9303 Marge Piercy(+$20.00)
 #9304 Coleman Barks(+$20.00)
 #9305 Lorna Dee Cervantes and Shirley Geok-lin Lim(+$20.00)
 #9306 Stanley Kunitz(+$20.00)
 #9307 Jane Hirshfield(+$20.00)
 #9308 Lucille Clifton and Mark Doty(+$20.00)
 #9309 Deborah Garrison(+$20.00)
 #10371 Ralph Ellison's Legacy(+$20.00)
 #10494 Kurt Vonnegut: So It Goes(+$20.00)
 #10497 Poetry Slams: Reasserting Poetry's Oral Tradition(+$20.00)
 #33392 Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado(+$20.00)
 #38763 Bill Moyers Journal: Robert Bly and Grace Lee Boggs(+$20.00)
 #39255 Bill Moyers Journal: January 25, 2008(+$20.00)
 #7143 Native Son(+$30.00)
 #10032 T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land(+$30.00)
 #6862 Walt Whitman: Sweet Bird of Freedom(+$60.00)
 #7056 Amiri Baraka: A Conversation with Maya Angelou(+$60.00)
 #7295 Arthur Miller: An Interview(+$60.00)
 #7959 Jack Kerouac(+$60.00)
 #8271 The Yellow Wallpaper(+$60.00)
 #8858 In Context: Of Mice and Men(+$60.00)
 #8859 In Context: To Kill a Mockingbird(+$60.00)
 #9326 John Steinbeck and the American Experience(+$60.00)
 #10214 Ernest Hemingway: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place(+$60.00)
 #10495 Raymond Carver: Dreams Are What You Wake Up From(+$60.00)
 #10816 Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mount Morgan(+$60.00)
 #30667 Langston Hughes: Salvation(+$60.00)
 #31277 The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe(+$60.00)
 #31533 Langston Hughes: His Life and Times(+$60.00)
 #32514 Alice Walker: Everyday Use(+$60.00)
 #32667 Alice Walker: A Stitch in Time(+$60.00)
 #33383 Henry David Thoreau: In His Own Words(+$60.00)
 #33782 Romanticism: Imagining Freedom(+$60.00)
 #33874 Tillie Olsen: I Stand Here Ironing(+$60.00)
 #34681 Zora Neale Hurston: A Heart with Room for Every Joy(+$60.00)
 #35427 William Faulkner(+$60.00)
 #5346 N. Scott Momaday(+$80.00)
 #5347 James Welch(+$80.00)
 #5348 Leslie M. Silko(+$80.00)
 #5349 Gerald Vizenor(+$80.00)
 #6037 John Steinbeck(+$80.00)
 #6038 William Faulkner(+$80.00)
 #6277 Edward Albee(+$80.00)
 #6711 John Updike: In His Own Words(+$80.00)
 #7246 Witness: The Ecological Poetry of W. S. Merwin(+$80.00)
 #7510 Herman Melville: Moby Dick(+$80.00)
 #7512 Nathaniel Hawthorne(+$80.00)
 #7968 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Understanding a Classic(+$80.00)
 #8321 Africa to America to Paris: The Migration of Black Writers(+$80.00)
 #9047 In Search of Thoreau(+$80.00)
 #9143 Fooling with Words: A Bill Moyers Special(+$80.00)
 #9215 Tennessee Williams and the American South(+$80.00)
 #10088 Maxine Hong Kingston and the Road Back from Vietnam(+$80.00)
 #10089 August Wilson: The American Dream, in Black and White(+$80.00)
 #10107 Robert Lowell: Reading Himself(+$80.00)
 #10200 Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown(+$80.00)
 #10664 Edith Wharton: The Sense of Harmony(+$80.00)
 #11729 John Updike: A Childhood in the U.S.A.(+$80.00)
 #11747 Upton Sinclair: The Jungle(+$80.00)
 #29944 Raymond Carver: Cathedral(+$80.00)
 #29968 Robert Pinsky: Our Premier Poet Scholar(+$80.00)
 #29971 Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon: Keeping You Safe Beside Me(+$80.00)
 #32215 World of Ideas: Susan Sontag(+$80.00)
 #32216 World of Ideas: Alice Walker(+$80.00)
 #33098 The Odyssey of John Dos Passos(+$80.00)
 #36968 American Poet Laureates(+$80.00)
 #37648 The Glass Menagerie: Character Studies Conversations(+$80.00)
 #38813 A Raisin in the Sun: Character Studies Conversations(+$80.00)
 #3380 Isaac Bashevis Singer(+$90.00)
 #37580 American Writers on Writing(+$90.00)
 #9046 Eugene O'Neill: Long Day's Journey into Night(+$130.00)
 #33873 Tillie Olsen: Ironing Out Life(+$149.95)
 #31532 Langston Hughes: Working Toward Salvation(+$189.95)
 #32666 Alice Walker: Everyday Use, Uncommon Art(+$189.95)
 #7949 Poetry Heaven(+$199.90)
 #10197 Nathaniel Hawthorne(+$229.95)
 #10198 Moby Dick(+$229.95)
 #10199 Mark Twain(+$229.95)
 #39491 The New England Transcendentalists(+$229.95)
 #5315 The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets(+$230.00)
 #1262 Edgar Allan Poe: The Principal Works(+$289.85)
 #4923 The Power of the Word(+$469.75)
 #5345 Native American Novelists(+$529.85)
 #9300 Sounds of Poetry(+$739.60)

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Product Description:
Choose a title above from the following Academic Success programs:

#3400 The Ghost Hunter (Canada-New Quebec) (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $69.95
During the long, harsh winter, it was not unusual for the semi-nomadic Innuit to lose all touch with community life. At these times some of them would turn in on themselves, unable to distinguish between the reality of their days and the dreams which crowded their nights. Inte-abne-ak, a young man haunted by a family of ghosts, builds a special igloo in order to chase away the ghosts. Eventually, the allure of the spirit world draws him away from his people. While living with his ghost family, Inte-abne-ak learns that it is impossible for any human being to live like the spirits, and he is made to suffer as punishment for trying to penetrate the world of the spirits. (26 minutes)


#763 My Jack London: A Daughter Remembers (Run Time min.) DVD $89.95
This program helps us to understand the author of those well-loved action stories whose rugged example and realist style influenced writers from Hemingway to Orwell. His daughter traces her father's life through personal reminiscence, archival family photos, and rare film footage. (25 minutes)


#817 Kate Chopin: The Joy That Kills"" (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $89.95
This is the widely heralded adaptation of the short story by Kate Chopin, the late-19th-century writer whose work is only now receiving the major recognition it deserves. The setting is Kate Chopin's own world-the world of the upper-class Creole society that dominated New Orleans in the 1870s, a world with a strict code of behavior, one of whose strongest tenets required a wife to subordinate her will and her very being to her husband. Produced and directed by Tina Rathborne. (56 minutes)


#933 Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin (Run Time min.) DVD $89.95
Here is the work that gave us the original Uncle Tom-very much worth examining, not only to learn how much the character resembles the modern stereotype but also to understand what inflamed Northerners so much that Lincoln credited Mrs. Stowe with starting the Civil War. This program offers an abridged version of the George Aiken dramatization. Produced by Vera Jiji. (45 minutes)


#935 Thomas Wolfe: Look Homeward, Angel (Run Time min.) DVD $89.95
An examination of Wolfe's Asheville roots-the sights and formative sounds to which he looked back in his first great novel, Look Homeward, Angel, but to which he could not go home again. Narrated by Richard Walser of North Carolina State University. (45 minutes)


#1169 Katherine Anne Porter (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $89.95
A strong, delicate, idiosyncratic writer with the power to evoke vast emotions in short words and the wisdom to understand large worlds in small scenes, Katherine Anne Porter wrote some of the best American short fiction of any age. She moves, sometimes plainly, sometimes unseen, throughout her world-a complex person combining the independence of a woman raised as a tomboy, the unconventionality of the artist, and the straitlaced late-Victorian-Texas views of propriety with which she condemned others who lived as she did. This superb production by Calvin Skaggs uses dramatizations of her stories as the narrative of the childhood which provided so much material for her work, counterpointed by the commentaries of Eudora Welty, Robert Penn Warren, Eleanor Clark, and Joan Givner. (56 minutes)


#1252 Herman Melville: Bartleby the Scrivener"" (Run Time 59 min.) DVD $89.95
This is Melville's sardonic and symbolic story of a copyist at a Wall Street law firm who refuses to conform, responding to all requests with, "I prefer not to." Autobiographical in its despair over the public's failure to understand the writer, prophetic in its foreshadowing of 20th-Century Absurdism, "Bartleby the Scrivener" provides a window into the work of Melville and a convincing argument that he may be at his best in the short story medium. (59 minutes)


#1487 The Negro Ensemble Company (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $89.95
The Negro Ensemble Company was founded in 1967 by actor/playwright Douglas Turner Ward, actor Robert Hooks, and theater manager Gerald Krone, with the stated goal of creating "a Theater of Excellence concentrating primarily on themes of black life." By producing consistently imaginative and challenging plays, the NEC has nurtured some of the finest theatrical talent in America and has created an enduring body of black theater literature. This program features scenes from some of its most outstanding plays, including The River Niger (with Roxy Roker and Douglas Turner Ward), Ceremonies in Dark Old Men (with Glynn Thurman and Roz Cash), and Soldier's Story (with Adolphe Caesar and Denzel Washington). (58 minutes)


#1699 The Raven" and Other Poems" (Run Time 17 min.) DVD $89.95
If "The Raven" is not the best-known American poem, then "Annabel Lee" is. Both have endured because they successfully illustrate Poe's esthetic theories of poetics; they use natural, comprehensible language whose music weaves a spell that underscores and heightens the language. These two poems and "The Dream within a Dream" are performed (not merely read!) as Poe himself might have recited them to his peers-with deep passion and intensity, but always with maximum attention to the text itself. The result is to magnify the mood and clarify the meaning, but never to illustrate, which the reader should do in his or her mind's eye. (17 minutes)


#1700 The Tell-Tale Heart (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $89.95
Here is Poe weaving a web of psychological terror as a murderer recounts the bizarre details of his crimes against "the old man with the evil eye." The intensity and emotion build as the murderer becomes unhinged, a victim of his own crime. Again, the strength of Pomerleau's performance enables the audience to feel the power of Poe's macabre imagination. (20 minutes)


#1701 The Black Cat (Run Time 35 min.) DVD $89.95
This confessional monologue depicts the decay of one man as a result of his addiction to alcohol. Pomerleau's portrayal brings to vivid life that character as he evolves from a lover of animals and a caring husband to a demon facing the ultimate horror. (35 minutes)


