Skip to main content
Access to this video is a benefit for members through

Up Next

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus

Season 1 Episode 12
25:27
Urban Love Poem, by Marilyn Chin

Urban Love Poem, by Marilyn Chin

Season 2 Episode 1
26:46
One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

One Art, by Elizabeth Bishop

Season 2 Episode 2
26:46
The Fish, by Marianne Moore

The Fish, by Marianne Moore

Season 2 Episode 3
26:46
This Your Home Now, by Mark Doty

This Your Home Now, by Mark Doty

Season 2 Episode 4
26:46
Finishing the Hat, by Stephen Sondheim

Finishing the Hat, by Stephen Sondheim

Season 2 Episode 5
26:46
Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Season 2 Episode 8
26:46
The Wound-Dresser, by Walt Whitman

The Wound-Dresser, by Walt Whitman

Season 3 Episode 1
25:11
Cascadilla Falls, by A. R. Ammons

Cascadilla Falls, by A. R. Ammons

Season 3 Episode 3
25:21
Back to Show
Poetry in America

N.Y. State of Mind by Nas

Season 1 Episode 11

Learn alongside host Elisa New as Nas, music executive Steve Stoute, scholar Salamishah Tillet, and a chorus of hip hop heads, rappers, and fans break down the breakbeats and rhymes–and explore the searing vision–of Nas’s iconic track “N.Y. State of Mind.”

Support Provided By
Season
Poetry in America Season 4
Unlock with PBS Passport
24:42
Play hooky with Frank O’Hara’s “Lunch Poems.” Poets and NYC-lovers join host Elisa New.
Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Poet Martín Espada worked manufacturing legal pads, and the job is burned into his memory.
Emperor of Ice Cream, Motive for Metaphor
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:43
Murray Bartlett, Laurie Santos, and more guests join Elisa New to read Wallace Stevens.
Hill Country
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Drive through West Texas with Tracy K. Smith, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and host Elisa New.
July in Washington
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
David Axelrod, Bill Kristol and Andrea Mitchell read Robert Lowell with Elisa New.
Mushrooms, Weakness and Doubt
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Consider the poetics, and politics, of fungi with poems by Sylvia Plath and Kay Ryan.
Six Years Later, Epitaph for a Centaur
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Read the elegiac poetry of Joseph Brodsky, a Cold War Russian exile, with host Elisa New.
Poetry in America Season 4
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Poems by Wheatley with Amanda Gorman, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Richard Blanco, and more.
Sonnet IV; I shall forget you presently, my dear, by Millay
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:41
Leslie Jamison, Olivia Gatwood, & more read a sonnet by Millay with host Elisa New.
Two poems, by Linda Hogan and Alberto Ríos
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:14
Linda Hogan & Alberto Ríos explore their poems with host Elisa New, Jeff Corwin & more.
Poems about Motherhood by Sharon Olds and Bernadette Mayer
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:38
Elisa New, Emily Oster, Sharon Olds, & Bernadette Mayer explore poems on motherhood.
Mending Wall, by Robert Frost
Unlock with PBS Passport
25:21
Caroline Kennedy, Tracy K. Smith & more read Robert Frost’s “Mending Wall” with Elisa New.
Active loading indicator