Poets, public figures and members of various communities join series creator Elisa New to engage in close readings of a single American poem. Each episode mixes lively discussion with archival materials, location footage, and vivid animation. The series offers audiences an immersive and accessible experience in reading poems that touch on many aspects of American life, past and present.

"Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden, featuring Samantha Power, Peter Sacks, David Brooks

"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, featuring Vice President Joe Biden, Elizabeth Alexander, Angela Duckworth, and a chorus of working fathers and sons

"The Gray Heron" by Galway Kinnell, featuring E.O. Wilson, Robert Hass, Laura McPhee, and young naturalists at the Massachusetts Audubon Society

"Shirt" by Robert Pinsky, featuring Stuart Weitzman, Robert Pinsky, Betty Halbreich, Johnson Hartig, and students at Parsons School of Design

"I Cannot Dance Opon My Toes" by Emily Dickinson, featuring Cynthia Nixon, Marie Howe, Yo Yo Ma, Jill Johnson

"To Prisoners" by Gwendolyn Brooks, featuring Anna Deveare Smith, John McCain, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Li-Young Lee, and Innocence Project Exonerees