Arts Blog

20 Years After the Fall, Nostalgia Builds for East German Design

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:27:39 -0500

Nostalgia for the East -- or _ostalgie_, a portmanteau combining the words _ost_ ('east') and _nostalgie_ ('nostalgia') -- has taken hold in contemporary, unified Germany. A symbol of the former East Germany, the Trabant used to be the German Democratic Republic's most popular car. But production ceased in 1991, two years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today, 20 years after the reunification, drivers will now ferry you around the city in one of the plastic-sheathed relics, in a kind of safari-style homage to pre-1989 culture. Trabants -- along with Spee dish soap, Vita Cola, and even the little figure on traffic lights known as the Ampelmann -- have reappeared in recent years, hearkening back to an era that most agree flopped politically, but still resonates with a generation of Germans disenchanted with what they view as some of the failed promises of German reunification. "Two years after the _Wende_, or the 'turning point' in 1989, these East Germans started to feel a bit of disillusionment with the effects of reunification," explains historian and German consumer culture expert Prof. Katherine Pence. "They had had secure jobs under the socialist regime and now they had to struggle in a very competitive marketplace." A scholar at Baruch College at the City University of New York, Pence sat down with Art Beat to discuss the particularities of East German design and culture, and how the products of the past continue to play a role in contemporary Germany.

Preview: 'Ancient Paths, Modern Voices'

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:16:34 -0500

Coming soon on the NewsHour, Jeffrey Brown will have a report on "'Ancient Paths, Modern Voices: A Festival Celebrating Chinese Culture,'":http://www.carnegiehall.org/chinafestival/ a festival currently taking place at Carnegie Hall in New York. The festival features Chinese musicians, including artists and ensembles traveling outside of China for the first time. Jeffrey Brown's report will include a profile of "Wu Man":http://www.wumanpipa.org/, one of the world's leading musical ambassadors and a master of the pipa -- a four-stringed lute with ancient roots in central Asia and China. Below is part of Jeffrey Brown's interview with Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall's executive director, who oversaw the festival:

Conversation: Jonathan Lethem

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:17:14 -0500

Chase Insteadman is a former child TV-star, now fiance of an astronaut stranded in space. Perkus Tooth is a forgotten culture critic with a deep sense of paranoia. These two and friends travel through a Manhattan that is both very recognizable -- from the billionaire mayor to the burgers at a local diner -- while also surreal. Among other things, an escaped tiger is on the loose and part of the city is shrouded in a strange fog that won't go away. It's all part of the new novel "Chronic City," the latest from author "Jonathan Lethem":http://www.jonathanlethem.com/, whose other books include "the Fortress of Solitude" and "Motherless Brooklyn," which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

Around the Nation, Friday Roundup

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:50:42 -0500

_Here are some of this week's arts and culture headlines from public broadcasters around the nation:_ - Rocco Landesman, recently-appointed head of the National Endowment of the Arts, starts "a six-month tour of American arts institutions":http://www.arts.gov/artworks/ today. NPR had "this profile":http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114044365&surl=http://whyy.org/artsandculture/index.html&f=module-arts, ahead of his first stop in Peoria, Ill. - After President Obama named appointees to his "Committee on the Arts and Humanities":http://www.pcah.gov/, Minnesota Public Radio's "State of the Arts":http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/ blog "considered":http://minnesota.publicradio.org/collections/special/columns/state-of-the-arts/archive/2009/11/what-is-obamas-policy-on-the-arts.shtml some of Candidate Obama's pledges on arts policy. - If you missed the fifth season of "Art:21":http://www.art21.org/, you can now "watch all four episodes online":http://video.pbs.org/program/1217143847/topic/1217148149, but only until November 13. - Next week "Sesame Street":http://www.sesamestreet.org/ turns 40. Among its many virtues and accomplishments, the show has always been savvy about infusing their energetic, educational programming with "smart, grown-up references":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgvKCfZqxrQ, giving kids an intro to pop and "high culture":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7pGANh3vuU right along with ABC's and 123's. Indeed, it has resembled a veritable Ed Sullivan Show for the under-ten set, featuring many of the biggest names in music performing both their big hits along with their renditions of the alphabet song. Among the many stars to grace Sesame are "Johnny Cash":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M2v-pkSIQY, "Lena Horne":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Y0lJ8ELvI, jazz great "Joe Williams":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho6LgkxgDOM, conductor "Seiji Ozawa":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qd6ObtgyP5w, "Paul Simon":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1dlWmrRstc, "Queen Latifah":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14jRHrs48wE, "Norah Jones":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEzxchU4RUY, "Feist":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ9WiuJPnNA, and of course, "Stevie Wonder":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8lUnI35Sd8, with a sensational, almost-seven minute rendition of "'Superstition'":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE. **Here's Ray Charles, jamming with Bert and Ernie ("I am prepared to wail, Ray!" says Bert):**

