SUMMARY: Rapper Kendrick Lamar was the first non-classical or jazz artist to win a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for his album "DAMN." Jeffrey Brown joins Judy Woodruff to discuss some of the recipients in areas of literature and music.
SUMMARY: For Major Jackson, poetry is a vehicle of exploration. His poem "Stand Your Ground" responds to Florida's law that was famously invoked in the killing of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old boy. Jackson gives his Brief But Spectacular take on leaving his mark.
SUMMARY: Jackie Kay is Scotland's first black national poet. Adopted as a child, much of her poetry and prose speaks to her own experience of not feeling entirely welcome in her own country. “I wrote the poems that I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences that I wanted to find,” she says. Jeffrey Brown reports.
JACKIE KAY, Scottish Poet & Novelist: “And this is my country, says the fisherwoman from Jura. Mine, too, says the child from Canna and Iona. Mine, too, says the Brain family. And mine, says the man from the Polish deli.”
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Jackie Kay wrote her poem “Threshold” for the Scottish Parliament and a special guest, Queen Elizabeth.
JACKIE KAY: Let's blether some more about doors, revolving doors and sliding doors.
JEFFREY BROWN: In the wake to of the recent Brexit vote to leave the European Union, it was a plea to keep doors and the country open to the outside world. As Scotland's new national poet, Kay made it personal.
JACKIE KAY: Scotland's changing faces — look at me!
I like the idea of trying to change the face of Scotland. But, traditionally, when somebody thinks of somebody Scottish, they see a white man with red hair in a kilt and a — and they don't see me.
JEFFREY BROWN: Jackie is the adopted daughter of John and Helen Kay. Her birth mother Scottish. Her father was then a Nigerian student studying in Scotland.
JACKIE KAY: I was an illegitimate child. And being picked to be a national poet is probably a pretty legitimate thing.
(LAUGHTER)
JEFFREY BROWN: I will say.
She grew up in Glasgow in a loving home, but very unaware of her difference in the outside society. She told her story in a bestselling memoir, “Red Dust Road.”
JACKIE KAY: There weren't many positive stories about adoption. And when I was growing up, we just saw negative stories about adoption. Every story that you heard was horrendous. And I wanted to try and tell a positive story about adoption.
So, I felt a bit like one of my favorite writers, Toni Morrison. She said she wrote the story she wanted to read. And I did that, too. I wrote the poems I wanted to read and I wrote about the experiences I wanted to find.
SUMMARY: On Friday, long-distance runner Alexi Pappas will compete in Rio in her first-ever Olympic race. But unlike many of her Olympic peers, Pappas does not put all her talent in one basket. In addition to training as a world-class runner, she is also a filmmaker, actress and poet, and she writes about what she knows, track. “As a storyteller, I want to tell stories that I can uniquely tell,” she says.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Now, a poet and filmmaker who also happens to be an Olympic runner in Rio. She'll be competing tomorrow.
And, as you'll see, there are a number of connections for her between the way she writes and the way she runs.
ALEXI PAPPAS, Olympic Long-distance Runner, Greece: My name is Alexi Pappas. And I'm a professional long-distance runner with Nike. And I'm also a filmmaker, actress and poet.
This summer, I will race in my first Olympic Games in the 10,000 meters on the track. I will be running for Team Greece. I'm a duel citizen and decided to compete for Team Greece because I can compete at the highest level, but I can also reach a young generation of girls who don't necessarily have the long-distance role models that we are lucky enough to have in the United States. So, I'm very excited.
I think I was a more serious poet before I was a serious runner. What I find with writing that is so special, and in poetry in particular, is, there's such an economy of words. And I like having absolute freedom within boundaries.
And in running, similarly, there are these limitations. So, in a race, you might have a certain lane that you have to stay in or a certain number of laps or a course. But within those boundaries, there's so much room for freedom and creativity and personality.
“Breaking Tape.”
“It happened like I imagine it would feel to throw open big double doors, the kind from a mansion or dollhouse. I looked maybe like a very strong princess charging through the gate towards the castle I built myself.”
“Tracktown” is a film that we have just made and premiered and is inspired by my observations and experiences as an elite runner in Eugene, Oregon. And when I moved to Eugene to run a fifth year with the Oregon Ducks, after I graduated Dartmouth, I found that the town and the community embraced running in a way that I had never seen before.
WOMAN: “A goal is a dream with a deadline” — Napoleon Hill.
ALEXI PAPPAS: As a storyteller, I want to tell stories that I uniquely can tell and stories in highly specific worlds that most people don't get the chance to see.
SUMMARY: Jim Harrison, a prolific and influential writer of fiction and poetry, was known for his preoccupation with rural American life and his eclectic professional pursuits; he'd been everything from a Hollywood screenwriter to a food writer for Esquire Magazine. Harrison died over the weekend at age 78. Jeffrey Brown looks back on his 2009 interview with Harrison at his home in Montana.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): Jim Harrison was a prolific writer of fiction and poetry, most often of men and women in the drama of rural America and the natural world. Among his best known works are “Legends of the Fall,” “Dalva,” and the more recent “Brown Dog.”
A new novel, “The Ancient Minstrel,” came out just this month, and a new volume of poetry, “Dead Man's Float,” earlier this year. He'd been a Hollywood screenwriter, a food writer for “Esquire” magazine, a man of many pursuits who lived large and died this weekend at age 78.
In 2009, I visited Harrison at his home in Montana. Here's a look back.
JIM HARRISON, Author: Other than fishing and a little bird-hunting, all I do is write.
JEFFREY BROWN: Harrison is a determined outsider, in all senses.
JIM HARRISON: You really get a hang of the country, rather than be stuck in what I call the geo-piety of the Eastern Seaboard.
JEFFREY BROWN: Careful, because that's where I am.
JIM HARRISON: I know it, but you deserve it, too. But it does happen.
JEFFREY BROWN: Now 71, Jim Harrison is a Falstaffian figure; blind in his left eye from a childhood accident, chain-smoking his American Spirit cigarettes, part wild man, part cultivated literary lion, who peppers his speech with talk of birds and great poets of the past.
It's poetry, in fact, that has remained Harrison's first love. His new collection is called “In Search of Small Gods.”
