Instructional Video1:07:56
Poetry Foundation

What Is Poetry For?

6th - 11th
The Point Magazine and Poetry Foundation panel discussion, “What Is Poetry for,” featuring POETRY editor Don Share, poet and UChicago writing professor Srikanth Reddy, spoken word poet and performer Lamar Jorden, poet, womanist, and...
Instructional Video1:33
Poetry Foundation

Monsters

6th - 11th
Dorothea Lasky, "Monsters" from Awe. Copyright © 2007 by Dorothea Lasky. Reprinted by permission of Wave Books. Produced by Method.
Instructional Video1:28
Poetry Foundation

There Are Birds Here

6th - 11th
Jamaal May, "There Are Birds Here" from The Big Book of Exit Strategies. Copyright © 2016 by Jamaal May. Reprinted by permission of Alice James Books. Produced by USC Film School.
Instructional Video1:01
Poetry Foundation

Poorly Dressed

6th - 11th
“Poorly Dressed.” © 1996 by Bruce Lansky. Reprinted from My Dog Ate My Homework! (© 1996, 2000 by Meadowbrook Creations) with permission from Meadowbrook Press.
Instructional Video4:11
Poetry Foundation

Negative

6th - 11th
Kevin Young, “Negative” from Most Way Home. Copyright © 2001 by Kevin Young. Reprinted by permission of Steerforth Press. Produced by USC Film School.
Instructional Video1:06
Poetry Foundation

To Catch a Fish

6th - 11th
“To Catch a Fish” by Eloise Greenfield from Under the Sunday Tree. Copyright © 1988 by Eloise Greenfield, used by permission of Scott Treimel NY.
Instructional Video3:10
Poetry Foundation

Famous

6th - 11th
Naomi Shihab Nye, "Famous" from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Used with permission of Far Corner Books.
Instructional Video1:44
Poetry Foundation

Weighing In

6th - 11th
Rhina Espaillat, "Weighing In" from Where Horizons Go. Copyright © 1998 by Rhina Espaillat. Reprinted by permission of Truman State University Press. Produced by Moving Picture Company.
Instructional Video3:32
Poetry Foundation

Summer Poetry Teachers Institute

6th - 11th
The Institute encourages conversations among English teachers about past successes, challenges, and insights in bringing poetry to students in their various communities. The Institute offers participants a fresh, energizing approach to...
Instructional Video6:13
Poetry Foundation

Choices

6th - 11th
Tess Gallagher, “Choices” from Midnight Lantern: New and Selected Poems. Copyright 2006 by Tess Gallagher. Used by permission of The Permissions Company, Inc. on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org....
Instructional Video6:33
Poetry Foundation

Multitudes

6th - 11th
It’s difficult to overstate the impact that Walt Whitman has had on American poetry. This short explores eight segments of Whitman’s central poem, “Song of Myself,” featuring readings by three contemporary poets—Kaveh Akbar, Duriel E....
Instructional Video3:50
Poetry Foundation

“From the Inside” by Nkosi Nkululeko

6th - 11th
Filmed on location at Sister’s Uptown Bookstore in Harlem, this moving meditation reveals the tangled strands of personal identity that emerge from literature and repetitive thought patterns. WORD: COLLECTED POETRY is a video anthology...
Instructional Video3:26
Poetry Foundation

"band-aids & other temporary healings" by Trace DePass

6th - 11th
Filmed on location at Kenkeleba House Garden in the East Village, this poignant film contemplates how poetry can entrap, rather than release, past traumas and hardships. WORD: COLLECTED POETRY is a video anthology of spoken word poems...
Instructional Video5:24
Poetry Foundation

Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars)

6th - 11th
In this startling animation of Muriel Rukeyser’s “Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars),” two lives unfold in split screen, one during the tumultuous world events of 1968, the other 50 years later against a new landscape of...
Instructional Video4:29
Poetry Foundation

“Rule #1” by Esther Aloba

6th - 11th
In this moving meditation, author Esther Aloba contemplates sexuality, queerness, loss, and resilience in the aftermath of a relationship. WORD: COLLECTED POETRY is a video anthology of spoken word poems brought to life, adapted from the...
Instructional Video3:56
Poetry Foundation

“Untitled” by Makayla Posley

6th - 11th
Filmed on location at East Side Community High School Manhattan, this moving film follows author Makayla Posley as she confronts the dehumanization of inequality and the school-to-prison pipeline. WORD: COLLECTED POETRY is a video...
Instructional Video2:19
Poetry Foundation

The Printers' Ball on Chic-A-Go-Go 1

6th - 11th
Ratso meets fiction friend Paul Durica. Paul is the fiction editor of Chicago Review! They talk about writing and fiction and stories and stuff. Stories are great! Do you know the Muffin Man? Chic-A-Go-Go: Show #679.
Instructional Video0:55
Poetry Foundation

Joseph Bruchac

6th - 11th
Author, storyteller, and musician Joseph Bruchac plays an Abenaki recorder. Along with poet Allison Hedge Coke, Bruchac co-curated "Native Innovation: Indigenous American Poetry in the 21st Century," a symposium hosted at New York City's...
Instructional Video5:03
Poetry Foundation

The Printers' Ball on Chic-A-Go-Go 2

6th - 11th
Ratso meets printer Joseph Lappie. Joseph uses letterpresses to spell anything. He uses furniture to print! And computers! Chic-A-Go-Go: Show #679.
Instructional Video7:36
Poetry Foundation

Forever -- is composed of Nows --

6th - 11th
How poet Emily Dickinson continues to inspire.
Instructional Video3:00
Poetry Foundation

The Printers' Ball on Chic-A-Go-Go 4

6th - 11th
Ratso meets silk screen printer David Jones from Anchor Graphics. David is making Fidel Castro posters! He uses goopy emulsion. So where's the silk?
Instructional Video5:43
Poetry Foundation

The Printers' Ball on Chic-A-Go-Go 5

6th - 11th
Ratso meets paper maker Jen Thomas. Jen is making paper! She swishes around goopy stuff and wiggles it and squishes out water and it comes off as a piece of paper! Chic-A-Go-Go: Show #679.
Instructional Video3:00
Poetry Foundation

The Printers' Ball on Chic-A-Go-Go 3

6th - 11th
Ratso meets new friend Brad Freeman, editor of JAB, and book maker Clif Meador. They're making books with a Heidelberg offset press! Who's Heidelberg? Chic-A-Go-Go: Show #679.
Instructional Video10:42
Poetry Foundation

Favorite Poem Project Chicago: "When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats

6th - 11th
Read by Samantha Kyrkostas and Dr. Charles A. "Dockie" Schlegel