Poetry on television
PBS’ “NewsHour” will launch a new arts segment Thursday featuring U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey and PBS senior correspondent Jeffrey Brown. It will appear at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on GPB and 7 p.m. on WPBA; upcoming installments are to be announced.
Earlier this summer, in the middle of her two-term appointment as United States poet laureate consultant in poetry, Emory University professor Natasha Trethewey read an essay in a prominent national magazine proclaiming contemporary poets useless and their poetry dead.
The Harper’s magazine essay, written by a noted critic, caused something of a stir in literary circles. It might have rattled Trethewey if it weren’t for the fact that she knew such accusations have been leveled at “contemporary” poets and the genre for the past 100 years.
Which makes the new segment she is doing for PBS’ “NewsHour” with senior correspondent Jeffrey Brown all the more — if not a response — certainly a testament to the importance of contemporary poetry in everyday lives. Premiering Thursday at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on GPB and 7 p.m. on WPBA, the segment is one in a series of six. Though the series is yet untitled, its mission is focused.
“The death of poetry,” Trethewey said Tuesday. “It’s the same old news that people think poetry doesn’t matter any more or that it isn’t important. I wanted to show where poetry lives in America, how it thrives and how people are using poetry in their everyday lives to deal with societal issues they are facing.”
Those issues — including incarceration, Alzheimer’s disease, natural disasters, domestic violence, inner-city public education and the struggle of war veterans — all dovetail with pieces of Trethewey’s own family history. It is a history that has undergirded her Pulitzer Prize-winning verse, as well as her prose.
Traditionally, the national poet laureate creates a program to promote poetry. During Trethewey’s first 9-month term she kept a vigorous schedule at the Library of Congress meeting the public and holding readings, giving her very little time to work on an upcoming memoir. With her second term, which began this month, Trethewey found a home for her laureate project with “NewsHour,” which has long included poetry as part of its arts coverage.
Brown said the partnership with Trethewey seemed a natural fit and the idea of covering poetry in such a ground-level way felt fresh. For example, the first segment is a visit to a program in Brooklyn, N.Y., where pre-schoolers learn poetry and then work with Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, teaching them some of the same poems.
“There are several ways you can cover Alzheimer’s; the rise in the number of people with dementia — the caregiver aspect, the science of it — but this was a different approach,” Brown said.
Brown still serves as the host of each 6- to 8-minute segment. Trethewey’s role in the segments will be as a participant, not teaching poetry to the groups they visit, but observing as others create, talking with them as they try to find the right words to express their thoughts in verse. Occasionally, she will read a poem, not always hers.
“To know that poetry helps people with issues of memory loss in unique and powerful ways, I have to tell you, Natasha and I both talked about wanting to cry after seeing it,” said Rob Casper, head of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress, who was present for filming.
The next segment, which has not yet been taped, will originate from Detroit and feature a special poetry program for youths. Their public school system is struggling, as is their city. But the act of creating poetry is in and of itself a sign of strength, hope and endurance, Trethewey said.
“I feel like I’ve seen evidence again and again,” she said. “We’re all in a community where people turn to poetry in some way. I hope our segments show that.”
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