Branching Out: Poetry for the 21st Century

Branching Out is a program created by Poets House and the Poetry Society of America. It is funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The two organizations partner with the public libraries in each of seven cities, Hartford, Jacksonville, Fresno, Little Rock, Milwaukee, New Orleans and Salt Lake City, to present accessible, engaging talks by distinguished poet/scholars about celebrated modern and classic poets. In in most of these cities, Poetry in Motion ® posters featuring poems by the presenting and presented poets appear throughout the transportation systems.

Previous Discussions:

Hettie Jones on Beat Poets

Hettie Jones

Hettie Jones, a poet and prose writer, is the author of How I Became Hettie Jones, a memoir of the "beat scene" of the fifties and sixties; short prose published in journals such as The Village Voice and Ploughshares,; and numerous books for children and young adults, including an ALA Notable, The Trees Stand Shining, and Big Star Fallin' Mama (Five Women In Black Music), selected at its publication by the New York Public Library as one of the twenty best new books for young adults.

In 1998 Jones's poetry collection, Drive, was issued by Hanging Loose Press. Hailed as the work of a "potent and fearless poet," Drive won the Poetry Society of America's 1999 Norma Farber First Book Award. Jones's second collection, All Told, was published in 2003, and was praised for its "knowing urban wit." A third collection, Doing 70, has just appeared.

Currently on the faculties of the Graduate Writing Program of The New School and the 92nd Street Y Poetry Center in New York, Jones is the former Chair of the PEN Prison Writing Committee, She led a writing workshop at the New York State Correctional Facility for Women at Bedford Hills from 1989-2002 and published a nationally distributed collection of her students' works, Aliens at the Border. From 1994-1996, she was a member of the Literature Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts, and she currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cave Canem, an organization that supports young African American poets.

In 1958, Hettie (nee Cohen) married the as-yet-unpublished poet LeRoi Jones (now Amiri Baraka). They co-edited the influential literary magazine, Yugen, and were at the "hot center" of the Beat bohemia. It is this story that is told in How I Became Hettie Jones, a New York Times Notable Book, which has been called "a lively, candid account" that is "always insightful and frequently amusing," and a book "every American ought to read."

Hettie Jones lives in Manhattan's East Village, where she is currently working on Love, H., a book of letters; a story collection titled At the Intersection; and a screenplay of her memoir.

Molly Peacock on Edna St. Vincent Millay

Molly Peacock

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Molly Peacock is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently, The Rest of Love (2004), Rock Harbor (2002), and The Tether (2001), winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He has also translated Sophocles's Philoctetes (2003) and written a book of prose, Coin of the Realm: Essays on the Life and Art of Poetry (2004). His honors include the Morse Poetry Prize, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Academy of American Poets Prize, and fellowships from the Library of Congress and the Guggenheim Foundation. Phillips teaches at Washington University in St. Louis, where he is Professor of English and of African and Afro-American Studies.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Molly Peacock, a poet and a creative non-fiction writer, is the author of five books of poetry, including Cornucopia: New and Selected Poems. Among her other works are How to Read a Poem and Start a Poetry Circle, and a memoir, Paradise, Piece by Piece. She is the editor of a collection of creative non-fiction, The Private I: Privacy in a Public World and a co-editor of Poetry in Motion: One Hundred Poems from the Subways and Buses.

Peacock's latest project is a one-woman staged monologue in poems, "The Shimmering Verge," produced by Femme Fatale Productions, which she is performing in theaters throughout North America.

She conducts quarterly poetry circles on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth with Jean Feraca and has read her poetry at the Library of Congress, the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, and Harbourfront (Toronto) as well as at numerous colleges, universities, and libraries. Currently, she is exploring the way in which young adults connect to poetry, through her work with the College Boards and Advanced Placement English.

A transplanted New Yorker, Peacock now lives with her husband, a James Joyce scholar, in Toronto. Born in Buffalo, New York, she received a B.A. magna cum laude from Harpur College (SUNY Binghamton) and an M.A. with honors from The Writing Seminars at The Johns Hopkins University.

Among her awards are Danforth Foundation, Ingram Merrill Foundation, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and New York State Council on Arts Fellowships. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, The New Republic, The Paris Review, as well as The Best of the Best American Poetry. Her poems, "The Lull," "Next Afternoon," and "Buffalo" are included in The Oxford Book of American Poetry, edited by David Lehman (2006.)

Former Poet-in-Residence at the American Poets's Corner at Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City and former President of the Poetry Society of America,

E. Ethelbert Miller Presenting on Langston Hughes: "Dancing with the Dreamer"

E. Ethelbert Miller

E. Ethelbert Miller is an award-winning poet, author and editor. He is the board chairperson of the Institute for Policy Studies and is the former chair of the Humanities Council of Washington DC. He is a core faculty member of the Bennington Writing Seminars at Bennington College. He has been the director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University since 1974. His awards include the Columbia Merit Award and the O.B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize. In 2004, Mr. Miller was awarded a Fulbright to visit Israel.

Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967)

An American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and newspaper columnist. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.

Edward Hirsch Presenting on Federico Garcia Lorca: "Lorca: A Poet in New York"

Edward Hirsch

Edward Hirsch is a prolific author and editor, as well as an award-winning poet and scholar. He has received the Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Literature, and a MacArthur Fellowship. A former professor at the University of Houston, he is now the fourth president of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Federico
Garcia Lorca

Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936)

A Spanish poet and dramatist, also remembered as a painter, pianist, and composer. An emblematic member of the Generation of '27, he was killed by Nationalist partisans at the age of 38 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.

For a list of works by and about Federico García Lorca in the Library's collection, click here.

This program brought to you in part by these organizations: