The United States of Poetry (1995)

"If it ain't a pleasure, it ain't a poem." This groundbreaking series uses this quaint, quizzical sound bite as its introduction and motto: even at their hokiest or least comprehensible, the poems and performances in these five episodes are guaranteed never to bore. Instead of simply filming flat readings, director Mark Pellington uses hypnotic camera work and MTV-style editing to forge image, music, and poetic performance into sophisticated video vignettes. Performers run the gamut from venerable Beats Ginsberg and Ferlinghetti to urban slammers, cowboy poets, drag queens, genteel seniors, and literate preteens. A surprisingly profound President Jimmy Carter shares the screen with rock stars Lou Reed and King Missile's John S. Hall. The strongest installment is probably "A Day in the Life," organized thematically by times of day--from Peter Spiro's predawn indictment of work ("Yes, the universe is not up there / It's here, and we're in it") through Matt Cook's hysterical afternoon rant on James Joyce, the potato blight, and the metric system (filmed entirely on a strangely appropriate convenience store sidewalk) to Dennis Cooper's decidedly darker reflection on desperate young boys practicing midnight's oldest art. Throughout every episode, the series drives one lesson home: Poetry is everywhere...in bug-infested tenements and secret suburbia, creeping around the hard edges of urban Hawaii and blowing across Oklahoma's open prairie. These United States are eternally fresh and exciting. This America still has plenty of room for pioneers. --Grant Balfour Amazon.com

Spontaneous, Engaging, and Hip with a Social Conscience

This mezmerizing program is artfully designed in three segments around three themes--the land and the people, a day in the life, and the American dream. The poems are performed as spontaneous monologs spoken by a wide cross-section of Americans going about their daily lives in real life settings--on the street, in the home, in subways, and at work. The videography, use of light, and sound editing enhance the dramatic performances without compromising the intimacy and authenticity of the poets' voices. A wide range of poets are represented, including Joseph Brodsky, Sandra Cisneros, Leonard Cohen, Rita Dove, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac (read by Johnny Depp), Czeslaw Milosz, and Naomi Shihab Nye. The topics reflect the light and dark side of life in America from the intimately personal to the deep social issues that divide us. The program's engaging and hip style provocatively challenges us to take a closer look at the experience of living in America today. 120 minutes, in color. August 18, 2008

Fantastic! Even if you think you don't like poetry.

Amazing. Moving. And the range is astounding. There are poems about having sex at 40, and having cocoa after killing a child. About misplaced belongings, and blind grandfathers. I love it. May 29, 2003

More Fun than MTV

This video is a collection of short films which feature poets reading their work and visual interpretation. It's well edited and at times, visually stunning. Some of the films are over-dramatic, but the readings are all superb and inspired. I recommend it highly. Lots of diversity and some very funny and touching poems of the utmost quality. June 22, 2000

An engaging way to experience performance poetry!

Produced by Bob Holman from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, this video brings poetry to life in an accessible way. It is able to live up to its name by presenting self-performed works, categorized in themes, by cowboy poets, immigrant poets, urban poets, celebrity poets (Alan Ginsburg, Lou Reed, Jimmy Carter and more), published poets and even child poets. The staging of the performances is fabulous, and the poems themselves range from inspiring to funny to poignant. I especially liked Paul Beatty, Maggie Estep, Pedro Pietri and Jimmy Carter. July 22, 1999

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