Winning Faces in Modern Portraits

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:26:04 -0500

There's a famous myth from Greek antiquity that places the invention of drawing and painting in the hand of a young woman whose lover was about to leave her. To remember him, "she shines a lamp on his face, and traces the shadow it casts upon the wall.":http://www.nga.gov/fcgi-bin/timage_f?object=61396&image=15725&c=gg61 Since that fateful (if apocryphal) first portrait, a primary artistic challenge over the history of human creativity has been how to capture the essence of an individual. Every three years, the "National Portrait Gallery":http://www.npg.si.edu/ in Washington, D.C., holds a contest showcasing the best efforts in the country for this particular craft. Out of 3,300 entries to the "Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition":http://www.portraitcompetition.si.edu/index.html, an exhibition of the top 49 is now on display. In previous contests, only drawings, paintings and sculptures were eligible for consideration, but this year the prize was open to all visual-arts disciplines. "[Click here to watch a slide show of some of the entries.]":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/art/portraits/index.html Dave Woody of Fort Collins, Colo., took the top honor and a $25,000 prize for his photograph, "Laura." The subject of the piece was one of Woody's graduate school classmates at the University of Texas. "I think that digital photography and photography for itself is one more tool. It happens to be the tool that I use. If I could paint like some of the people in the exhibition paint, I would love to," said Woody. "I can be bowled over by the simplest pencil drawing as much as a digital video. I think it is how you use it." Aga Vinson is happy to be a recurring subject of her husband's work. Adam Vinson of Jenkintown, Pa., took home third prize and $5,000 for "Dressy Bessy Takes a Nap." In it, Aga looks away from the viewer, holding a magnifying glass near her chin, with a doll resting on her lap. "For this particular piece, I wanted to bring back some objects I had painted in previous paintings and bring them together," Vinson said. "So the doll was a recurring subject." All of the finalists attended the opening and award ceremony, and many of the artists brought their subjects. Ralph Gabriel Rayfield sat in a wheelchair next to the large painting of himself standing in a hospital room, chest exposed, fresh from surgery following a heart attack. The portrait, titled "Dad," was done by his 22 year-old son, Stanley of Richmond, Va., and was awarded the second place prize worth $7,500. "I'm interested in African American subjects and overall the human condition, so it fits well into it because I'm painting my dad in a vulnerable position," Rayfield said. "It is something about the person." **Listen to an interview with the three winners, Rayfield's parents and Aga Vinson**: Works from the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition are on display through August 22. The museum's next exhibition is "'Portraiture Now: Communities,'":http://www.npg.si.edu/exhibit/exhcommun.html the fifth installment of a series. The National Portrait Gallery invited three painters -- Rose Frantzen, Jim Torok and Rebecca Westcott -- to envision the idea of community in a variety of portraits of friends, neighbors and families from the places they live. That installation runs November 6 to July 5, 2010.