#1702 The Cask of Amontillado (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $89.95
This classic tale of revenge and murder depicts a victim lured to his doom by the false promise of riches-in this case, a highly prized cask of vintage wine. Pomerleau portrays both victim and villain with consummate skill as greed is punished with inescapable and eternal imprisonment. (20 minutes)


#1703 Bret Harte: Chronicler of the Golden West (Run Time 18 min.) DVD $89.95
"The Luck of Roaring Camp," "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," and "Tennessee's Partner" are cornerstones of American literature, of the very chronicle of America and its self-created myth. This program shows us their author-miner, schoolteacher, unsuccessful satirist and poet, pioneer in the genres of short story and the proto-Western-and examines his world, his values, his works, and the reasons for their enduring worth. (18 minutes)


#1946 Thoreau's Walden (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95
A re-creation of the two-year period (1845-1847) during which Thoreau lived alone in a cabin at Walden Pond, savoring the fruits of solitary communion with Nature while bemoaning the lot of the mass of men who lead lives of quiet desperation. The visuals offer an exceptionally lyrical illustration of the passing of the seasons; the commentary is drawn from Thoreau's own words. (27 minutes)


#1947 Ramona: A Story of Passion and Protest (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95
Helen Hunt Jackson's novel of 1884 crystallized opinion about the whites' maltreatment of Indians (much as Uncle Tom's Cabin had done for slavery). This program uses feature film clips to recap the plot and historical sources and sites to explain both the immense popularity of the book and its transformation into a mythic symbol of whites and Indians in the West. (28 minutes)


#1948 Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95
The genre of the hard-boiled detective story, which is Raymond Chandler's contribution to the history of American literature, was derived from his observations of life in Los Angeles during the 1930s. Using period newsreels and clips from feature films made from his stories, this program shows the excesses of a frontier town shedding conscience in pursuit of possessions-the crime and corruption that provided the backdrop and inspiration for Chandler's work. (28 minutes)


#2145 William Styron: A Portrait (Run Time 59 min.) DVD $89.95
This profile of the author of The Confessions of Nat Turner, Set This House on Fire, and Sophie's Choice explores how and why Styron writes: his commitment to the belief that the writer is a citizen, his moral view of the human dilemmas of loving and living, his acute observations of race relations, his Virginia gentleman's grappling with the elemental conflicts of the human spirit. (59 minutes)


#2799 Kate Chopin: Five Stories of an Hour (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
This program consists of five versions of the same short story, "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin, who scandalized American readers in the late 19th century by questioning the social and marital mores of her time. The story examines the behavior and feelings of a woman on the day she is informed of her husband's death. The program includes a reading of the story by Zoe Wanamaker, plus dramatizations by playwrights Kathleen Potter, David Stafford, and Michelene Wandor. (26 minutes)


#2800 Mildred D. Taylor: Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
Filmed in Mississippi, where her Newberry Medal-winning novel is set, Mildred Taylor talks about the origins of the story and characters in her family's experience and the more general experience of blacks in the American South. The book chronicles a black child's progression from innocence to awareness to bitterness and disillusion; this program evokes the social and historical background of the story, and includes selected readings from it. (26 minutes)


#2936 The Rug of Grand-Pre (Canada-Nova Scotia) (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
The unfinished rug is the only survivor of the majestic church at Grand-Pre, which was destroyed by the British in 1755, during the French and Indian Wars. A brother and sister, whose family has owned the rug for 200 years, are determined to find the skeins of the original wool needed to finish the rug. They discover another seeker after the wool: the ghost of the British governor who had the church set on fire and the Acadians deported long ago. (26 minutes)


#2938 The Moon-Dog (U.S.-Louisiana) (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
No one ever ventures into the swamp on a full moon night. There is talk of werewolves in the bayou-the local doctor is one. A young boy, David, meets him face-to-face and is himself transformed into a werewolf. But thanks to the friendship of Paul, the evil spell is broken. (26 minutes)


#2957 The Mound of Shells (U.S.-Louisiana) (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
Knowing she is expected to tell the class an interesting story about her vacation in the swamps of Louisiana, a little girl hears a story about a local man who found a pile of treasure on a mound of shells. After the adventures our heroine undergoes, she is not sure that the story is just a legend-and she has quite a report to give when she returns to school. (26 minutes)


#3021 Greenwich Village Writers: The Bohemian Legacy (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95
For more than a century, New York's Greenwich Village was home, playground, and inspiration to many of America's leading writers and artists-Henry James, Edith Wharton, Eugene O'Neill, Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Willa Cather, e.e. cummings, Allen Ginsberg, and Bob Dylan, among many others. How these writers used and were shaped by the Village is the subject of this lively history, which includes readings and commentary by today's Village authors E. L. Doctorow, Galway Kinnell, Grace Paley, and Louis Auchincloss. (30 minutes)


#3382 Susan Sontag (Run Time 43 min.) DVD $89.95
She is insulted at being called "the most intelligent woman in America" because it implies that the category of intelligent women is substantially smaller than that of men. Should she feel honored to be considered an outstanding member of a spurned caste? In this program, Susan Sontag, discoverer of camp and diagnostician of the intellectual and artistic ills of late-20th-century America, tells us of the difficulties of being a woman, a writer, and a sentient human being in this place and at this time-in the process describing her view of herself and the standards she has set for herself. (43 minutes)


#3383 Joseph Heller (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $89.95
Heller is so closely identified with Catch-22 (and with good reason-it is one of the seminal books of mid-century) that he has spent the rest of his literary career trying to live down his own success. In this portrait, he shows that he is indeed more than a one-book author, and that the absurdist wit, irreverent philosophy, and self-aware literary style have been applied with long-lasting results in a growing body of serious work. (45 minutes)


#3385 Alex Haley (Run Time 42 min.) DVD $89.95
A college dropout, Alex Haley went on to achieve world renown as one of the 20th century's most successful writers. This program presents an engaging portrait of the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, exploring how his landmark novels-The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots-powerfully articulated the history and concerns of black Americans at a time when many searched for a deeper sense of cultural identity. (42 minutes)


#3389 Saul Bellow (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $89.95
Saul Bellow is arguably the premier literary figure in the U.S. in the final decades of the 20th century. Erudite and entertaining, a novelist whose work booksellers and librarians shelve not under fiction, but under literature, Bellow has seen his work both transformed to the popular silver screen and graced with the Nobel Prize for Literature. In this program, he talks about himself and his characters; his childhood, parents, and education; how he came to be a writer; his views of the world and the people who inhabit it; and the role of ideas in literature. (52 minutes)


#3399 Father Gonzalo from Betanzos (Puerto Rico) (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
Father Gonzalo is sent from Spain to Puerto Rico to convert the island's native inhabitants to Catholicism. As he treks inland, awestruck by the beauty of nature, he discovers God in everything-even the smallest insect. An encounter with the devil leaves Gonzalo weakened and exuberant, for on the path to holiness one must conquer the temptation offered by the devil. Though he considers himself victorious, Gonzalo quickly declines into insanity after his encounter with Satan, abandoning his mission and rushing into the jungle. The presence of an Indian at Gonzalo's attempted exorcism and the renewal of ancient tribal rituals makes the flight of Gonzalo all the more mysterious. Did evil spirits force him away or were the native gods merely protecting their island? (26 minutes)


#3720 Alice Walker (Run Time 33 min.) DVD $89.95
"Being black, being a woman, and being a writer is just the most wonderful challenge. It's like having three eyes, three hearts, rather than one," says the author of The Color Purple in this profile, as she relives her journey from an impoverished childhood in rural Georgia to the peace and creativity of her present life in northern California. Alice Walker describes how the Civil Rights movement transformed her life, defines her concept of "womanism," and explains her recurrent theme of a woman's recovery of wholeness through resistance to racism and sexism. (33 minutes)


#4052 Emily Dickinson: An Interpretation with Music (Run Time 18 min.) DVD $89.95
To illustrate a poem through cinematic visualization is to preempt the audience's perception of that poem, and impress the cineast's vision atop the audience's imagination. Here, by contrast, is a presentation of Dickinson's "Because I could not stop for Death" that is without compare in its delicate artistry, its exemplary sense of timing, and its deep emotional impact. The means: the music of John Adams, the minimalist composer and articulate analyst of his own work; a rehearsal of Harmonium with Simon Rattle as the conductor explains the relationship between words and music; and views of Amherst and the sites connected with Emily Dickinson, whose poem is read while the music is played. (18 minutes)


#4182 James Merrill: Voices from Sandover (Run Time 116 min.) DVD $89.95
A shimmering marriage of language and technology, as much a poem as the work upon which it is based, this program is a dramatic adaptation of Merrill's epic The Changing Light at Sandover and, in the process, a summation of the poetic thought of one of the great American poets of this century. Distilled from his magnum opus by the poet and re-created into a lyric drama, the program features Merrill among a cast of superb actors. The program concludes with an interview of Merrill by Helen Vendler. (2 parts, 58 minutes each)


#4550 Edna St. Vincent Millay: Renascence (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
Burning the candle at both ends, Edna St. Vincent Millay exemplified the rebirth of American letters after World War I. Writing as an independent woman who interacted equally with her male contemporaries, she helped shape the poetic ethos of the 1920s. Largely in her own words and using family and period photos, this portrait traces her poetic development from her Maine roots, through her Greenwich Village years, to her European travels and her growing social and political activism. Produced by Vanessa Barth and Doreen Conboy. (60 minutes)


#4620 Toni Morrison (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95
This program introduces one of the greatest contemporary American authors: winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Literature, "a literary Moses stripping away the idols of whiteness and blackness that have prevented blacks from knowing themselves." Readings from Beloved and Jazz show how she returns to the pain of slavery and segregation to restore wholeness to the black psyche. "The past," Morrison says, "is more infinite than the future... It's avoiding it, deceiving ourselves about it, that paralyzes growth." (25 minutes)


#4621 Gloria Naylor (Run Time 22 min.) DVD $89.95
In this program, one of the most astute observers of contemporary African American life discusses the value and difficulty of maintaining an African American identity in a world dominated by whites, urging viewers "to celebrate voraciously that which is yours." The breadth of her vision-from rural South to urban ghetto to the black middle class-is revealed as she reads from The Women of Brewster Place, Linden Hills, and Mama Day, in the last of these calling upon an urbanized boy to look to his African American past for strength. (22 minutes)


