however, I received an invitation to the premiere of

however, I received an invitation to the premiere of the PBS film on Robert Frost, which was sponsored by former Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill, at a big lavish ‘do’ on Capitol Hill. Again I talked with people involved in the production, and things moved closer to some showings at GMU. v

“In this same conversation I was shocked to learn that — Oh, no! they couldn’t premiere the film on America’s greatest poet, Walt Whitman, on Capitol Hill: he was still far too controversial.

“The following yeW I arranged for GMU to show the films on Pound and Frost, and we invited Pitkethly down lrom New York to introduce them, talk about the Voices and Visions concept, and to field questions. Later we also showed — or rather, had the regional premiere — of the film on Emily Dickinson. We tried to get Whitman, but it was not yet complete.

“So, I’ve been interested in and enthusiastic about this series for more than four years, and I’ve done what I can to promote it. Indeed, when WETA, the public television station in Washington, D.C.. showed the series, they scheduled it for an inconvenient time, kept shifting the times around and then finally dropped it for their fund-raising drive.

“Though I’m not a ‘Letter to the editor’ writer, I sent the station an indignant letter, and received an apologetic call back from the vice president for programming! I’m glad to say they later rescheduled the entire series, so if enough of us speak up for poetry, things can happen.”

Prof. Klappert, please tell us about some of your experiences relative to our program, which will bring poetry out of the classroom and into the community.

“While most of my employment has been through colleges and universities, I’ve also done a great deal of work in the public schools, in adult education, in community-based arts

See POETRY, p. 15

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