Christie's Art Sale Underwhelms Buyers

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:10:23 -0500

In the first autumn auction held Tuesday evening at Christie's in New York, total sales fell short of pre-sale estimates -- only $65.6 million instead of $68.6 to $97.1 million -- making for a slow start to the U.S. art market season. With only 40 pieces of art on sale, the cautious audience neglected to bid on more "mediocre" pieces, "according to the New York Times":http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/05/arts/05iht-melik5.html, and gravitated more toward Impressionist works than to the modern pieces on sale. Most of the bids came over the phones from overseas bidders, who could afford to spend more on the weak dollar. A painting by French Impressionist Camille Pissarro received only one bid and failed to meet its minimum, going unsold. The most expensive work, Pablo Picasso's "Tete de Femme," expected to sell for at least $7 million. The bids stalled at $6.4 million, and the painting went unsold, as well. "You'd think the good stuff would start coming out again since the recession is ending," New York dealer Jack Tilton told Reuters after the sale, "but the smart people are probably holding onto their art as a hedge against inflation." There was one star of the evening: "Danseuses," a pastel drawing of a young dancer by Edgar Degas, sold for $10.72 million, which exceeded its high estimate by half-a-million dollars. Other pieces sold last night included paintings by Monet and Kandinsky and a bronze sculpture by Rodin, which sold for $6.35 million, much higher than its $2 million estimate. "[Click here to watch a slideshow of the some of the pieces at Christie's Impressionist & Modern Art Sale.]":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/art/christies/

A Mission to Save a Cultural Legacy, One Deli Sandwich at a Time

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:41:48 -0500

Last month, writer and journalist "David Sax":http://www.davidsax.ca/ visited the "Sixth & I Historic Synagogue":http://www.sixthandi.org/ in Washington, D.C., to kibitz about a favorite, salivating subject: the delicatessen. Sax's findings and dispatches on the cured meat business, and what it has meant for changing contemporary Jewish identity, are collected in his first book, "Save the Deli: In Search of Perfect Pastrami, Crusty Rye, and the Heart of the Jewish Delicatessen." A Toronto native now living in Brooklyn, Sax's travels have taken him to delis around North America and across the Atlantic, from Detroit to Los Angeles, Montreal to Brussels. With true immersive journalism zeal, he even landed a one-night gig slicing meats at the legendary "Katz's Deli":http://www.katzdeli.com/ in Manhattan's Lower East Side. He likened the experience to "a minor league ball player being called up to pitch in the bigs." Amid his more amusing anecdotes -- such as how his belt size actually remained intact over the course of his research, despite making up to six trips to different delis every day for three months -- Sax also drives at the more serious issues facing delis in the 21st century. Tracing the downfall of the authentic, ethnic deli, he holds out little hope for its comeback, blaming cultural assimilation and shifting values over the last several decades. Sax explains that with the great influx of Eastern European Jewish immigrants to North America at the turn of the 20th century, people set up delis to honor and serve traditional cuisine, with the expectation that new immigrants would continue to flock to America, hungry for their favorite dishes. But after the devastation of the Holocaust, with whole generations wiped out, the purveyors of the original, ethnic fare did not continue to immigrate. With every subsequent, further Americanized generation, the connection to the tradition becomes weaker. "People have come to fear the foods our parents and grandparents have grown up with," Sax told the audience at the synagogue. "The idea, fifty, sixty more years ago, that you would have fatty meat, this was the greatest pleasure you could have. And now people go to the deli and they say, 'I want the corned beef lean, I don't want a speck of fat on it.' And then they get the sandwich and they say, 'I don't understand why it's dry?'...This is terrible!" Indeed, the terrible truth is even direr: Endangered by health trends and the economic challenges facing family-run businesses "(like the increasing aspirations of immigrant parents for their children)":http://wamu.org/programs/dr/09/09/14.php#27154, explains Sax, classic delis are in shorter and shorter supply. "With assimilation," he said, "the first thing to go is generally language," and then religion, and finally, food. And thus, the title of his book, "Save the Deli," is more than a plea to preserve pastrami on rye, but really a plea to preserve a cultural link to the past. Luckily that night, the cookies and knishes served to the crowd in the synagogue basement were _not_ in short supply, as the author and audience gathered afterward to eat, meet and schmooze. **[Watch a video of the event as the Washington Post's Ezra Klein interviews David Sax on the Jewish deli and diaspora cuisine.]**

Untitled from ryder Haske on Vimeo.

