Franz Kafka: The Man Who Begged to Be Forgotten

 

Franz Kafka was a writer unlike any other. His stories of strange trials, endless bureaucracy, and surreal transformations captured the anxiety of the modern world long before it fully arrived.

In this documentary, we explore the life and mind of one of literature’s most mysterious figures. From The Metamorphosis to The Trial, Kafka created a new kind of storytelling that still defines the word “Kafkaesque” today.

This is the story of Franz Kafka — the writer who turned modern fear into literature.

Explore the life of Franz Kafka within the complex cultural landscape of turn-of-the-century Prague. The Historian examines how familial tensions, institutional pressures, and a search for meaning shaped the consciousness of this influential author.

Christopher Marlowe - The Elizabethan 007 I FULL Biography Documentary

 

Christopher Marlowe was the most dangerous playwright in England.

A genius who rewrote the rules of theatre… and was silenced before the world could stop watching.

Christopher Marlowe was not just a writer — he was the man Shakespeare learned from. A brilliant, reckless scholar turned secret agent whose double life of espionage, blasphemy, and forbidden ideas shocked Elizabethan England and nearly got him hanged before it got him killed. From a shoemaker's son who talked his way into Cambridge, to a Privy Council letter that hinted at secret missions for the Crown, from the explosive success of Tamburlaine and Doctor Faustus to accusations of atheism, heresy, and treason, this documentary explores the real life of Christopher Marlowe — one of history's most brilliant and mysterious literary figures.

This is the true story of Christopher Marlowe.

Mark Twain - The Eternal Optimist? Biographical Documentary

 

One of the best loved writers of all time, Mark Twain, had a tough childhood in rural Missouri and had to leave school at the age of 12 after his father died. He worked as a printer and then a Mississippi steamboat pilot before heading out west to try his luck as a silver miner in Nevada, where he found his true vocation as a writer.

His colourful descriptions of a new and evolving nation and the rollicking tales of his travels around the globe are full of his irrepressible humour, but late in life his optimism deserted him when he faced financial ruin and lost his wife and two of his daughters. His writing turned darker, and he developed a strange fascination with teenage girls.

In this expanded biographical documentary about one of America’s most beguiling characters, Prof Yorston explores whether Mark Twain, the eternal optimist, became a bitter and twisted old man as some have suggested, or retained the cheery, light-hearted persona that produced the books that have entertained and enchanted millions for over 150 years.

Did he remain the witty humourist to the end did he feel his life had simply dragged on too long?

F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Forgotten Genius I FULL Biography Documentary

 

F. Scott Fitzgerald was the voice of a generation that didn't deserve him.

A man who captured the glamour of the Jazz Age in prose so beautiful it made the world ache — and then watched everything he loved turn to ash.

Fitzgerald was not just a writer — he was the American Dream in human form. The boy from Minnesota who clawed his way into Princeton, conquered New York, and made the world fall in love with a fictional millionaire named Gatsby, while quietly drinking himself to death in the shadows of his own legend.

From his desperate pursuit of Zelda Sayre to the overnight glory of This Side of Paradise, from the masterpiece of The Great Gatsby to the humiliation of Hollywood, from mental institutions to forgotten graves — this is the full, devastating story of the man who invented the American Dream and paid for it with everything he had.

This is the true story of F. Scott Fitzgerald. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ In this documentary: The Minnesota boy who wanted to conquer the world Princeton, ambition and the birth of a writer Zelda Sayre and the obsession that defined his life This Side of Paradise and overnight fame The Great Gatsby and the green light The Jazz Age excess and the money that disappeared Zelda's breakdown and the asylum years Tender is the Night and critical failure The Hollywood years and slow collapse Death at 44 — broke, forgotten and alone

David Foster Wallace on Bookworm (1996-2006)

 

From KCRW's Bookworm. Interviewer: Michael Silverblatt. 00:00 On Infinite Jest (April 11, 1996). 28:54 On A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again (May 15, 1997) 57:26 On Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (Aug 12, 1999). 01:26:05 On the Phone (Aug 3, 2000). 01:54:45 On Consider the Lobster (Mar 2, 2006).

