USA: Poetry

In 1965 the poet and documentarian Richard O. Moore shot ten short films focusing on an all-star lineup of American poets. Moore was a student of the legendary Josephine Miles at UC Berkeley and a friend of Kenneth Rexroth's in his San Francisco salon days. Those contacts helped put him in the orbit of the now infamous poets you see listed above. The footage he captured is nothing short of miraculous, a national treasure type time capsule of another, more literary age. That isn't to say that everyone presents well on camera. There are some notable clowns and assholes on the final roster, but for the most part, Moore provided a rare glimpse of some of the finest American poets of the twentieth century at the summit of their powers.