Poetry Hall of Fame: Volume 1

Unusual Collection Hampered by Low-Def Production

     

First off, the clips of the performers reading the poems seem to be from the mid-1970s, although the copyright at the end of the video reads 1993(?). Because Will Geer, who died in 1978, reads the final poem by Longfellow, and William Shatner (who you may miss if you blink) still looks a bit like Captain Kirk, but with a jet black toupee, there's no doubt that at least the performances were based in the 70s.

Next, the video production is. . . . well, typical of low budget 70s TV shows that you might have seen on PBS or local programming. The host even looks as if he's speaking to us from one of Lawrence Welk's show's backdrops. I almost thought for a minute that he'd break into, "A one and a two . . ."

Lastly, for those who are teachers, this is probably NOT going to help your students get much more out of poetry than they can by reading or listening to the poems in class. Now, if this concept were updated with performers that are more familiar to today's students, and if the production values were higher and more current, then there might be something here to recommend, but at best, this is a dated and lukewarm collection waiting for someone to breathe new life into it.