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Summary
Summary
"Poets live the lives all of us live," says Bill Moyers, "with one big difference. They have the power--the power of the word--to create a world of thoughts and emotions other can share. We only have to learn to listen." In a series of fascinating conversations with thirty-four American poets, The Language Of Life celebrates language in its "most exalted, wrenching, delighted, and concentrated form," and its unique power to re-create the human experience: falling in love, facing death, leaving home, playing basketball, losing faith, finding God. Listening to Linda McCarriston's award-winning poems about a child trapped in a violent home, or to Jimmy Santiago Baca explaining how words changed his life in prison, or to David Mura describing his Japanese American grandfather's experience in relocation camps, or to Sekou Sundiata stitching the magic of his childhood church in Harlem to the African tradition of storytelling, or to Gary Snyder invoking the natural wonder of mountains and rivers, or to Adrienne Rich calling for honesty in human relations, all testify to the necessity and clarity of the poet's voice, and all give hope that from such a wide variety of racial, ethnic, and religious threads we might yet weave a new American fabric. "'Listen,' said the storytellers of old, 'listen and you shall hear,'" explains Bill Moyers. The Language Of Life is a joyous, life-affirming invitation to listen, learn, and experience the exhilarating power of the spoken word.
Author Notes
Bill Moyers was born in Hugo, Oklahoma, on June 5, 1934. He attended North Texas State College, the University of Texas at Austin, earning his Bachelor's Degree in Journalism in 1956, the University of Edinburgh in Scotland from 1956 to 1957 and the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas in 1959.
After college, Moyers joined the staff of Senator Lyndon B. Johnson as his personal assistant, from 1960 to 1961. From 1961 to 1962, Moyers was the associate director of public affairs for the Peace Corps, and deputy director of the Peace Corps in 1963. He later joined Johnson again, this time as special assistant to the President, from 1963 to 1967. He became the Press Secretary, in 1965 until 1967. That same year, he began as publisher of Newsday, holding the position until 1970. He then became producer and editor of the Bill Moyers' Journal for PBS from 1971-76, and an anchor for USA: People and Politics from 1978 till 1981. In 1976 he joined CBS as chief correspondent for CBS Reports for two years. He was the senior news analyst for CBS News from 1981 to 1986 and has been executive editor of Public Affairs Programming Inc. since 1986.
Over the course of his many years in journalism, Bill Moyers has earned and received many awards and honors, among them, an Honorary doctorate, from the American Film Institute; numerous Emmy Awards; the Ralph Lowell medal for contribution to public television; George Peabody awards, 1976, 1980, 1985-86, 1988-90; DuPont/Columbia Silver Baton award, 1979, 1986, 1988; Gold Baton award, 1991; and the George Polk awards, 1981, 1986.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
What with the proliferation of poetry slams (reading stuff in bars and enduring whatever the crowd yells back) and of perf-pos (i.e., performance poets) opening for rock acts, poetry in America may be claiming a noncoterie audience for the first time since World War II. Public TV interviewer Moyers aims to abet such a development in his latest series, which this book accompanies--and then some. The volume presents versions of the new series' 15 interviews that are longer than what appears on the small screen, interviews with 14 other poets who figured in earlier Moyers programs, and a statement, portrait, and poem from each of 5 more. With a few exceptions (Quincy Troupe, Jimmy Santiago Baca), Moyers' interviewees aren't even tangentially of the slam and perf-po types, but they are lively and intriguing as they discuss particular poems and the cultures, personal experiences, and gifts out of which they write. More interesting--and bound to arouse the ire of those for whom the politically archliberal Moyers is a perennial target--is these poets' ethnic diversity, which arguably makes this book and the TV series more enticing to the greater popular audience that Moyers descries emerging. Anyone who loves poetry more than politics shouldn't carp all that much, not with Adrienne Rich, Donald Hall, Rita Dove, Li-Young Lee, Joy Harjo, and Stanley Kunitz among those selected to body forth that diversity. (Reviewed June 1 & 15, 1995)0385479174Ray Olson
Library Journal Review
If politicians, professors, and princes can be interviewed by topnotch TV journalists like Moyers, why not poets? This companion to an eight-part PBS series ranges from Gary Snyder to Adrienne Rich to Jimmy Santiago Baca in its quest for excellence. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
