Product Details

• Format: VHS, NTSC
• Studio: Films for the Humanities & Sciences
• ASIN: 0736512802
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #573,501 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

In the first segment, Rita Dove, America's youngest Poet Laureate of the Library of Congress, engagingly articulates the wellsprings of her creative powers: her childhood passion for words and literature; the influences of her 11th grade English teacher; and the creative synergy between her cello playing and love for language. Photos, music, interview format, and filmed segments weave a moving personal portrait of this compelling African American poet and professor. In the second segment, S.E. Hinton, renowned fiction writer for adolescents, reveals her sensitivity and wisdom. The format is partially "Q & A," and Hinton masterfully responds to videotaped questions about her craft from teenagers around the country. Hinton frankly talks about her tomboy youth and the peer pressure she experienced and expressed so realistically in works such as The Outsiders and Rumple Fish. She also converses well with an off-screen narrator about her adolescent publicity experiences and her son's coming of age. Maya Angelou, prominent African American poet and writer, has the briefest, perhaps most lyrical segment on this program. Angelou speaks eloquently about the rhythm and expressiveness of words and the importance of using a rainbow of styles in one's conversation. Her voice and cadence celebrate the power of human expression.