Byzantine princess Anna Komnene took the motto, “If you want it done right, do it yourself,” to heart, penning a 500-page history of her father’s reign. Her tales of Byzantine Emperor Alexios’s reign attempt to balance truth with family...

"I cannot dance opon my Toes," Emily Dickinson writes, "no man instructed me." Still, Dickinson makes the white page of the poem her performance space. In this video [5:36] excerpted from Poetry in America, an ensemble of interpreters do...