What is Poetry in America?

Poetry in America is a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC). 

Stop with Walt Whitman in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge. Study Gwendolyn Brooks on the South Side of Chicago. Contemplate Ralph Waldo Emerson in conversation with Vice President Al Gore, or in the setting of his Concord, Massachusetts. Dive into the poetry of Adrienne Rich alongside Eve Ensler. Join Herbie Hancock, President Bill Clinton, Sonia Sanchez, and students from the Harlem Children’s Zone as they discuss Langston Hughes.

Led by Harvard Professor Elisa New, Poetry in America surveys nearly 400 years of American poetry. Through video lectures, archival images and texts, expeditions to historic sites, interpretive seminars with large and small groups, interviews with poets and scholars, and conversations about poems with distinguished Americans, Poetry in America embarks on a journey through the literature of a nation.

Nine modules are underway through HarvardX, Harvard’s online education initiative. Partnerships with WGBH and David Grubin Productions, The Aspen Institute, The Poetry Foundation, Rap Genius, Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, and The Nantucket Project are currently taking shape.

(description from poetryinamerica.org)

What else is in store?

In addition to the interactive MOOC, “Poetry in America” is also taking form as a TV show and a series of professional development tools.