Connecting With Poetry

In this episode of The Brian Lehrer Show, host Brian Lehrer explores the cultural and political implications of the Trump administration's decision to replace the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall with a 'Great American State Fair' for the 200th anniversary of American independence. In response, the Smithsonian has taken the festival on the road, including a New York City edition called the People's Poetry Project, curated by poets Bob Holman and Steve Zeitlin. The project, which includes a mobile poetry truck (the Poemobile) and a poetry village in lower Manhattan, aims to celebrate diverse voices and foster connection through poetry. Lehrer also highlights the duo’s upcoming book, *Across the Great Divides*, which invites readers from all political backgrounds to submit poems reflecting on iconic American symbols and the nation’s unfulfilled ideals. Listeners contribute poems in multiple languages and styles, from cowboy poetry in Nevada to powerful, politically charged verses from Harlem and Peekskill, demonstrating poetry’s power to bridge divides. The episode concludes with a celebration of poetry as a democratic, unifying force in a fractured nation.