#4622 August Wilson (Run Time 22 min.) DVD $89.95
Filmed on the set of Two Trains Running, one of America's leading playwrights traces his work back to a troubled childhood in a Pittsburgh ghetto. His ongoing project to write a play on African American life set in each decade of the 20th century is one of the most ambitious endeavors in American theatrical history. In this program, he describes his award-winning plays Joe Turner's Come and Gone and Ma Rainey's Black Bottom as passing down the wisdom of the African American community. "It's almost as if I'm connecting myself with something larger than myself and I trust that. It's part of what I call the blood's memory." (22 minutes)


#4623 John Wideman (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
This program focuses on the author of Sent for You Yesterday, Damballah, and Hiding Place, the man who, perhaps better than any other, epitomizes the painful split between middle-class blacks and the black urban underclass. In discussing his Brothers and Keepers-his memoir of a brother now serving a life term in prison-Wideman explores the factors that condemn one man to imprisonment, while another is able to transform a Pittsburgh ghetto, where both were raised, into a mythic place in the American literary imagination. (26 minutes)


#4624 Charles Johnson (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95
This program shows how Charles Johnson, a quintessential multicultural novelist, blends black folk tales, Zen parables, 18th-century picaresque novels, and 20th-century philosophy into storytelling of remarkable vitality. Here, Johnson explains that he explores metaphysical questions against the backdrop of black American life. Oxherding Tales and Middle Passage are odysseys in search of individual identity and common values among conflicting cultures. Johnson concludes, "I am looking for the universal in particulars of black experience. We are cultural variations on one world experience." (29 minutes)


#4917 Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon: A Life Together (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
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 conversation about their careers, their poetry, and their life together. Their discussions are punctuated by the two poets' readings at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival and before an audience of their neighbors. (60 minutes)


#4921 Poet Laureate Rita Dove (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
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 Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Thomas and Beulah) and in performance before an audience. (60 minutes)


#4924 The Simple Acts of Life (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
This program was filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, where poets gather every two years to read and discuss their work with large audiences of students and fellow poets. In this program, poets Robert Bly, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, Octavio Paz, and William Stafford read and discuss their work. As Robert Bly observes: "Suppose you only knew 15 words. You could still make great poetry out of that, if you really felt those words." (60 minutes)


#4925 The Living Language (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
This program features poets James Autry and Quincy Troupe, both of whom work with the oral tradition to lift poetry off the page and bring it into the community. James Autry, a businessman and publisher, writes poetry about the business world and the Southern culture of his youth. His work includes such poems as "Thoughts on Firing a Salesman." In this program, Autry reads his poetry at a business meeting and a church. Quincy Troupe, a professor of American and Third World literature, is equally exciting reading his poetry in a classroom, prison, or bar. The positive response of a group of prisoners to Troupe's poetry classes shows how poetry can speak to and for people in all conditions of life. (60 minutes)


#4926 Ancestral Voices (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
This program features poets who turn to the past and to their own cultural heritage to understand the present. They eloquently reflect their own personal journeys through poetry. Garrett Kaoru Hongo's work reflects his Japanese-American heritage. Hongo began to write poetry because he wanted "more than anything to belong to the history of Asians in America." Joy Harjo's poetry is influenced by her Native American heritage. Her poetry emphasizes the oral tradition and sacred imagery of her Native American ancestors. Mary TallMountain's work draws on her Native American and Anglo background. Her poetry recalls her childhood memories of life in an Alaskan village and the life she left behind when she was adopted by an Anglo family. (60 minutes)


#4927 Voices of Memory (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
This program features poets Li-Young Lee and Gerald Stern in a poetry reading and in extensive interviews. A main subject of Stern's poetry is memory. His Jewish heritage provides him with the inspiration and direction to resurrect and reconstruct past experiences. Li-Young Lee's poetry reflects his struggle with his Chinese heritage: how to recognize a culture to which he has been inextricably bound by ancestry, but in which he has never lived. (60 minutes)


#4928 Dancing on the Edge of the Road (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
This program profiles Stanley Kunitz, one of America's leading poets. Kunitz reads his poetry and discusses his work in extensive interviews. "You don't choose the subject [of your poetry]," says Kunitz, "it chooses you." He asserts that poets must aim simply to "be as true as we can to the grain of life." Kunitz also stresses the importance of reading poetry aloud: "It is important to test your poems against the ear," he says. "The page is a cold bed." (60 minutes)


#4929 Where the Soul Lives (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, this program features the poets Robert Bly, Lucille Clifton, and W. S. Merwin, reading their works and discussing them. Robert Bly often uses music to emphasize the spiritual nature of poetry. He believes that the aim of poetry is to "drop us into the moist, nurturing underworld where the soul lives." Lucille Clifton's work often focuses on experiences specific to women, and is also influenced by her black heritage. W. S. Merwin examines human relationships, including our relationship with nature. (60 minutes)


#4937 Isaac Asimov (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
Isaac Asimov's works cover an enormous spectrum: from science fiction and science fact, to children's books. Hailed by some as "the greatest explainer of our age," Asimov discusses evolution and the correlation between science and religion, in the first part of this program. In the second part, he addresses the future of education itself. Asimov was famous for thinking globally and rationally. In this program with Bill Moyers, he explains why we all must think similarly if we want to survive, and why we can't wait for the start of the next century. (60 minutes)


#4948 E. L. Doctorow: The Uncomfortable Truth (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95
For over five decades the FBI kept intelligence files on dozens of American writers. Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pearl Buck, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Norman Mailer, and many others had come under suspicion of subversion, espionage, or immorality. Yet not one was ever convicted of a crime. In this program with Bill Moyers, novelist E. L. Doctorow, author of Ragtime and the Book of Daniel, comments that the best writers are a nuisance to society because, he says, they prefer the uncomfortable truth to the comfortable lie. Never reluctant to address the controversial issues, Doctorow has searched for meaning in modern American history, mingling reality and myth to reveal hidden corners of the American experience. (30 minutes)


#4956 Joseph Heller: The Loyalty Oath Crusade"" (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95
The captain called it "The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade" and, as he told his squadron, people who really did owe allegiance to their country would be proud to pledge it as often as he forced them to. So every enlisted man was required to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" before using the ketchup in the mess hall, and each crew member had to sign an oath before picking up his parachute. The entire camp snarled into a knot of pledging and singing soldiers, and bombing missions were delayed for hours. The Loyalty Oath Crusade was fiction, in the novel Catch 22 created nearly 40 years ago by one of America's great masters of the absurd. But as Joseph Heller says in this program with Bill Moyers, sometimes you can't tell the difference between absurdity and politics. For nearly 40 years, the man who made "Catch-22" part of our language has been tracing that often-elusive line. (30 minutes)


#4972 August Wilson: Writing and the Blues (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95
Everyone has to find his own song, says Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson, and he found his in the blues. From music and literature he has shaped a philosophy of life and some of the country's most compelling dramas, including Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and Fences. In this program, Wilson talks about finding an African American cultural identity and what he sees as the false portrayal of black America on television. A Bill Moyers special. (30 minutes)


#4985 Food for Thought: M.F.K. Fisher (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95
When Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher began to write, her publisher warned, "Women don't write this way," so she was instructed to use the initials of M.F.K. She has been called the greatest food writer of our time; mixing recipes and instruction with reflections on life's values, she treated eating as a social occasion that satisfies a basic human need, while also providing an esthetic experience. In this program with Bill Moyers, filmed shortly before her death, Fisher describes her writing process, her intense interest in food, and shares her incredible outlook on life. (30 minutes)


#4996 Toni Morrison: A Writer's Work (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $89.95
Toni Morrison exists in two worlds: the visible world, bustling around her, and the world of her novels, whose characters tell about an interior reality hidden from the eyes of strangers. In her work, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison has transported millions of readers into the experience of being black in America and confronting the realities of race. In this program with Bill Moyers, Morrison discusses the characters in her work, the people in her life, the power of love, and how the invented world of fiction connects to life. (52 minutes)


#4997 Conquering America: Bharati Mukherjee (Run Time 30 min.) DVD $89.95
Bharati Mukherjee writes vivid, sensual, and troubling stories about America's newest immigrants, Asians like herself. Mukherjee's early novels spoke from India, the old world she left behind to marry an American. Upon arriving in America she set out to capture the New World experiences of Asian immigrants. In this program with Bill Moyers, Mukherjee discusses America's newest immigrants and the building resentment and tensions between our country's various cultures. "We've come to America," she says, "in a way, to take over. To help build a new culture." (30 minutes)


#5184 Joyce Carol Oates (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95
When her feminist appreciation of the ultimate masculine sport, On Boxing, appeared, the book surprised many of Joyce Carol Oates' readers and critics. It shouldn't have. Her fiction is a place where brutality and danger are never far away, where security is an illusion and civilized behavior a thin veneer, and where power is the key to human relationships. In this program, Joyce Carol Oates discusses her work as both a writer and teacher, her craft and methods, and the major themes of her novels, short stories, and poems: the moral and social conditions of a generation too familiar with aggression, violence, and anger. (28 minutes)


#5186 Alice Walker: A Portrait in the First Person (Run Time 28 min.) DVD $89.95
Alice Walker's first novel was inspired by the sight of a murdered woman, stretched out on an undertaker's table in ragged clothes, old newspaper stuffed to fill the hole in her single, tattered shoe. "I could not not write about such a thing," she recalls. In this program, Alice Walker recalls the defining moments of her childhood and explores the themes that course through her novels and poetry-the devastating effects of violence and abuse on women and children, and the determination to overcome the barriers of race and gender to achieve a life worth living. (28 minutes)


#5224 Erica Jong: A Portrait in the First Person (Run Time 24 min.) DVD $89.95
Fear of Flying sold more than twelve-and-a-half million copies and has become a persona in itself that has almost eclipsed Erica Jong, author of many other books, prose, and verse. Here she explains how she writes and how she feels as she writes, and her purpose in writing-to be as honest for women as Updike's Couples or Roth's Portnoy's Complaint or Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover were for men. (24 minutes)


#5228 John Irving: A Portrait in the First Person (Run Time 24 min.) DVD $89.95
The novel, this consistently successful novelist says, is and should be a social tool, an instrument of moral indignation, and is re-emerging as such from an elitist phase in which writers wrote for and about other writers. In this program, Irving tells us that he doesn't believe that less is more; in the novel, more is more. A good novel requires a good story developed so that readers know where the characters come from and what motivates them to behave as they do. (24 minutes)


#5329 Tony Hillerman: Mysteries in the Navajo Nation (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $89.95
Tony Hillerman is a white man, past president of the Mystery Writers of America, and author of a shelf full of well-written and carefully crafted stories, who found his most prolific literary resource in Hopi and Navajo culture, religion, environment, and art. In this program, which takes us to the Navajo Nation, Hillerman discusses his craft, his influences, and his formula for mystery, and reads selections from his work. (26 minutes)


