Series: Poetry Breaks
Program: Poetry Breaks I, Sharon Olds
Date: 1988-01-01
Subject: Oral interpretation of poetry; Readings
Copyright Holder: Leita Hagemann Luchetti and WGBH Educational Foundation

Clip Description
Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco, California. She was educated at Stanford University and Columbia University. Her first book, Satan Says (1980), received the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award. Her second, The Dead and the Living, was the Lamont Poetry Selection in 1983 and a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Father (1992) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize in England. Sharon Olds teaches poetry workshops in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University and helps run the N.Y.U. workshop program at Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York. Her latest book is Wellspring (1996).

Sharon Olds introduces and reads her poems in various settings at her Martha's Vineyard retreat. The following poems were edited for broadcast and general distribution, and appear on the master tapes with and without the "Poetry Breaks" logo and copyright:

"The Race"
"The Missing Boy"
"Summer Solstice, New York City"
"The One Girl at the Boys' Party"
"I Go Back to May, 1937"
"Bathing the New Born"
"My Son and the Water Shortage"
"Alcatraz"

Multiple takes of these poems and the following appear on the source tapes of original footage:
"Topography"
"The Victims"
"The Injury Six Weeks Later"
"True Love"
"My Father Snoring"

Produced and directed by Leita Hagemann Luchetti.

"Poetry Breaks," conceived by Leita Hagemann Luchetti and co-produced by Luchetti and WGBH New Television Workshop, is an ongoing series of over 100 thirty-second to four-minute spots presenting internationally known poets reading their work on location. These have aired individually on WGBH and public television stations across the country. The Workshop collaborated with Luchetti until its closing in 1993, at which point the works became co-productions of Luchetti and the larger WGBH Foundation.

"Poetry Breaks II," produced from 1991-1994, began airing on WGBH-TV in 1994, and was also broadcast by dozens of other public television stations throughout the country starting in 1994. Between 1995 and 1997, three new poets were taped for Poetry Breaks III.

Program Description
Sharon Olds was born in 1942 in San Francisco, California. She was educated at Stanford University and Columbia University. Her first book, Satan Says (1980), received the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award. Her second, The Dead and the Living, was the Lamont Poetry Selection in 1983 and a winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Father (1992) was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize in England. Sharon Olds teaches poetry workshops in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University and helps run the N.Y.U. workshop program at Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York. Her latest book is Wellspring (1996).

Sharon Olds introduces and reads her poems in various settings at her Martha's Vineyard retreat. The following poems were edited for broadcast and general distribution, and appear on the master tapes with and without the "Poetry Breaks" logo and copyright:

"The Race"
"The Missing Boy"
"Summer Solstice, New York City"
"The One Girl at the Boys' Party"
"I Go Back to May, 1937"
"Bathing the New Born"
"My Son and the Water Shortage"
"Alcatraz"

Multiple takes of these poems and the following appear on the source tapes of original footage:
"Topography"
"The Victims"
"The Injury Six Weeks Later"
"True Love"
"My Father Snoring"

Produced and directed by Leita Hagemann Luchetti.

"Poetry Breaks," conceived by Leita Hagemann Luchetti and co-produced by Luchetti and WGBH New Television Workshop, is an ongoing series of over 100 thirty-second to four-minute spots presenting internationally known poets reading their work on location. These have aired individually on WGBH and public television stations across the country. The Workshop collaborated with Luchetti until its closing in 1993, at which point the works became co-productions of Luchetti and the larger WGBH Foundation.

"Poetry Breaks II," produced from 1991-1994, began airing on WGBH-TV in 1994, and was also broadcast by dozens of other public television stations throughout the country starting in 1994. Between 1995 and 1997, three new poets were taped for Poetry Breaks III.

Series Description
The New Television Workshop originated at WGBH, a public broadcasting station in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1974 to support the creation and development of experimental video art. This experimental programming included dance, drama, music, performance and visual arts on video and film. As early as 1968, WGBH was committed to the development of video art through residency programs, with artists such as Nam June Paik, and the "Rockefeller Artists-in-Television" project. Many of these early works (pre-1974) were broadcast both locally and nationally.

As an umbrella for arts related programming, the Workshop included "Artist's Showcase, " "Frames of Reference, " "Dance for Camera, " "Poetry Breaks," and "New Television," as well as acquired arts programming. Individual works were created for "Visions," a series produced by WNET (New York), and "Alive From Off Center," a series produced by KTCA (St. Paul - Minneapolis). The Contemporary Art Television (CAT) Fund was co-founded by the Workshop and Boston's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the 1980's, to commission works by video artists. In 1993 the Workshop ceased production at WGBH.

See also: http://main.wgbh.org/wgbh/NTW/FA/TITLES/Poetry71.HTML