Arizona PBS will present Season 4 of Poetry in America
“All of us at Arizona PBS are excited to join the Poetry in America team in its ongoing effort to spread enthusiasm for an art form that inspires humanity and reveals important truths about the human experience,” said Scott Woelfel, General Manager of Arizona PBS. “This presenting station partnership is a natural fit for the vision, mission, and future of Arizona PBS. By leveraging the tools and resources at our disposal as part of Arizona State University (ASU), we’ll be able to help Poetry in America continue to grow its national television audience and advance their inspiring educational work.”
Poetry in America is thrilled about this partnership, which will support both our television show and our related set of educational programs. ASU has been home to the fast-growing Poetry in America for High Schools program since 2020, and this work with Arizona PBS is a natural extension of that existing collaboration.
“I could not be more excited to be forging this partnership with Arizona PBS and to benefit from the creativity and dynamism of its leadership, and, indeed, of the leaders across the university who strive each day to broaden access to educational opportunities,” said Elisa New, Founder and Director of Poetry in America and Professor of Practice at Arizona State University. “I created Poetry in America to demonstrate the power of the humanities: to instruct, to entertain, to inspire, and to motivate human growth.”
In partnership with ASU Learning Enterprise, Poetry in America courses at ASU have served more than 5,000 learners across the U.S. and around the world—the vast majority of whom are high school students—since 2020. Our Poetry in America for High Schools dual enrollment program provides students from the National Education Equity Lab’s network of Title I high schools with the opportunity to earn college credit at no cost to their families. Other programs in development at ASU include a set of cross-disciplinary learning experiences in the Health Humanities—a burgeoning field with the potential to capture diverse perspectives on Americans’ experience with their bodies, their minds, and the healthcare system—geared toward a range of audiences, from high-schoolers to medical practitioners.
“Arizona State University is proud to be the home of Poetry in America and its related courses and programs,” said Michael Crow, President of ASU. “This partnership exemplifies our focus on scaling access to educational opportunities in the humanities, disciplines which have, historically, been challenging to teach at scale.”
Poetry in America looks forward to continuing its work with ASU in Arizona and beyond. Season 4 of Poetry in America premieres this April for National Poetry Month, with poems by Phillis Wheatley, Robert Lowell, Tracy K. Smith, Sylvia Plath, Martín Espada, Joseph Brodsky, and more.