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Poetry in America

Phillis Wheatley: To the University

Season 4 Episode 1 | 25m 21s

In 1770s Boston, Phillis Wheatley was at the same time enslaved and an international celebrity: a writer who mastered the most persuasive rhetoric of the day to publish enduring arguments about freedom. Inaugural poets Amanda Gorman and Richard Blanco, writer Clint Smith, and scholars Glenda Carpio and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. join host Elisa New to read two of Wheatley’s poems for public occasions.

Aired: 03/31/24 | Expires: 04/29/24
Support for Poetry in America is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dalio Family Fund, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Deborah Hayes Stone and Max Stone, Nancy Zimmerman and Walmart. Seasons 4 & 3 are distributed to PBS stations nationwide by PBS Plus, with Seasons 1 & 2 distributed nationally by American Public Television.
Extras
Watch • 0:30
Poetry in America
Season 4 Preview
Performers, politicians, preachers and more join Elisa New to celebrate American poems.
Preview: S4 | 0:30
Watch • 25:41
Poetry in America
Sonnet IV; I shall forget you presently, my dear, by Millay
Leslie Jamison, Olivia Gatwood, & more read a sonnet by Millay with host Elisa New.
Episode: S3 E8 | 25:41
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