#5748 Welcome to the Mainland (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $89.95
From the jazz-laced street speech of African-American poet Sekou Sundiata's Harlem nights to Palestinian-American Naomi Shihab Nye's delight in the wonder of everyday objects, this program celebrates the cultures of today-and the way those cultures have become part of the American mosaic. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (58 minutes)


#5749 Love's Confusing Joy (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $89.95
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. (58 minutes)


#5751 Some Can Sing (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $89.95
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. (58 minutes)


#5752 Here in the Mind (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $89.95
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 the power to change the way people feel, think, and act. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (58 minutes)


#5754 The Heart of Things (Run Time 54 min.) DVD $89.95
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. (58 minutes)


#6007 William Kennedy's Albany (Run Time 57 min.) DVD $89.95
In the literary tradition of William Faulkner, Sinclair Lewis, and Willa Cather, the sense of place-the universe where the story unfolds-is as central to the story as the characters who populate it. This program introduces William Kennedy, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of six novels including the bestseller Ironweed, and observes how Kennedy portrays his particular place, Albany, New York. The program weaves interviews with the author, his colleagues, his family, and literary scholars with archival footage of Albany and scenes from Kennedy's fiction to re-create the author's journeys through his native city. The program explores how Kennedy mines Albany for individuals, settings, and themes and how he depicts the inner thoughts of the characters to illuminate Albany's Irish Catholic world-a world racked by corruption, machine politics, and, for individual families, a haunting sense of loss. (57 minutes)


#6742 Sidney Lanier: Poet of the Marshes (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95
This moving dramatization traces the life and works of one of America's most interesting literary figures of the Civil War period. Lanier's genteel childhood in Macon, Georgia, his time served as a Confederate soldier and prisoner of war, and his later days in Baltimore as a renowned musician and lecturer are shown as sources of inspiration for his work. Readings from several poems, including "Corn," and from his only novel, Tiger Lilies, are lyrically interwoven throughout the program. (29 minutes)


#7145 Allen Ginsberg (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $89.95
Videotaped shortly before his death, this interview gives an intimate overview of Ginsberg's work and of the Beat literary movement. Ginsberg begins by retelling the story of the famous 1955 San Francisco poetry reading, where three key themes of the Beat movement-candor in thought and language, spirituality, and environmentalism-were uncovered for the first time. Ginsberg reads from three of his poems, including "Kaddish," his masterpiece, and tells of his friendship with Jack Kerouac. Although this program has been edited for classroom use, instructors should preview it because of sexual references. (52 minutes)


#7294 Arthur Miller and The Crucible (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $89.95
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 it-the central theme in The Crucible, based on the Salem witch trials. Interweaving rarely seen excerpts from the BBC production of the play with dramatizations of congressional hearing testimony, this powerful documentary highlights fundamental themes in common with both, and their influence on the playwright's development. A BBC Production. (29 minutes)


#7360 F. Scott Fitzgerald (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $89.95
Few writers conveyed the spirit of the roaring twenties as accurately as F. Scott Fitzgerald. In this program, writer Jay McInerny, Fitzgerald biographer Scott Donaldson, and others talk about Fitzgerald's life, writing, and marriage to the ill-fated Zelda. Fitzgerald's ascent to the dizzying heights of Paris literary society and later failure as a Hollywood screenwriter are documented. The dissolution of his brief friendship with Ernest Hemingway is attributed to Hemingway's criticism of Fitzgerald's failure to fully develop his writing talent. Excerpts from The Romantic Egoist, This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night, and The Last Tycoon illuminate Fitzgerald's unique writing style. Letters from Zelda underscore the couple's tragic and superficial existence-Fitzgerald's alcoholism and Zelda's own mental illness. A BBC Production. (52 minutes)


#7361 Raymond Carver (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $89.95
Few contemporary writers have captured the image of "everyman" as well as American short story writer, poet, and essayist, Raymond Carver. In this program, fellow writers, Carver's wife, and others discuss his lower-middle-class roots in the Northwest as the source of inspiration for his characters and stories. In rare interviews filmed before his death, Carver speaks candidly about his alcoholism, and his struggle to maintain his writing career in the face of looming financial problems and growing family demands. Readings from several works, Gravy, Everything Stuck to Him, Bad Home Life, Tell the Women We're Going, and the poem, "Bankruptcy," highlight the disturbing plots and working-class language for which Carver is most noted. A BBC Production. (53 minutes)


#7362 Ernest Hemingway (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $89.95
A Farewell to Arms, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Old Man and the Sea. These titles immediately bring to mind the adventurous life of their Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Ernest Hemingway. This program explores his life and literary psyche through the eyes of those who knew him. As the program progresses, the many identities of Hemingway are revealed: husband, journalist, World War I ambulance driver, Spanish freedom fighter, African big game hunter, and Paris literary expatriate. Hemingway's fascination with bullfighting is examined as a fixation with death. His final days in Cuba and tragic suicide in the 1960s conclude the program. A BBC Production. (53 minutes)


#7676 James Baldwin (Run Time 54 min.) DVD $89.95
This program covers Baldwin's life, from his youth in Harlem to later years as an expatriate in Paris to his death in 1987. Interviews with the author, his contemporaries, and critics create an intriguing portrait of Baldwin the man, the writer, and avid civil rights activist. The program explores Baldwin's views on the African-American experience through his writings, which include the novels Go Tell It on the Mountain and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone and the play The Amen Corner. A BBC Production. (54 minutes)


#7950 Why We Write (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
In this program, several contemporary poets read from their poems and discuss why they write, and for whom. Poets include Robert Hass, Mark Doty, Thylias Moss, Pattiann Rogers, Carol Muske, Gerald Stern, and Yehuda Amichai. Poetic themes include death, aging, self-realization, race, and gender. Rogers, Moss, Muske, and poet Brenda Hillman discuss the role of women in the field of poetry. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (60 minutes)


#7951 Allen Ginsberg and Friends (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
This program features readings and comments by the late Allen Ginsberg. Ginsberg analyzes the poetry of Blake, then reads from his own poems, "Do the Meditation Rock" and "Skeleton." Other poets include Vietnamese-born Le Thi Diem Thuy, Robert Hass, Mark Doty, Marie Howe, and Yusef Komunyakaa. Komunyakaa, Li-Young Lee, Louis Jenkins, and Hass discuss poetic interpretations of personal and political history, and provide examples through readings from their poems. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (60 minutes)


#7952 The Lure of Poetry (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $89.95
This program features the poems of Louis Jenkins, Hal Sirowitz, Philip Levine, Joy Harjo, Robert Creeley, Brenda Hillman, Robert Hass, and others. In addition, several poets discuss poetry as work and what it's like to share a life of poetry with fellow writers; young winners of a statewide poetry contest read several of their poems; and advice for fledgling poets is offered. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (60 minutes)


#9301 Amiri Baraka (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
Artist/activist Amiri Baraka has managed to alter not merely the face of African-American writing, but its very sound and substance as well: among the first to promote Africanized English, he also introduced an element of jazz into poetry. In this program, Bill Moyers and Mr. Baraka discuss topics centering on the black experience in America. Readings by Mr. Baraka spotlight "Funklore," "First Fire," "The Pet's Reward," "X," "Wise-Africa," "Wise-One," "Wise-Ghosts," and others. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9302 Robert Pinsky (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the United States for an unprecedented third term, finds his inspiration in common things, transforming the culturally unpoetic into masterpieces of verbal expression. In this program, Bill Moyers and Mr. Pinsky discuss topics including his love of the English language, the pervasive influence of history, and the flourishing of poetry on the Internet. Readings by Mr. Pinsky feature "ABC," "Ginza Samba," "Poem with Refrains," "To Television," and "From the Childhood of Jesus." Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9303 Marge Piercy (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
At heart, Marge Piercy is a utopian, possessing what Margaret Atwood described as "a view of human possibility ... that makes the present state of affairs clearly unacceptable by comparison." In this program, Bill Moyers and Ms. Piercy discuss topics such as the political and religious themes behind much of her writing and the curiosity and imagination that fuel her creativity. Readings by Ms. Piercy showcase "The Book of Ruth and Naomi," "To be of use," "Kaddish," "The hunger moon," "For the young who want to," "Coming up on September," and others. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9304 Coleman Barks (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
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 essence. Readings by Dr. Barks spotlight five of Rumi's marvelous poems and his own "Love for Clouds," "A Wish," "New Year's Day Now," "Final Exam," and "Club." Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9305 Lorna Dee Cervantes and Shirley Geok-lin Lim (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
Lorna Dee Cervantes began writing poetry at the age of eight and founded her own press to publish the works of Mexican-Americans. Dr. Shirley Geok-lin Lim, an English professor and Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer, uses her Chinese/Malaysian roots to bring a unique Asian-American perspective to her writing. In this program, Bill Moyers and the two poets discuss topics that revolve around the theme of otherness. Readings by Ms. Cervantes feature "Summer Ends Too Soon," "California Plum," and "Coffee"; readings by Dr. Lim showcase "My Father's Sadness," "Lament," and others. Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9306 Stanley Kunitz (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
The recipient of virtually every honor that can be bestowed upon a poet, Stanley Kunitz has been a source of encouragement for a century of budding talent and a tireless promoter of the arts. In this program, Bill Moyers and Mr. Kunitz discuss topics such as his love of life and the recurring theme of renewal in his work. Readings by Mr. Kunitz spotlight "The Flight of Apollo," "The Lincoln Relics," "The Quarrel," "Vita Nuova," "The Round," "The Portrait," "Passing Through," and "The Layers." Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9307 Jane Hirshfield (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
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 silence in poetry. Readings by Ms. Hirshfield feature "Three Foxes at the Edge of a Field at Twilight," "Sleep," "Inspiration," "Mule Heart," "For What Binds Us," "Each Happiness Ringed by Lions," and "Three Times My Life Has Opened." Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9308 Lucille Clifton and Mark Doty (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
Like musicians, Lucille Clifton and Mark Doty stress the rhythmic and musical qualities of poems, the former shaping them with economical, everyday language and the latter with language more baroque. In this program, Bill Moyers and the two poets discuss topics such as the weight of racial memory and the encounter between self and history. Readings by Ms. Clifton showcase "Fury-for Mama," "Donor," "The Times," and "Alabama 9/15/63"; readings by Mr. Doty spotlight "The Embrace," "Fish Are Us," "Michael's Dream," and "A Green Crab's Shell." Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#9309 Deborah Garrison (Run Time 27 min.) DVD $89.95
The poetry of Deborah Garrison, who recently made her debut with her critically acclaimed collection A Working Girl Can't Win, speaks in a voice sometimes defiant and tinged with sarcasm, but humorous, too, and sweetened by tender longing. In this program, Bill Moyers and Ms. Garrison discuss topics centering on her experiences as a woman in the workforce. Readings by Ms. Garrison feature "The Boss," "Please Fire Me," "A Kiss," "A Friendship Enters Phase Two," "The Firemen," "Atlantic Wind," "She Was Waiting to Be Told," "3 A.M. Comedy," "She Thinks of Him on Her Birthday," and of course "A Working Girl Can't Win." Filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. (27 minutes)


#10371 Ralph Ellison's Legacy (Run Time 12 min.) DVD $89.95
In 1952 an unknown African-American writer caught the nation's attention with his very first book, which begins, "I am an invisible man." In this program, NewsHour correspondent Elizabeth Farnsworth examines Ralph Ellison's legacy on the novel occasion of the publication of Juneteenth, left unfinished at the time of his death. Ellison's literary executor John Callahan and Professor Charles Johnson-a winner, like Ellison, of The National Book Award-consider the man behind the fame and the impact of the posthumous novel on Ellison's literary reputation, first established by Invisible Man. (12 minutes)


#10494 Kurt Vonnegut: So It Goes (Run Time 61 min.) DVD $89.95
In this interview, Kurt Vonnegut-iconoclastic writer of science fiction and satire-discusses his family history, how he got his start as an author, his experiences in World War II, his obsession with the betrayal of humankind by science, and his vision of technology gone mad. Delving into the psyches of his characters, he even enters into a dialogue with his fictional alter ego, Kilgore Trout. Dramatizations and excerpts from Slaughterhouse-Five, Breakfast of Champions, Cat's Cradle, and Deadeye Dick bring the offbeat yet vivid world of Vonnegut's stories to life. Contains mature themes. (61 minutes, color)


#10497 Poetry Slams: Reasserting Poetry's Oral Tradition (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $89.95
Part performance, part competition, poetry slams are boosting poetry's popularity with children, teens, and even adults. In section one of this NewsHour report, Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with nationally ranked slammers Ariana Waynes and Roger Bonair-Augard about the concept of slamming and their experiences with the genre. In section two, Spencer Michels investigates the positive impact that slamming is having on at-risk youth, as demonstrated by the Youth Poetry Slam League sponsored by WritersCorps, an organization that works with young writers in schools, detention centers, housing projects, and shelters. (16 minutes)


#33392 Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado"" (Run Time 17 min.) DVD $89.95
"The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as best I could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge." So speaks Montresor in this faithful rendition of Edgar Allan Poe's chilling story of a murderous trap irresistibly baited with fine wine and flattery. Strong performances and outstanding cinematography make this classic program-an object of considerable critical acclaim at film festivals-an excellent introduction to the work of the master of the American gothic genre. (17 minutes)


#38763 Bill Moyers Journal: Robert Bly and Grace Lee Boggs (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $89.95
The poetry of Robert Bly explores startling truths at the heart of American culture and spirituality. Bill Moyers talks with the celebrated author about his life in letters-during which Bly has produced more than thirty books, including the National Book Award winner The Light Around the Body, in addition to cofounding American Writers Against the Vietnam War in 1966. Bly also discusses his 1990 work Iron John: A Book About Men-an international best-seller which has been translated into several languages. In a subsequent segment, the program features another evocative conversation with civil rights activist Grace Lee Boggs. Broadcast date: August 31, 2007. (58 minutes)


#39255 Bill Moyers Journal: January 25, 2008 (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $89.95
In this program, Bill Moyers and John Grisham, best-selling author of The Firm, The Pelican Brief, and The Rainmaker, engage in a far-ranging conversation that offers insights into the background and beliefs that influence Grisham's work and provides an unexpected look at his views about the state of the nation. Also on the program: Katherine S. Newman, coauthor of The Missing Class: Portraits of the Near Poor in America, on the state of the economy; a look at the predicted $2.5 billion political ad budget for the 2008 election, a windfall for Big Media; and an essay that separates the facts from the spin at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland. Broadcast date: January 25, 2008. (58 minutes)


#7143 Native Son (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $99.95
The first thirty-nine years of the 20th century were a time of lynching and genuine oppression for 12 million African Americans. One man, Richard Wright, took the measure of his time, addressed the great reservoir of hatred, and placed a wake-up call to America in his novel, Native Son. In this program, African-American writers John Edgar Wideman and Bebe Moore Campbell discuss Wright as a fearless chronicler of the racism of his time, and as a literary genius who forced both blacks and whites to face the damage racism and inequality have caused to the black psyche and to American society. A Discovery University Production. (53 minutes)


#10032 T. S. Eliot: The Waste Land (Run Time 59 min.) DVD $99.95
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 its appeal, and trace the reasons why it became one of the best-known emblems of the 20th century. (59 minutes)


#6862 Walt Whitman: Sweet Bird of Freedom (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $129.95
The essence of Whitman's literary philosophy is distilled in this delightful dramatic monologue. We visit the elderly Whitman, portrayed by Dallas McKennon, in his Camden, New Jersey, home, where he talks about his personality, family history, and strong affinity to the common man. We learn about the frustrations he has endured as a poet, and of his disappointing relationships with his publishers, editors, and contemporary Ralph Waldo Emerson. He reminisces about his youth in New York, his wanderings throughout the United States, and his time spent as a nurse during the Civil War. A dramatic reading of "O Captain! My Captain!" pays homage to Abraham Lincoln. Portions of poems from Leaves of Grass are interwoven throughout. (29 minutes)


#7056 Amiri Baraka: A Conversation with Maya Angelou (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $129.95
In this program, Maya Angelou interviews poet, playwright, and political activist Amiri Baraka, formerly known as Leroi Jones. Stressing the use of concrete images of time, place, and social condition in his work, Baraka discusses the use of literature as a catalyst for political change. Reading from his poem "Funk Lore," Baraka explains how he uses jazz and blues rhythms to create metric "melody" within his poems. (26 minutes)


#7295 Arthur Miller: An Interview (Run Time 76 min.) DVD $129.95
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 masterwork, The Crucible. Film excerpts from Death of a Salesman, After the Fall, and A View from the Bridge are interwoven with Miller's observations on the political and poetic nature of his plays, and on the art of writing. A BBC Production. (76 minutes)


#7959 Jack Kerouac (Run Time 51 min.) DVD $129.95
Jack Kerouac, cult writer of the Beat generation, remains an American icon. This documentary focuses on the creative pinnacle of his life-63 days spent as a fire warden on Desolation Peak in Washington State. Examining the time through photos and the commentary of those who knew him, the program illuminates Kerouac's previous work, while prefiguring his later spiral into alcoholism. This is a moving film essay on the unfulfilled ambitions of one of America's great avant-garde literary figures. (51 minutes)


#8271 The Yellow Wallpaper (Run Time 76 min.) DVD $129.95
Touted as one of the first major feminist writers, Charlotte Perkins Gilman spent her life fighting to liberate women from the yoke of domesticity. This is a stunning BBC dramatization of Gilman's autobiographical account of a woman driven to madness by the repressive mores of Victorian culture. Stephen Dillon as the husband, John, and Julia Watson as the despondent heroine give stellar performances in this production directed by the BBC's John Clive. (76 minutes)


#8858 In Context: Of Mice and Men (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $129.95
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 migrant laborers. Passages from the novella; interviews and archival footage and photos of Wall Street, FDR, the Dust Bowl, and the 1936 lettuce strike; and an excerpt from Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory add depth to this powerful study. A BBC Production. (20 minutes)


#8859 In Context: To Kill a Mockingbird (Run Time 20 min.) DVD $129.95
In Monroeville, Alabama, Harper Lee's model for Maycomb, To Kill a Mockingbird is celebrated as a tribute to Southern life. This hard-edged program juxtaposes white and black experiences in the racially segregated South of the 1930s-1960s to deepen the understanding of the novel's portrayal of racial tension and tolerated judicial bias. Interviews, archival footage, and photographs combine to illustrate the realities of segregation, lynching, white supremacy, injustice in the courts, and the Civil Rights movement. Dramatic readings from the novel and a powerful rendering of a blues song about lynching provide additional poignancy. A BBC Production. (20 minutes)


#9326 John Steinbeck and the American Experience (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $129.95
This program is a comprehensive portrait of John Steinbeck and the America he depicted, providing students with an appreciation of one of the 20th century's definitive literary voices. Incorporating historic events ranging in magnitude from the devastating Dust Bowl to poignant local histories, Steinbeck portrayed a nation ravaged by poverty and injustice, in which his characters, often drawn from real life, grapple with conditions and events beyond their control. (45 minutes)


#10214 Ernest Hemingway: A Clean, Well-Lighted Place"" (Run Time 15 min.) DVD $129.95
Each night since he attempted suicide, the old man has come to the cafe-a clean, well-lighted place-to get drunk, staying until closing time at 2:30 a.m. But on this night, the younger of the two waiters turns the old man out an hour early, anxious to go home to his wife. How might this confident young man feel if he knew that his somewhat older coworker is also looking for a clean, well-lighted place? This 1994 dramatization of Hemingway's much-anthologized short story about the human need for an outpost in the darkness makes a powerful existential statement about the insufficiency of religion as a source of comfort. (15 minutes)


#10495 Raymond Carver: Dreams Are What You Wake Up From (Run Time 60 min.) DVD $129.95
Hailed as the American Chekhov and short-listed for a Pulitzer Prize at the time of his death, only ten years earlier Raymond Carver had been completely down and out. In this vintage program filmed just a year after he died, Carver's second wife, Tess Gallagher, and writers Jay McInerney and Richard Ford, his close friends, explore Carver's artistic legacy: his stories and poems about the other side of the American Dream. In addition, excerpts from two of Carver's most famous stories are dramatized. "No one since Steinbeck had written about these people," says McInerney, "the people whose dreams go belly-up." (60 minutes)


#10816 Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mount Morgan (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $129.95
Written when he was 76, Arthur Miller's The Ride Down Mount Morgan opened in London in 1991 and was revived on Broadway in 2000. In this program, Miller discusses his comic yet thought-provoking tale of bigamy, revealing not only a disenchantment with American theater and culture, but also a deep concern for the country's moral and spiritual welfare. Generous excerpts from the original production are included, and actors Tom Conti, Gemma Jones, and Clare Higgins discuss their roles. Director Michael Blakemore, critic Michael Billington, and editor Christopher Bigsby also contribute to this intriguing appraisal of Miller's play. (50 minutes)


