About Us - Poetry in America

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Mission and History

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

In partnership with Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation at Arizona State University and Harvard Division of Continuing Education, 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 Opportunity Network, our dual-enrollment high school program has served more than 7,000 learners across 29 states since its inception in 2019.

The Poetry in America television series has broadcast four seasons and 36 episodes since the show’s premiere in 2018. All seasons are now available for streaming for free from poetryinamerica.org.

Poetry in America is filmed on location and edited in a rich documentary style. Educational videos draw from this robust archive, as we follow Walt Whitman through Manhattan, Gwendolyn Brooks through the South Side of Chicago, Frank O’Hara to Central Park, and 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:

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