Series: Poetry Breaks
Program: Poetry Breaks for Schools and Libraries: Lucille Clifton
Date: 1993-01-01
Duration: 00:01:21

Subject: Writing; Clifton, Lucille
People: Clifton, Lucille
Copyright Holder: Leita Luchetti

Clip Description
Emmy award-winning poet, Lucille Clifton, answers questions that students might typically ask a poet. The questions are:
When did I start writing?
When did I know I wanted to be a poet?
Where do I get ideas?
What do I write with?
What is poetry anyway?

Program Description
Lucille Clifton was born in Depaw, New York, in 1936, and educated at the State University of New York at Fredonia and at Howard University. She is the only author to have two books of poetry chosen as finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in one year: Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969-1980 and Next: New Poems. These were followed by Quilting Poems 1987-1990 and The Book of Light. Her awards include the Juniper Prize for Poetry, an Emmy Award from the American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz and American University in Washington, D.C. and is presently Distinguished Professor of Humanities at St. Mary's College of Maryland.

This is one of three works designed for use in high schools. The tape features Lucille Clifton reading the following poems:

"This Morning"
"Turning"
"In the inner city..."
"Homage to My Hips"
"The thirty eighth year..."
Clifton introduces and comments on each work.

"Since you asked..," with Lucille Clifton In a section entitled "Since You Asked," she answers the following questions:
When did you start writing?
What is a poet's life like?
What is poetry anyway?
Where do your ideas come from?

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/Poetry397.HTML