#30667 Langston Hughes: Salvation"" (Run Time 31 min.) DVD $129.95
"I was saved from sin when I was going on 13. But not really saved. It happened like this..." So begins this powerful dramatization of "Salvation," Langston Hughes' eloquent autobiographical story that illustrates how his aunt's well-meaning efforts to bring him into the spiritual fold resulted in a moral crisis. Calmly waiting for Jesus to appear to him in the hot, crowded church, young Langston's anticipation changes to confusion and disillusion when pressured to choose between being true to himself or fulfilling the expectations of the preacher, his aunt, and the rest of the congregation. (31 minutes)


#31277 The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe" (Run Time 25 min.) DVD $129.95
Filmed in Gothic monochrome and recited in lively fashion by British actor Joss Ackland, Edgar Allan Poe's classic short story of premeditated evil comes alive in this engaging program. Supplementing the dramatization, writer and film director Neil Jordan discusses the story's powerful imagery, particularly that of the eye and the heartbeat, along with Poe's lasting influence. (25 minutes)


#31533 Langston Hughes: His Life and Times (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $129.95
In this program, Pulitzer Prize-winner Alice Walker and renowned Langston Hughes biographer Arnold Rampersad talk about "The Poet Laureate of Harlem" with award-winning filmmaker Bruce Schwartz. Together they discuss experiences that shaped young Langston, how he came to be a writer, the beauty of his writing style, his practice of reaching out to aspiring writers, and the Harlem Renaissance as a literary and cultural watershed. They also discuss the force of religion in Southern Christian African-American communities and "Salvation," Hughes' coming-of-age story deftly brought to the screen by Schwartz. (26 minutes)


#32514 Alice Walker: Everyday Use"" (Run Time 26 min.) DVD $129.95
Maggie sees the old family quilt-an heirloom already promised to her-as something with practical utility as well as tradition. Her educated, social activist sister wants to hang it on the wall as folk art. With whom will their mother side? A study in class differences and the reclamation of Black history, Alice Walker's short story "Everyday Use" is beautifully realized in this dramatization. (26 minutes)


#32667 Alice Walker: A Stitch in Time (Run Time 23 min.) DVD $129.95
What were Alice Walker's motivations in writing "Everyday Use"? In this program, the author discusses her short story with her official biographer, Evelyn C. White. Over the course of the interview, Walker talks about the autobiographical aspects of the story, the significance of quilting to African-American women, the perception of class differences, and the important life lessons she wished to explore. (23 minutes)


#33383 Henry David Thoreau: In His Own Words (Run Time 32 min.) DVD $129.95
Filmed on location in and around Concord, Cambridge, and Cape Cod, this delightful program brings Henry David Thoreau's Walden and "Civil Disobedience" to life through the captivating delivery of Thoreau impersonator Jeffrey Hyatt. Long passages, as expressed by Hyatt, capture the energy and intensity of Thoreau's words, while presenter James H. Bride II and Thoreau specialists Lawrence Buell, Robert Richardson, and Joel Myerson provide commentary on the works, Thoreau's life, and the times in which he lived. (32 minutes)


#33782 Romanticism: Imagining Freedom (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $129.95
The rebellious artist, the attraction to the dark side, love and death, and the primacy of nature-all of these are themes that suffused the artistic and ideological revolution known as Romanticism. This program vividly conveys how new ways of thinking and seeing reshaped the humanities in the 18th and 19th centuries. The writings of Holderlin, Emerson, Poe, Whitman, Byron, Wordsworth, and Keats, as well as the paintings of Turner and Goya and the music of Beethoven, are vibrantly presented. Scholars Susan Wolfson, professor of English at Princeton University; Rafael Argullol Murgados, director of the Institut Universitari de Cultura; Xavier Antich, professor of aesthetics at the Universitat de Girona; and David Reynolds, distinguished professor of English at Baruch College, CUNY, discuss the characteristics of this influential movement and its impact on contemporary culture. (53 minutes)


#33874 Tillie Olsen: I Stand Here Ironing"" (Run Time 33 min.) DVD $129.95
This moving dramatization of Tillie Olsen's frequently anthologized "I Stand Here Ironing" is an unvarnished exploration of an impoverished single mother's ambivalence toward her worth as a parent and her 19-year-old daughter's future. Rich in subtext, the highly metaphorical story-penned in a stark and dramatic fashion devoid of cliche and sentimentality-raises important questions about individual identity, the role of women in society, the effects of poverty and abandonment on children, the nature of intimacy, and the life experiences of the author herself. Without climax or easy answers, the story concludes on a hopeful, or at least prayerful, note. (33 minutes)


#34681 Zora Neale Hurston: A Heart with Room for Every Joy (Run Time 42 min.) DVD $129.95
"I have the strength to walk my own path, no matter how hard, in my search for reality, and not cling to the splendid wagon of desperate illusions." A writer of novels, short stories, folktales, plays, and essays, Zora Neale Hurston combined a hunger for research and a desire to penetrate the deepest of popular beliefs with a truly exquisite narrative talent. This illuminating biography of Hurston-a compelling story of a free spirit who achieved national prominence yet died in obscurity-examines the rich legacy of her writings, which include Mules and Men, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Tell My Horse, and Dust Tracks on a Road. Interviews with Lucy Anne Hurston, Zora's niece and author of the biography Speak, So You Can Speak Again, and with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., W. E. B. DuBois Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University, are featured. The program amply demonstrates that Hurston truly had, as it said in her high school yearbook, "A heart with room for every joy." A Films for the Humanities & Sciences Production. (42 minutes)


#35427 William Faulkner (Run Time 24 min.) DVD $129.95
The writer who best represents 20th-century Southern narrative led an existence every bit as colorful and dramatic as his fictional sagas. This program beautifully recounts William Faulkner's life and the great literary works it produced, exploring his affinity for the tragic and whimsical aspects of a decaying, racially fractured South. Beginning with the author's birth in New Albany, Mississippi, the video describes his early military and romantic ambitions; his family life, alcoholism, and stints in Hollywood; and his eventual garnering of the Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award-all within the framework of his vast literary output. Summaries of major Faulkner novels-including Soldier's Pay, Sartoris, The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Sanctuary, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom!-highlight the author's recurring themes of loss, faded glory, and dignity in the face of mortality. Passages from several works are read aloud and displayed visually as text. A Films for the Humanities & Sciences Production. (24 minutes)


#5346 N. Scott Momaday (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $149.95
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 American citizen, and reveals the artist, thinker, and imaginative creator behind (or perhaps at the core of) his impressive and important body of work. (45 minutes)


#5347 James Welch (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95
Part Blackfoot, part Gros Ventre Indian, Welch finds his subject matter in his Indian heritage and his plots in the human emotions and trials common to all humans. Here, Welch discusses his background, his sources, his vision, and his personal way of particularizing the universal. (50 minutes)


#5348 Leslie M. Silko (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $149.95
The works of Leslie Marmon Silko are strongly rooted in her own matrilineal tribal background. Like all writing of lasting value, they use particular experiences and places to reveal universal truths. Here, Silko discusses her own background and the interrelationship between her smaller, immediate Native American world and the larger, brutal surrounding world. (45 minutes)


#5349 Gerald Vizenor (Run Time 50 min.) DVD $149.95
His life, like his work, was a long time taking root in a place and a culture. Drawing on his Ojibwa heritage, the bitter effects of his father's murder when he was himself still a baby, his intermittent formal education, and his need to reconcile the tribal past with the political present, Vizenor has, poem by poem, story by story, and novel by novel, constructed an impressive oeuvre that marks him as among the most prolific and most intellectually challenging writers of the Native American renaissance. (50 minutes)


#6037 John Steinbeck (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $149.95
John Steinbeck, as this film portrait of his life and work convincingly shows, was more than a realist chronicler of the Great Depression. His rich fantasy life and his fascination with Arthurian tales provide another dimension to his work. Failure to appreciate this side of Steinbeck has caused the disparity between his popularity with readers and his dismissal as "popular" by the literati. Drawing on archival photographs and film as well as specially shot footage in the locations he made famous-places like the Salinas Valley, Monterey, Carmel, and Big Sur-this program sets his writings and his life in perspective, providing a new interpretation of Steinbeck's work. (45 minutes)


#6038 William Faulkner (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $149.95
This beautiful and exceptionally insightful documentary offers a critical key to understanding one of America's foremost writers. The face Faulkner in his lifetime showed the world was no more than a fictional construct, or a series of contradictory roles: gallant war hero, moody poet, hard-drinking man's drinking man, dandy, gentleman farmer, exemplary husband, and father. This program probes beneath these masks to examine Faulkner's turbulent, sometimes sordid, and ultimately tragic life, relating Faulkner the man to the society into which he was born and the body of work he produced. Carefully chosen extracts from his writings show the connections between his life and the South that shaped him, obsessed him, and finally-when he sided with black freedom struggles-turned viciously against him. With his own words, archival photographs and footage, and fictionalized reconstructions, it enables the viewer to grasp the framework and underpinnings of that very distinctive universe, William Faulkner's South. Caution: we recommend that you preview this program before showing it to younger audiences. (45 minutes)


#6277 Edward Albee (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $149.95
This program looks back and explores the work of Edward Albee, from 1962's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to 1994's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Three Tall Women. Albee himself talks about the influence of his unusual childhood upon his work, his years in Greenwich Village, and his method of writing. In particular, he discusses a central theme in his work, the essential stripping away of illusion and self-delusion in order to live the extraordinary experience of life to the full. Fellow playwright John Guare and New York Times critic Frank Rich discuss Albee's particular style and legacy. The program also contains extracts from the stage version of Three Tall Women; from the film versions of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, and A Delicate Balance, with Katherine Hepburn; and specially-staged readings from A Zoo Story and The American Dream. (52 minutes)


#6711 John Updike: In His Own Words (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $149.95
This is a rare glimpse into the literary psyche of one of America's premier novelists, who has twice won the Pulitzer Prize for literature. In the only writers' workshop Updike has ever conducted, the author explores his beginnings as a writer, and offers his unique perception of the writing process-including his insistence that "most of the best fiction is written out of early impressions." Workshop sessions are blended with exclusive interviews in which Updike talks about his Pennsylvania roots, and reads aloud from his own works. Printed on-screen selections from specific titles emphasize given topics. (56 minutes)


