Guide to Poetry & Literature Webcasts

General Sites

American Poet Greats Lecture Series

Coordinated by The Museum of American Poetics, The American Poet Greats Lecture Series provides archived videos of "talks by poets speaking about the lives and works of other poets or poetry movements they feel passionately about or influenced by in their own writing visions." Videos available through the 1999-2000 season; other videos not currently working.

American Writers Video Archives

Online video archive for C-SPAN's 2002 television series American Writers: A Journey Through History. Videos include writers who have had a significant impact on American literary history from America's founding through the Vietnam War.

Arizona State University Department of English Web Video Page

Videos include poetry and fiction readings as well as lectures on diverse literary topics.

Best Minds Poetry Series

An exhibit of The Museum of American Poetics. Featured poets include Joy Harjo, Gary Snyder, Amiri Baraka, and Anne Waldman.

Book Look Television

Inlcudes dozens of author interviews from the television show Connie Martinson Talks Books.

Book TV on C-SPAN2

Selected programs from C-SPAN2's Book TV series. Emphasis is on non-fiction books and authors, though programs related to fiction and literature often are broadcast. Videos are archived for two months after a program's first television broadcast.

Booknotes.org

View archived videos from C-SPAN's author interview program Booknotes.

Favorite Poem Project

A collection of 50 short video documentaries that showcases individual Americans reading and speaking personally about poems they love.

Fooling with Words with Bill Moyers

View video clips from PBS'stwo-hour special Fooling with Words with Billy Moyers (1999), which documents the 1998 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. Clips are arranged alphabetically by poet's last name.

Kelly Writers House Webcasts

Archive of webcasts recorded at the University of Pennsylvania's Kelly Writers House, a center for writers from the Philadelphia area.

Meet the Writers: Exclusive Video Interviews

Watch video interviews with featured authors through the Barnes & Noble website.

Monroe County College's National Poetry Month 2003 Video Project

A collection of videos created as part of MCC's 2003 National Poetry Month activites. Participants were asked to complete the line "Words Work..." and then read the poem that best illustrates their response.

Online NewsHour Video Search

Search for online videos of your favorite writers taped as part of PBS's nightly newscast, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Literature-related videos can be located using keyword searches and by selecting the category Poems. The video archive includes programs broadcast after February 7, 2002. In 2006, the NewsHour Poetry Series launched; its website offers recent videos of poetry-related programs and stories.

Poem Present

The University of Chicago's Poem Present Reading and Lecture series, established in 2001, "has been bringing distinguished contemporary poets to The University of Chicago to read from their work as well as to speak on topics in contemporary poetry of interest to them." The online archive includes audio and video of poets beginning with the 2003-2004 season.

Poetry Everywhere

Produced by WGBH and David Grubin Productions, Poetry Everywhere provides online access to fifteen videos of poems being read, most by their original authors.

Poetry Foundation Video Series

Links to video series sponsored or produced by the Poetry Foundation. Includes NewsHour Poetry Series, Poetry Everywhere, Classical Baby (I'm Grown Up Now): The Poetry Show, and Poetry Documentaries.

Poetry Matters Now

A Lempert Family Foundation project which allows users to view readings, conversations, and profiles of American poets, including a twenty minute documentary of Gerald Stern.

Research Channel

"ResearchChannel is a consortium of research universities and corporate research divisions dedicated to broadening the access to and appreciation of our individual and collective activities, ideas, and opportunities in basic and applied research." Webcasts are offered on an array of subjects, including literature, and can be found using multiple search options.

Theatre in Video

"Contains more than 100 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, together with more than 60 film documentaries, online in streaming video - more than 250 hours in all." From Alexander Street Press.

UC Berkeley Lunch Poems Series

Lunch Poems is a noontime poetry reading series under the direction of UC Berkeley professor Robert Hass. Videos are available beginning with the 2002 series.

UCTV - University of California Television

        UCTV was "launched by the University of California to provide the public with informational, educational and         enrichment programming that draws upon the vast intellectual, scientific and creative talents of the University of         California." UCTV's online video archive includes faculty lectures on writers, authors discussing and reading their         work, and artistic performances recreating the lives of famous writers. UCTV also maintains a YouTube channel.

Videos on Modern Literature and Philosophy (from The Roland Collection of Films & Videos Online)

Includes three main online video collections: Writers Talk: Ideas of Our Time, a collection of 106 videos which feature a writer talking with another writer or critic; Writers on Writing: Creative Writing Course, a six-part creative writing course designed for English teachers and students over fifteen; and Spirit of Freedom, a four-part documentary by Bernard-Henri Lévy that explores twentieth-century history and the part played by writers and artists. Access to complete videos requires subscription, though short clips are usually available for free.

Voices & Visions

View video clips from the Voices & Visions video series, which explores the lives and works of 13 of America's most famous modern poets.

WGBH Forum Network Webcasts

Webcasts of free public lectures from venues around Greater Boston. See in particular the sections on literature, poetry, and theater.

Video Search Engines and Web Sites

Recently, several search engines and Web sites have created large video databases to which anyone can contribute by uploading their own videos. These resources may eventually make thousands of poetry-related videos available to users through keyword searches, the majority of them productions of the general public and thus indicative of poetry's place in modern culture. Several major video search engines and sites currently available are:

Google Video
Search for Video
Yahoo! Video
YouTube