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endorsed the integration and expansion of my public-facing humanities work within the Derek Bok
Center for Teaching and Learning. As a Bok Fellow this year, and alongside Bok director Rob Lue in
the years to come, I will be working to substantially expand Bok’s capacity and resources to train
humanists in 21st-century methods of public engagement-- developing courses, digital fellowship
opportunities and also securing distribution outlets and partners for content produced in Bok by
Harvard humanists. By next year at this time, I will be turning some of my attention beyond poetry (my
favorite, but hardly the only humanistic mode of communication!) to create a wider base of
humanities materials for use in American schools and other institutions. We will begin integrating and
anchoring Poetry in America content (on art, sport and play; on the environment; and on health and
well being) with content created by others. As I continue to experiment with use of digital media
within my residential courses for undergraduates and graduates, I shall also be working with other
faculty and graduate students. My work at Bok will also facilitate collaborations between humanists
working across the whole university. Projects for 2017 include work with HarvardX on drama and
Shakespeare, with Harvard’s Center for the Environment, with the Arts and Humanities Initiative at
Harvard Medical School, and with several programs within Harvard’s Graduate School of Education.

Launching in 2017: Our First Course Designed Specifically for Teachers
Verse Video Education has allocated much of its staff time this year to bringing its first course
designed specifically to support the American secondary classroom to completion. Poetry in America
for Teachers: The City from Whitman to Hip Hop draws on assets created at HarvardX, along with
footage captured with our TV partners and independently by Verse Video Education. The resulting
course, designed for English, Social Studies, and Arts teachers, as well as for librarians,
administrators and others, provides deep content instruction as well as pedagogical training.
Common Core aligned, this course, the first of its kind, is now open for enrollment, and will launch
January 23rd. We are currently discussing group enrollments with major educational systems and
reformers across the nation, and we are also raising scholarship funds for strapped enrollees. Over
time, we hope to play a leading role in improving literacy and in strengthening the humanities across
the American educational landscape.

Airing Nationwide in 2018: Poetry in America, The Television Series
In May 2016, Verse Video Education was asked by WGBH and American Public Television to expand
its television series in development from 8 to 13 episodes, listed below.

The following episodes are entering post-production:

On Edward Hirsch’s “Fast Break”: Shaquille O’Neal, Pau Gasol, Shane Battier, Edward Hirsch,
and an on-court pick-up basketball chorus filmed at Success Academy Charter School; On W.H.
Auden’s “Musee Des Beaux Arts”: Ambassador Samantha Power, David Brooks, Peter Sacks; On
Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”: Vice President Joe Biden, Elizabeth Alexander, Angela
Duckworth, Kevin Young, and a chorus of fathers and sons; On Carl Sandburg’s “Skyscraper”:
Frank Gehry, Robert Polito, and a chorus of Young Student Poets; On Nas’s “New York State of
Mind”: Nas, Russell Simmons, Salamishah Tillet, Steve Stoute, and a chorus of hip hop heads; On
Galway Kinnell’s “The Grey Heron”: E.O. Wilson, Robert Hass, Laura McPhee; On Gwendolyn
Brooks’s “To Prisoners”: Anna Deavere Smith, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Li-Young Lee and a
chorus of exonerees from the Innocence Project; On William Carlos Williams’s “This Is Just To
Say”: Woody Allen, Jane Hirshfield, Rafael Campo and a chorus of couples young and old; On
Langston Hughes’s “Harlem”: President Bill Clinton, Herbie Hancock, Sonia Sanchez and a chorus
of children from Promise Academy; On Allen Ginsberg’s Hymmnn from “Kaddish” and “Hum
Bom”: Bono, Juan Felipe Herrera and a chorus of clergy.

The production of the following episodes will wrap early 2017:

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