Weekly Poems: a Double From the 'Mets Poet'

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:20:32 -0500

Frank Messina, also known as the "Mets Poet," is the author of four books of poetry, including "Full Count: The Book of Mets Poetry," released in April, and "Disorderly Conduct," published in 2002. His poetry concentrates on larger themes -- love, struggle and war -- but he is best known for poems about baseball fanaticism, particularly for the New York Mets. "Most people don't think of baseball as a typical poetry topic, but it has everything in human nature that makes for great writing," Messina told the "New York Times in a 2007 profile":http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/nyregion/29poet.html. "It has victories and failures and struggles and angst." In time for the World Series, we present two of Messina's poems: **Apology to a Television Set** You have withstood long years of physical and verbal abuse inflicted by my own hands, tossed shoes, beer cans Chinese food containers and there were times I kicked and cursed, hoisted you over my shoulder and tossed you through the window but you came back delivering me good news; how great the team was doing, how it was only a matter of time we'd clinch the division but one night, with my mouth stuffed with beer, pastrami and vulgarity I once again turned on you, hoisted you over my shoulder and tossed you through the window but this time you were taken away by another man who tossed you into the back of a garbage truck, taking you to a place where broken dreams, failed seasons and abused television sets are buried for eternity **New Television Set** You're very lucky! The salesman from Sears bolted you to the wall and said it would take a very strong and angry person to rip you off the hinges, I think you'll be around a while, After all, we are seven games ahead of the Phillies with only seventeen games left to play To learn more about Messina, visit his Web site, "www.spokeface.com":http://www.spokeface.com/.

Burtynsky's 'Oil': Refining Art from the Crude

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:33:41 -0500

Canadian photographer "Edward Burtynsky's":http://www.edwardburtynsky.com/ recently opened exhibition at the "Corcoran Gallery of Art":http://www.corcoran.org/index.php takes a large-scale look at something most of us never see, but use or benefit from nearly everyday of our lives: oil. Burtynsky has spent much of his career exploring the landscapes of modern society, and for more than a decade, has traveled the globe to chronicle the production, distribution and use of oil, the energy source that has shaped how we live. His photographs in "Oil" -- approximately 55 large-scale, color landscapes -- expose veins of production -- aerial views of twisting pipelines, lakes of oil, small cities of steel, tankers and valves. And he is equally interested in where those veins lead -- car races, parking lots, vast expanses of suburban housing. For Burtynsky, whose father worked on General Motors production line, oil is something of a necessary evil. Art Beat talked to Burtynsky and Cocoran curator Paul Roth about the exhibition, which is on view at the museum until Dec. 13, 2009, and is traveling through 2012.

Ben Folds Turns Orchestras Into Rock Bands

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:05:31 -0500

While it might not appear to be the case, musician "Ben Folds":http://www.benfolds.com/ concedes he wasn't entirely comfortable playing the piano in front of an orchestra at first. That's because growing up in North Carolina, playing percussion in orchestras, he never dreamed he'd be the headliner. But several successful albums later, including this year's "Ben Folds Presents: University A Cappella," his latest tour includes a series of performances with some of the nation's leading orchestras. Folds spoke with Jeffrey Brown at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., at the start of the tour: **Watch the full interview below:**

