Poetry in America - Episode Guide

"I cannot dance upon my toes" by Emily Dickinson, featuring Cynthia Nixon, Marie Howe, Yo Yo Ma, Jill Johnson

"Fast Break" by Edward Hirsch, featuring Shaquille O'Neal, Edward Hirsch, Shane Battier, Pau Gasol, and a chorus of pick-up basketball players

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, featuring Vice President Joe Biden, Elizabeth Alexander, Angela Duckworth, and a chorus of working fathers and sons

"Hymmnn" and "Hum Bom" by Allen Ginsberg, featuring Bono, Juan Felipe Herrera, and a chorus of religious chant practitioners

"Skyscraper" by Carl Sandburg, featuring Frank Gehry, Robert Polito, Zhang Xin, and a chorus of National Student Poets

"Harlem" by Langston Hughes, featuring Herbie Hancock, Bill Clinton, Sonia Sanchez, and a chorus of kids at the Harlem Children's Zone

"Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden, featuring Samantha Power, Peter Sacks, David Brooks

"Shirt" by Robert Pinsky, featuring Stuart Weitzman, Robert Pinsky, Betty Halbreich, Johnson Hartig, and students at Parsons School of Design

"To Prisoners" by Gwendolyn Brooks, featuring Anna Deveare Smith, John McCain, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Li-Young Lee, and Innocence Project Exonerees

"The Gray Heron" by Galway Kinnell, featuring E.O. Wilson, Robert Hass, Laura McPhee, and young naturalists at the Massachusetts Audubon Society

"New York State of Mind" by Nas, featuring Nas, Steve Stoute, Ben Horowitz, Salamishah Tillet, and a chorus of hip hop heads

"The New Colossus" by Emma Lazarus, featuring Regina Spector, Duy Doan, Randi Weingarten, David Rubenstein, and Cristina Jimenez.

Explore San Francisco's history, from the Gold Rush and early Chinese immigration to the rise of Silicon Valley, through Marilyn Chin's poem of her San Francisco youth. Guests include Maxine Hong Kingston, Randy Komisar and local residents.

Guests including Katie Couric, Sheryl Sandberg, Yang Lan, Mary Chapin Carpenter and others discuss Elizabeth Bishop's masterpiece on losses, great and small.

An exploration of Marianne Moore's great poem of marine life. Guests Al Gore, Jorie Graham, and scientists from Conservation International dive into her portrayal of the ocean's always-changing history, and its future in a warming world.

Elisa New talks with Mark Doty, Steven Pinker, Bill T. Jones, Simon Doonan and Jonathan Adler about "This Your Home Now," where a visit to the barber shop sparks a meditation on love, the AIDS crisis, and the satisfactions of getting older.

Stephen Sondheim is widely hailed as the greatest modern American musical theater composer. Elisa New speaks with Broadway stage actors and Adam Gopnik to explore Sondheim's singular ability to blend lyrics and music.

Yusef Komunyakaa went to Vietnam as a journalist but came home a poet. John Kerry, Julie Taymor, Elliot Goldenthal, a chorus of veterans and Komunyakaa himself discuss the beauty and horror of war – and the challenge of making art of it.

Join John Hodgman, Rafael Campo, Jane Hirshfield, a chorus of couples and host Elisa New as they consider what may or may not lie beneath the surface of William Carlos Williams's brief tribute to marital relations.

Join host Elisa New to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Walt Whitman's birth. Guests Elena Kagan, Tony Kushner, Mark Doty, Marilyn Chin, and a group of National Student Poets discuss Whitman's powerful and timeless work.