#7246 Witness: The Ecological Poetry of W. S. Merwin (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $149.95
In the grand tradition of Thoreau, Emerson, and Whitman, William S. Merwin is considered one of America's most prominent environmental poets. In interviews conducted at his home in Hawaii, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet discusses his relationship with nature as the inspiration for his work, and the responsibility he bears as eloquent spokesman for the natural world. We see Merwin living simply in a cabin by the sea, dividing his time between writing and tending his gardens. His work in the area of conservation, particularly in preserving Hawaii's rain forest, is reflected in readings by Merwin from major works, including "A Mask for Janus," "The Lice," "The Carrier of Ladders," "The Rain in the Trees," "The Vixen," and "Lament for the Makers." This is a probing and insightful portrait of a great American literary figure. (58 minutes)


#7510 Herman Melville: Moby Dick (Run Time 41 min.) DVD $149.95
Moby Dick, Melville's classic sea tale of revenge and spiritual depravity, has earned its exalted status and its ranking as one of the most studied works in the canon of American literature. This program brings together leading Melville scholars to analyze this important work, and investigates the life of the man who wrote it from literary, philosophical, and social perspectives. Topics include the influence of the Bible, Shakespeare, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Melville's own conflicted life, from his father's bankruptcy to his adventures as a sailor in Polynesia. Themes include the universal brotherhood of man, the malignancy lurking within nature, and the nihilistic quality of the color white. (41 minutes)


#7512 Nathaniel Hawthorne (Run Time 29 min.) DVD $149.95
For many, The Scarlet Letter represents the pinnacle of 19th-century literature. In this program, three leading Hawthorne scholars use the novel and several Hawthorne short stories to explore issues of interpretation and literary analysis. Each work is discussed in relation to American culture and political events. Significant details of Hawthorne's life are also illuminated. Experts include Millicent Bell, a leading Hawthorne scholar; Professor Larry Reynolds, President of the Hawthorne Society; and Professor Brenda Wineapple, author of a biography on Hawthorne. (29 minutes)


#7968 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: Understanding a Classic (Run Time 34 min.) DVD $149.95
Few works in American literature address issues as timeless as those explored in Mark Twain's controversial novel, Huckleberry Finn. In this program, three scholars, including noted Twain biographer Justin Kaplan, examine the work and its various themes-race, cruelty, consequences of greed, meaning of civilization, and the nature of freedom. The author's life is traced from his days as a printer's apprentice, riverboat pilot, and journalist, to renowned author. Twain scholars Shelley Fisher Fishkin and David Lionel Smith discuss African-American influences from Twain's childhood that are reflected in the work, and suggest that these references, misinterpreted by readers, form the basis for charges that Twain was a racist. Incidents from his life, including his vehement anti-slavery and anti-racist articles couched in irony, provide convincing counterpoint to the charges. (34 minutes)


#8321 Africa to America to Paris: The Migration of Black Writers (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95
This program traces the path of African-American literature from the shores of the U.S. to the Left Bank of Paris at the end of World War II through the late 1960s. The program provides context by first exploring the New Orleans salon poetry of Desdunes and discussing the historic suppression of black activists in the U.S. After the Harlem Renaissance, an increasingly hostile climate drove writers James Baldwin and Richard Wright to Paris, where liberal racial attitudes allowed for greater artistic expression. This program traces their lives in France through remembrances of fellow artists and readings from their diaries and works. (53 minutes)


#9047 In Search of Thoreau (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $149.95
Few voices in American literature have been as bold and influential as that of Henry David Thoreau. This program traces the author's life from his early days in Concord and Harvard, to his friendship with Emerson and his years at Walden, to his role in the anti-slavery movement. In addition, Thoreau scholars Brad Dean and Wes Mott discuss his writings, including Walden and "Civil Disobedience." Interweaving dramatic readings and reenactments of Thoreau's life with beautiful nature photography of Walden Pond, this lyrical account allows Thoreau's unique character and writings to come to life. (45 minutes)


#9143 Fooling with Words: A Bill Moyers Special (Run Time 120 min.) DVD $149.95
In this captivating program, Bill Moyers explores the vitality and diversity of contemporary poetry through intimate interviews and performance readings at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival-North America's largest. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, Amiri Baraka, Stanley Kunitz, Coleman Barks, Lucille Clifton, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Paul Muldoon, Marge Piercy, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Deborah Garrison, and other leading poets share the rhythm, spirit, and passion of their art through dazzling performances before an audience of thousands. (2 parts, 1 hour each)


#9215 Tennessee Williams and the American South (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $149.95
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 the young Tennessee provide new insights into one of America's greatest playwrights. (45 minutes)


#10088 Maxine Hong Kingston and the Road Back from Vietnam (Run Time 53 min.) DVD $149.95
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 Clinton. In this program, Professor Kingston explores the causes and effects of alienation from one's country in a journey to France in 1996 to meet with Thich Nhat Hahn, who was a strong presence at the Paris talks that later produced the peace accords ending the Vietnam War. (53 minutes)


#10089 August Wilson: The American Dream, in Black and White (Run Time 52 min.) DVD $149.95
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 times. Scenes from Jitney, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, Fences, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, and Two Trains Running reveal the impact of the oral tradition and the blues on Wilson's poetic prose, a skillful blend of art and authenticity. (52 minutes)


#10107 Robert Lowell: Reading Himself (Run Time 37 min.) DVD $149.95
Regarded as a key voice in America's postwar poetry, Robert Lowell is examined in this program through the lens of his biography by British critic Ian Hamilton-the first biography of Lowell written after his death in 1977. The complexities of Lowell's personality and poetry unfold through documents, archival footage, readings of his work by Lowell himself, and interviews with his surviving acquaintances-critic Jonathan Raban; writer Al Alvarez; lifelong friends Blaire Clarke and Frank Parker; Valerie Eliot, widow of T. S. Eliot; and his last wife, Lady Caroline Blackwood, among others. The degree to which Hamilton's research provides a fuller understanding of Lowell's poems is appraised as well. (37 minutes)


#10200 Nathaniel Hawthorne: Young Goodman Brown"" (Run Time 43 min.) DVD $149.95
Was there evil lurking in the gloomy New England woods the night that young Goodman Brown went on his secret errand? Or did he bring the evil with him, locked within his own heart? This program features an outstanding adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic tale-shot on location in historic Salem-that deftly captures the story's mystery and menace. In addition, a discussion of the life of Hawthorne and the Salem witch trials provides the historical context for this dark gem of American fiction. (43 minutes)


#10664 Edith Wharton: The Sense of Harmony (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $149.95
A born storyteller whose novels are celebrated for their vivid settings, satiric wit, and ironic style, Edith Wharton was the first woman to receive an honorary degree from Yale and to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. In this program, writer Louis Auchincloss, Wharton biographers R. W. B. Lewis and Eleanor Dwight, historian Sir Steven Runciman, and Wharton's godson discuss The House of Mirth, Ethan Frome, The Age of Innocence, and other works. Archival photos, period footage, Wharton's correspondence with Henry James, and readings from her oeuvre complete the portrait of a complex individual whose portrayal of society still resonates today. (58 minutes)


#11729 John Updike: A Childhood in the U.S.A. (Run Time 44 min.) DVD $149.95
In this program, 67-year-old John Updike-renowned for his realistic yet subtle depiction of small-town, middle-class life-talks with candor about the impact of the people, places, and events of his childhood on his writing. Visits to personal landmarks in Shillington and Plowville and numerous family photos prompt Updike to reflect on topics that range from the lives of his parents and grandparents, to his early desire to be an artist, to what it was like to live through the Depression and World War II. He also discusses The Poorhouse Fair, Of the Farm, and The Centaur and reads from his autobiography, Self-Consciousness. Not available in French-speaking Canada. (44 minutes)


#11747 Upton Sinclair: The Jungle (Run Time 45 min.) DVD $149.95
A landmark among naturalistic, proletarian novels, The Jungle brought to light the appalling sanitation and working conditions of Chicago's meatpacking industry. This program presents the life of author and polemicist Upton Sinclair within the context of his times, examining his contributions to American literature and journalism as well as to social reform movements. Even a century later, The Jungle stands as arguably the most famous, influential, and enduring of all muckraking novels. (45 minutes, color)


#29944 Raymond Carver: Cathedral"" (Run Time 56 min.) DVD $149.95
Robert, a blind man and now a widower, has come to visit his friend and her husband. Prompted by a television show, the apprehensive husband asks Robert if he really knows what a cathedral is: his answer is a lesson in how to truly see. This dramatization of Raymond Carver's classic short story "Cathedral" presents a minimalist exploration of loneliness, vision, and personal spirituality. An interview follows with Carver's widow, Tess Gallagher, whose poem "The Hands of the Blindman" is excerpted in the production. (56 minutes)


#29968 Robert Pinsky: Our Premier Poet Scholar (Run Time 49 min.) DVD $149.95
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 Laureate, The Favorite Poem Project. Along with interviews and aptly chosen visuals, the poet reads two of his own pieces, "Ginza Samba" and "Shirt." Acclaimed British actor Michael York has said of this documentary: "Pinsky is a spellbinding speaker and the quintessence of eloquence." (48 minutes)


#29971 Donald Hall and Jane Kenyon: Keeping You Safe Beside Me (Run Time 40 min.) DVD $149.95
This stirring, classic documentary focuses on a unique, inspiring relationship: the love and creative connection between poet Donald Hall-named U.S. Poet Laureate in June of 2006-and his late wife Jane Kenyon. Filmed largely at Eagle Pond Farm in New Hampshire, an ancestral heritage for six generations of Halls, the program explores the impact of the New England tradition on the work of both poets. Hall reflects unabashedly on his wife's bouts with depression and her battle with cancer, delivering poignant readings of several of her poems, including "Happiness," "Let Evening Come," and "With the Dog at Sunrise." From his own poetry he reads "Names of Horses," and "Letters at Christmas." (40 minutes)


#32215 World of Ideas: Susan Sontag (Run Time 49 min.) DVD $149.95
The late Susan Sontag was not a photographer, yet her famous book On Photography is required reading in almost every serious photography course in the world. Her novels and nonfiction books such as Illness as a Metaphor have been translated into a score of languages. And she also wrote and directed films and plays. In this program, the renowned writer and human rights activist talks with Bill Moyers about Regarding the Pain of Others, her book on war and how the images of war affect people's perception of reality, and other aspects of her life and career. (49 minutes)


#32216 World of Ideas: Alice Walker (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $149.95
A leading voice among American writers, Alice Walker has published books of influential poetry, novels, short stories, essays, and criticism. In this program, Ms. Walker talks with Bill Moyers about a range of subjects, including The Color Purple, whose themes are as relevant today as they were when she wrote the book in 1982; the way in which her life experiences and ancestry are reflected in her writing; and her latest collection of poems, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth. (57 minutes)