Beloved Sculptor Anne Truitt Gets Her Due

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:47:07 -0500

Anne Truitt was many things -- a sculptor, author, professor and mother -- and above all, it seems, she was beloved by her students and friends for her spirit, integrity and seriousness of purpose. With work spanning five decades, Truitt became known for her large-scale, hand-painted minimalist sculptures exploring proportion, scale and color. The first major retrospective of Truitt's work since 1974, "Anne Truitt: Perception and Reflection," is now on exhibition through January 3 at the "Smithsonian Hirshhorn Gallery and Sculpture Garden":http://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/view.asp?key=1&subkey=208. Art Beat spoke with Hirshhorn curator Kristen Hileman; "Tim Gunn":http://www.mylifetime.com/on-tv/shows/project-runway/project-runway-judges/tim-gunn/profile, chief creative officer of Liz Claiborne, co-host of Project Runway and former Truitt student; and filmmaker and photographer "Jem Cohen":http://www.jemcohenfilms.com/ about Truitt's life and work: Born in 1921 in Baltimore and raised on Maryland's Eastern Shore, Truitt was inspired by the natural and architectural environment of her childhood. After a stint in clinical psychology and fiction writing, Anne Truitt began her art career in the late 1940s, sculpting figurative objects with clay, cast cement and stone. It wasn't until she was exposed to the paintings of "Ad Reinhardt":http://www.moma.org/collection/browse_results.php?criteria=O:AD:E:4856&page_number=1&template_id=6&sort_order=1 and "Barnett Newman":http://www.philamuseum.org/micro_sites/exhibitions/newman/index.html in a 1961 Guggenheim exhibition that her concentration on abstract, minimalist sculptures took form. It was "an epiphany...that led her to feel that art should be oriented toward concept rather than material," Hileman explained. Later, Truitt's abstract figures of the 1950s shifted to wood sculptures painted with acrylic paint, a stylistic continuity that persisted from 1961 to her death in 2004. Yet finding a fit for Truitt within any 20th century movement isn't an easy task. Hileman points out the individuality of Truitt's work, taking elements from both minimalism and abstract art, while maintaining an artistic uniqueness. Also a factor was her reluctance to promote her own work. "She developed an independent art that has elements that resonate with...larger movements in American art," Hileman said. "And I think that's one of the reasons she's so important, because she demonstrates an alternative kind of minimal abstraction." It wasn't merely Truitt's artistic discipline that inspired students, colleagues and friends, Gunn and Cohen insisted, but it was also her integrity and spirit, which make the retrospective even more compelling, rich and overdue. "She wasn't a self-promoter," said Gunn, who studied under Truitt at the "Corcoran College of Art and Design":http://www.corcoran.edu/index.php and then at the University of Maryland. He credits Truitt for having a profound impact on his life and work, inspiring him to regularly self-edit. "She wasn't out there in people's faces saying, 'Write about me, exhibit my work.' She was very quiet. She was almost monk-like in her existence...But when you see the work, when you look around you, it does attract an audience unto itself." Truitt's exploration of color was an endeavor to "lift the color up and set it free in three dimensions." In Cohen's film "Anne Truitt, Working," which is part of the Hirshhorn retrospective, she explains: "Now that's what they teach in school -- is the family of color, so it'll be logical. But I just ignore it...I never studied color. And I never intend to study it and I don't like that kind of thing. So I always do something that you don't expect." "One of the reasons I began to do this work was because I found out in 1948 that I wasn't interested in a narrative and I couldn't solve the problem of time," Truitt says in Cohen's film. "So it occurred to me that sculpture just stood and time went on around it. So that's what led me into sculpture. It's very simple really. There's nothing to it. A whole lifetime just goes galloping past while you try to get clear about one simple thing."

Monday on the NewsHour: Michael Chabon

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:18:31 -0500

"Michael Chabon":http://www.michaelchabon.com/Michael_Chabon/Home.html has given us a wide range of male characters in his fiction, including young students and middle age academics in "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh" and "Wonder Boys," a hardened private detective in "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and two World War II-era comic book creators in the Pulitzer-prize winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." Chabon's newest male character is himself in his first work of non-fiction, "Manhood for Amateurs," a collection of essays. Monday on the NewsHour, Jeffrey Brown talked to Chabon about what he calls "the pleasures and regrets of a father, husband and son." You can watch Chabon reading an excerpt from "Manhood for Amateurs" below:

Weekly Poem: 'The Golden Window'

