A newly discovered cache of poetry video shorts

We’ve been treasure-hunting online again, and have just come across Poetry Matters Now, where the Lempert Family Foundation is getting into poetry-film in a big way. They are “roaming the big tent of American poetry,” working with “master poets; poets, teachers and critics writing, reading and teaching in our schools and universities; established and emerging ‘slam’ and spoken word artists; hip-hop poets; cowboy poets; and an array of people young and old for whom poetry is a passion,” to create a feature-length documentary that will “present poetry in its abundant diversity, personified.” Along the way Poetry Matters Now is producing a series of shorts — readings, conversations and poet profiles — and putting them up on their Web site. Right now you can watch a 20-minute profile of Gerald Stern, Patricia Smith reading “The Gun” by Stephen Dobyns, Alicia Ostriker talking about the reactions you get when you tell someone you’re a poet, Donald Hall reading his own poetic response to that question, Anne Waldman performing “Manatee/Humanity,” and more...

More poetry videos:
Poetry Everywhere Videos All Over the Place
Fun with Poetry Cartoons
Wordsworth’s Daffodils Spring Up on YouTube
“Fragile” - Shakespeare’s Sonnet 65 is a poetry film single
Our library of links to video poetry