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you can say that again, billie, by Evie Shockley

Poetry in America explores the diversity of American poetry. In each episode, members of various American communities join host Elisa New, following Gwendolyn Brooks to the South Side of Chicago, Alberto Ríos to the Sonoran Desert, Richard Blanco to Marco Island, and more. Joining along the way are singers and Supreme Court justices, playwrights and physicists, and teachers and their students.

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you can say that again, billie, by Evie Shockley

Poetry in America Episode 4 | 25m 22s | CC

Billie Holiday’s haunting song “Strange Fruit” winds beneath the unsettling, satiric humor of Evie Shockley’s poem “you can say that again, billie.” Shockley, jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, historian Robin D.G. Kelley, actor LisaGay Hamilton, novelist Beverly Lowry, and radio host Nick Spitzer join Elisa New to discuss the history of racism, violence, and artistic tradition in the American south.

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Support for Poetry in America is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dalio Family Fund, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Deborah Hayes Stone and Max Stone, Nancy Zimmerman and Walmart. Seasons 4 & 3 are distributed to PBS stations nationwide by PBS Plus, with Seasons 1 & 2 distributed nationally by American Public Television.