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:38:24 -0500

**By Jim Harrison** _From_ "The Golden Window" I hope to define my life, whatever is left, by migrations, south and north with the birds and far from the metallic fever of clocks, the self staring at the clock saying, "I must do this." I can't tell the time on the tongue of the river in the cool morning air, the smell of the ferment of greenery, the dust off the canyon's rock walls, the swallows swooping above the scent of raw water. "Jim Harrison":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_harrison.html has published more than 30 collections of poetry and prose. "In Search of Small Gods" is his twelfth book of poems. His connection to rural landscapes is evident in his free-verse, imagistic poetry, which often explores human and animal drives set against an unforgiving natural world. His work has been translated into two dozen languages and produced as four feature-length films. He has been poetry editor of "The Nation" has also served as the food columnist for the magazines Smart and Esquire. For more about Harrison, visit our "Poetry Series":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/index.html.

Conversation: 'A New Way Forward' Through Cultural Exchange

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:32:12 -0500

From "American Idol" to "'Afghan Star,'":http://news.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/hi/music/newsid_7377000/7377594.stm art and entertainment can be powerful tools for cultural exchange. That's the argument in the recent report, "A New Way Forward," which calls for the United States to utilize the arts to build a better relationship with the Muslim world. Its author is Cynthia Schneider, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands from 1998 to 2001. She currently heads the "Art and Culture Dialogue Initiative":http://www.brookings.edu/experts/schneiderc.aspx at the Brookings Institution and is a professor of diplomacy at Georgetown University. **Editor's note:** Cynthia Schneider's report, "A New Way Forward," can be "found here":http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2009/09_cultural_engagement_schneider.aspx. And "here's an interview":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/06/silverdocs-festival-opens-with-a-slam.html with filmmaker Havana Marking about "Afghan Star," a documentary about the TV show. For a story about the exhibit of Pakistani art at the Asia Society mentioned by Schneider, "click here.":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2009/09/art-of-contemporary-pakistan-comes-to-new-york.html

Poet Laureate Kay Ryan Pushes Verse for Community Colleges

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:38:59 -0500

Kay Ryan came into office as an "unlikely" poet laureate, she has said, living a quiet life in California, working away on her refined, compact verse. Now in her second term as the "16th U.S. poet laureate":http://www.loc.gov/poetry/, she has decided on a project to share with the nation. On Wednesday night in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress, Ryan gave a reading of her work and announced a program designed to highlight poetry and poets at community colleges across the country. "I know great," Ryan said. "I do not know where great comes from." This is a very personal project for Ryan, who will publish a new collection in March called "The Best of It." She attended community college at "Antelope Valley College":http://www.avc.edu/ in Lancaster, Calif., and, until recently, taught remedial English for more than 30 years at community colleges around her home in Marin County. The project is also a tribute to her longtime partner, "Carol Adair":http://www.marinij.com/ci_11400223?source=most_emailed, who died earlier this year from cancer and was a dedicated art teacher at community colleges. "She was obsessed with freeing people, being an agent of freedom," Ryan said. Once for recognition as teacher of the year, Adair received a whistle as an award. Ryan triumphantly blew that whistle Wednesday night to mark the start of the program. "The Community College Poetry Project":http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2009/09-193.html is made up of three parts. National Poetry Day on Community College Campuses will be celebrated on the first day of April beginning next year and will include events, readings, and a conference call with Ryan. A Web page, "Poetry for the Mind's Joy," will launch early next year hosted by the Library of Congress' site. Lastly, colleges will submit their best work each year to feature on the site. "I always think writers will come from the most unlikely sources," Ryan said in an interview. "Maybe that is because I was educated in a community college, I didn't look a bit promising and I got to be poet laureate of the United States." Listen to the interview with Ryan: For more about Ryan, visit our "Poetry Series":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/indepth_coverage/entertainment/poetry/profiles/poet_ryan.html. Also, watch "Jeffrey Brown's conversation with her from March.":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/share.html?s=news01n2291q81c