The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Archive

Consisting of over 2,500 hours of audio and video recordings, the Geraldine R.Dodge Poetry Festival Archive is one of the most extraordinary records of contemporary poetry and poets in the world.  Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, U. S. Poets Laureate, and many other poets of international stature are captured in readings, interviews, conversations, and discussions, often in groupings that occurred in no other time or place. 

Unique among recordings of poetry events, the footage in these archives was recorded by recognized industry professionals to the highest broadcast standards.  The Dodge Poetry Festival Archive contains all the source materials that were edited into five PBS television series, including Power of the Word, Language of Life, Sounds of Poetry and Fooling with Words, hosted by Bill Moyers. There is no other archive of such scale and quality of twentieth and twenty-first century poets.   

Unique among recordings of poetry events, the footage in these archives was recorded by recognized industryprofessionals to the highest broadcast standards.  The Dodge Poetry Festival Archive contains all the source materials that were edited into five PBS television series, including Power of the Word, Language of Life, Sounds of Poetry and Fooling with Words, hosted by Bill Moyers. There is no other archive of such scale and quality of twentieth and twenty-first century poets.   

Efforts are ongoing to preserve and digitize these priceless recordings, which go back to the first 1986 Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival.  In the months and years ahead, we hope to make an ever-expanding selection of recordings available to teachers, students and the general public. 

In the meantime, visit the Dodge Festival YouTube Channel to view selected readings, and go to www.dodgepoetry.org to learn more about the Dodge Poetry Festival and Poetry Program.

A Partial List of Poets Featured in the Dodge Poetry Festival Archives