#33098 The Odyssey of John Dos Passos (Run Time 58 min.) DVD $149.95
During the 1920s and 30s, there was no better commentator on the broad social and cultural issues facing America than John Dos Passos. Narrated by journalist Robert MacNeil, this program chronicles the life and work of one of America's most innovative and controversial writers. To fully tell his story, the program uses rare archival footage and interviews with family, friends, literary contemporaries, critics, and scholars, as well as poignant excerpts from Dos Passos' diaries, letters, and creative writings, interpreted dramatically by William Hurt. (58 minutes)


#36968 American Poet Laureates (Run Time min.) DVD $149.95
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 addition, each laureate reads a few of his own poems. Robert Pinsky delivers a compelling rendition of "December Blues," Ted Kooser movingly presents "Father," and Stanley Kunitz records a powerful recitation of "The Layers." Donald Hall, Robert Hass, and Billy Collins are also featured. (60 minutes)


#37648 The Glass Menagerie: Character Studies Conversations (Run Time 55 min.) DVD $149.95
Tennessee Williams' masterpiece The Glass Menagerie is a prime example of the memory play in modern literature. In this program hosted by Eli Wallach, former cast members and directors of Menagerie discuss plot and thematic elements, the characterization of some of theater's most memorable and enduring dramatic figures, and the era in which the play was written. Commentary is provided by Ruby Dee, Olympia Dukakis, Julie Harris, and Molly Regan (Amanda); James Naughton (Jim, the Gentleman Caller); Eric Stoltz and Sam Waterston (Tom); Martha Plimpton (Laura); and directors Mark Brokaw and Austin Pendleton. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. A Films for the Humanities & Sciences Production. (55 minutes)


#38813 A Raisin in the Sun: Character Studies Conversations (Run Time 51 min.) DVD $149.95
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; Broadway producer Philip Rose; and Hansberry expert Lynn Domina, author of Understanding A Raisin in the Sun: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. The first play to realistically portray the daily lives of a contemporary African-American family, Raisin-a revolutionary work about race written during the civil rights era-makes the universal statement that dreams of a better future are important to everyone. A viewable/printable instructor's guide is available online. A Films for the Humanities & Sciences Production. (51 minutes)


#3380 Isaac Bashevis Singer (Run Time 43 min.) DVD $159.95
A portrait of one of America's foremost writers-who, in keeping with the new American multicultural mosaic, did not write in English. In this program, made shortly before he died, the Nobelist discusses his literature and psychological sources in the folklore and daily life of the Eastern European ghetto from which he and his work both sprang, whose surreal visions of life transmogrified in the liberating air of American experience. (43 minutes)


#37580 American Writers on Writing (Run Time 75 min.) DVD $159.95
Updike, Roth, Barth, Irving: their names reverberate in the halls of modern American literature. In this NewsHour program, these four literary icons-along with the highly regarded writers Frank McCourt and Susan Sontag-offer insights into their books and the heady, and sometimes frustrating, process of writing them. Episodes include... • Irish Ashes-A Conversation with Frank McCourt: Elizabeth Farnsworth speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Frank McCourt about his Irish childhood and his best-selling memoir Angela's Ashes. • Art of the Story-A Conversation with John Barth: Elizabeth Farnsworth is joined by John Barth, author of epic-length novels and the shortest of short stories, to talk about storytelling and his book On with the Story. • From Print to Film-A Conversation with John Irving: Elizabeth Farnsworth interviews novelist/screenwriter John Irving on adapting his novels for the cinema, with a focus on The Cider House Rules. • Wake Up, America-A Conversation with Susan Sontag: "Be serious, be passionate, wake up." Elizabeth Farnsworth engages writer/photographer Susan Sontag on her book In America. • Early Years, Early Stories-A Conversation with John Updike: Jeffrey Brown speaks with John Updike about his early career as an author and his anthology The Early Stories: 1953-1975. • The Plot Thickens-A Conversation with Philip Roth: Jeffrey Brown and author Philip Roth talk about Roth's novel The Plot Against America. • Philip Roth-Looking Back: Jeffrey Brown and Philip Roth examine the creative process against the backdrop of Roth's long and prolific career as a writer of fiction. (75 minutes)


#9046 Eugene O'Neill: Long Day's Journey into Night (Run Time 180 min.) DVD $199.95
This critically acclaimed production of Eugene O'Neill's autobiographical, Pulitzer Prize-winning drama unfolds over the course of a single day as the Tyrone family unflinchingly confronts its oldest, most haunting secrets. At the center of that maelstrom of blame, anger, and self-deception are moments of incredible compassion, pity, and love-and, behind it all, the profound tragedy that binds the family together. This paean to great theater and the classics translates to the screen with luminous warmth and inspired skill, resulting in a production that ranks high among screen adaptations of major stage works. (3 hours)


#33873 Tillie Olsen: Ironing Out Life (Run Time min.) DVD $219.90
Published in 1961, "I Stand Here Ironing" is arguably Tillie Olsen's most famous short story. This insightful two-part series pairs a dramatization with an author interview for a deep look into an engrossing stream-of-consciousness narrative. 2-part series, 17-32 minutes each.


#31532 Langston Hughes: Working Toward Salvation (Run Time min.) DVD $259.90
This outstanding two-part series brings together an excellent production of Langston Hughes' short story "Salvation" and thought-provoking interviews with author Alice Walker and Hughes biographer Arnold Rampersad. 2-part series, 26-31 minutes each.


#32666 Alice Walker: Everyday Use, Uncommon Art (Run Time min.) DVD $259.90
This two-part series offers an in-depth study of Alice Walker's widely studied short story "Everyday Use," combining a poignant film adaptation with a focused interview of the author conducted by her official biographer, Evelyn C. White. 2-part series, 23-26 minutes each.


#7949 Poetry Heaven (Run Time min.) DVD $269.85
This 3-part series filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival complements the Bill Moyers series The Language of Life. Designed with the classroom in mind, each program includes poems and commentary from several of the 19 contemporary poets featured. The poets represent a wide range of poetic styles. 3-part series, 60 minutes each.


#10197 Nathaniel Hawthorne (Run Time min.) DVD $299.90
From "My Kinsman, Major Molineux" to The Scarlet Letter, the tales of Nathaniel Hawthorne are outstanding examples of 19th-century allegory and symbolism. This video/CD-ROM combination thoroughly analyzes a number of Hawthorne's well-known works.


#10198 Moby Dick (Run Time min.) DVD $299.90
Almost forgotten at the time of its author's death, Moby Dick has risen in stature to become an enduring icon of American literature. This video/CD-ROM combination neatly deconstructs Melville's profound symbolic study of good and evil.


#10199 Mark Twain (Run Time min.) DVD $299.90
Humorist, writer, lecturer, riverboat pilot, and much else, Mark Twain is a veritable American institution. This video/CD-ROM combination provides an in-depth look at Huckleberry Finn and Twain's other signature stories.


#39491 The New England Transcendentalists (Run Time min.) DVD $299.90
The writings of the New England Transcendentalists represent the first flowering of an American literary renaissance. This video/CD-ROM series offers a detailed assessment of this influential 19th-century movement. 2-part series.


#5315 The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets (Run Time 464 min.) DVD $299.95
A companion to Bill Moyers' book The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets, this eight-part series-filmed at the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival-crosses the lines of race, gender, and culture to reveal, and revel in, the beauty and power of modern American poetry. Gary Snyder, Robert Bly, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Sekou Sundiata, Marilyn Chin, Daisy Zamora, and 11 other prominent poets join Moyers to discuss some of their most significant works-and the life experiences that prompted them. An outstanding multicultural literary resource. 8-part series, 58 minutes each.


#1262 Edgar Allan Poe: The Principal Works (Run Time min.) DVD $359.80
This group of programs is intended to help students understand the Poe they have read. The presenter is Conrad Pomerleau, whose one-man shows of Poe's work have found enthusiastic audiences around the country. Staged to recreate Poe's drawing room, with Pomerleau dressed and made up to resemble Poe, the programs focus on the works themselves and their relationship to the poet/critic/fantasist/innovator/superb stylist who wrote them. 4-part series.


#4923 The Power of the Word (Run Time min.) DVD $539.70
This series welcomes viewers into the experience of poetry, helping them to discover that words retain the power to name things honestly, to touch the human spirit, and to enrich life. Bill Moyers introduces the audience to the world of poetry, well aware that many consider the subject irrelevant to their lives. "Once upon a time, so would I. Poetry was something one could get through a whole life without. But I came to see that poets live the lives all of us live, with one big difference: they have the power-the power of the word-to create a world of thought and emotion others can share. We have only to learn to listen." You will meet, in these programs, new poets and old poets-who perform in schools and in the boardroom, in prison and in church; poets who tell us about their hips and poets who tell us about their hearts. "Listen," said the storytellers of old, "listen and you shall hear." Featured in the series are poets James Autry, Robert Bly, Lucille Clifton, Joy Harjo, Garrett Kauro Hongo, Galway Kinnell, Stanley Kunitz, Li-Young Lee, W. S. Merwin, Sharon Olds, Octavio Paz, William Stafford, Gerald Stern, Mary TallMountain, and Quincy Troupe. 6-part series, 60 minutes each.


#5345 Native American Novelists (Run Time min.) DVD $599.80
In 1969, N. Scott Momaday, a Kiowa Indian writer, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novel, House Made of Dawn. This catalyzed the flowering of Native American literature in the United States. In this series of intimate portraits of four outstanding Native American novelists, N. Scott Momaday, James Welch, Leslie M. Silko, and Gerald Vizenor seek to define themselves and their culture and to explain both the past and the present of their people. Each has experienced the tragedies of the Native American people-forced resettlement, loss of identity, loneliness, alcoholism, and despair-and has written about them with courage, understanding, and great literary sensitivity. 4 part series, 45-50 minutes each.


#9300 Sounds of Poetry (Run Time min.) DVD $809.55
Since its inception in 1986, the Biennial Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival has spotlighted over 300 established and emerging poets-and attracted an audience of more than 50,000 avid listeners. This sparkling nine-part series featuring popular television journalist Bill Moyers is a dual celebration of poetry, emphasizing both the power of its highly refined language and its importance as a spoken art form. In-depth conversations with eleven award-winning Festival alumni, combined with readings of their works, make each program an incomparable resource on contemporary poetry, suitable for use in the classroom and at workshops. 9-part series, 27 minutes each.




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