Poetry in America, created and directed by distinguished professor Elisa New, is a multi-platform educational initiative and public television series that brings poetry into classrooms and living rooms around the world.

In partnership with Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University and Harvard Extension School, Poetry in America offers for-credit and professional development courses for undergraduates, graduate students, high school students, and educators. In partnership with the National Education Equity Lab, a dual-enrollment high school program has served over 5,400 learners from 210 schools across 29 states since its inception in 2019.

The Poetry in America television series, airing in major markets across the U.S., is presented by Arizona PBS and distributed by PBS Plus and American Public Television. With four seasons and 36 episodes broadcast since the show’s premiere in 2018, Poetry in America’s mission is ongoing: Season Five is due to debut on PBS stations nationwide in April 2026. 

Poetry in America is filmed on location and edited in a rich documentary style. Educational videos draw from this robust archive, as we follow Marilyn Chin to San Francisco, Gwendolyn Brooks to the South Side of Chicago, Frank O’Hara to Central Park, or Tracy K Smith to Texas Hill Country to explore America’s diverse people, culture, history,  language, and literary imagination.  Join us to reflect on the essential works of the American literary imagination.

Along the way, dozens of guest interpreters join the conversation– scientists and Supreme Court justices, playwrights and journalists, athletes and songwriters, poets and painters, classroom teachers and their students. Featured guests include:

Joe Biden | Shaquille O’Neal | Gloria Estefan | | Nas | Elena Kagan | Herbie Hancock | Sonia Sanchez | John McCain | Bill Clinton | Katie Couric | Amanda Gorman | Tracy K. Smith | Bono | Caroline Kennedy | Al Gore | Julia Alvarez | John Kerry | Frank Gehry | Jill Lepore | Henry Louis Gates Jr. | John Turturro | Raúl Esparza | Evie Shockley | John Lithgow | Natalia Zukerman | Robert Pinsky | Cynthia Nixon | Regina Spektor | Joshua Bennett | Maxine Hong Kingston | Yusef Komunyakaa | Richard Dawkins | Bob Rubin | David Strathairn | Linda Hogan | Yo-Yo Ma … and many more

Poetry in America is a production of Verse Video Education, a not-for-profit organization that produces the highest quality educational media across disciplines.