Author David Foster Wallace discusses the structural influences behind the novel Infinite Jest, comparing its complexity to fractals rather than traditional linear narratives. The conversation explores the artistic motivation to connect with readers and address contemporary loneliness through fiction.

Robert Creeley Poet - Part 1

 

Robert Creeley 1926—2005

Robert Creeley, like Robert Duncan, was involved with Black Mountain College, the New American Poetry, and the Beat movement. He was an iconoclastic and modest person who, at some personal cost to overcome his lack of ease in public, nevertheless made himself available to many scholars and students who sought to understand the social and cultural upheavals of the latter half of the 20thy Century. He lived a somewhat nomadic literary life but settled for long periods in certain places—luckily, during the 1970s in Bolinas, California a legendary bohemian village on the Pacific Coast north of San Francisco. When he came to class, he was interested in helping with the goals, or as he put it, “preoccupations” of the class and to that end, he read from prose accounts of earlier, iconic times in the Bay Area including a rollicking party with Jack Kerouac and others at The Dharma Bums house in Mill Valley. In stark contrast to Robert Duncan’s expansive and all inclusive poems, Creeley’s tend to be compact, concise, compressed snapshots of things. At their best, they capture the essence of a moment of perception—as Kerouac put it, explaining his coined phrase, “The Naked Lunch,”—“that frozen moment when everyone sees what’s on the end of the fork.”

Robert Creeley - Part 2

 

Robert Creeley 1926—2005

Robert Creeley, like Robert Duncan, was involved with Black Mountain College, the New American Poetry, and the Beat movement. He was an iconoclastic and modest person who, at some personal cost to overcome his lack of ease in public, nevertheless made himself available to many scholars and students who sought to understand the social and cultural upheavals of the latter half of the 20thy Century. He lived a somewhat nomadic literary life but settled for long periods in certain places—luckily, during the 1970s in Bolinas, California a legendary bohemian village on the Pacific Coast north of San Francisco. When he came to class, he was interested in helping with the goals, or as he put it, “preoccupations” of the class and to that end, he read from prose accounts of earlier, iconic times in the Bay Area including a rollicking party with Jack Kerouac and others at The Dharma Bums house in Mill Valley. In stark contrast to Robert Duncan’s expansive and all inclusive poems, Creeley’s tend to be compact, concise, compressed snapshots of things. At their best, they capture the essence of a moment of perception—as Kerouac put it, explaining his coined phrase, “The Naked Lunch,”—“that frozen moment when everyone sees what’s on the end of the fork.”

Dylan Thomas reads his poem Fern Hill

ROBERT BLY: A Thousand Years of Joy (2015)

 

Bly was arguably the leading champion of poetry for the last half century. His boundless curiosity and belief that poetry matters in the life of the nation has often put him on the front lines of cultural and political debate. The bestselling author of Iron John, and winner of numerous awards for his own poetry, Bly also introduced the work of Rumi, Hafez, Neruda, Lorca, Mirabai and others to English speakers for the first time. Featuring John Densmore, Louise Erdrich, Martin Shaw, Gary Snyder, Gioia Timpanelli, Donald Hall, Jane Hirshfield, Mark Rylance, Tracy K. Smith, Martin Sheen, and others. Emmy-award winner. Broadcasted on PBS and a festival favorite. Produced and Directed by Haydn Reiss

Francis Webb Reads from his Collected Poems

 

A compilation of 10 poems read by legendary Australian poet Francis Webb (1925 - 73), recorded in the early 1970s by the National Library and University of Queensland Press and reproduced, with permission, in digital format for the first time with accompanying text. Poet and Webb scholar Dr Toby Davidson from Macquarie University provides a brief foreword and background notes at the end.

Alice Walker - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1984 series)

 

Alice Walker, reading from Good Night, Willie Lee and other collections, gives us poems about her childhood in rural Georgia, her travels in Africa, and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. She describes her baptism in a local creek: “It was just such an interesting thing to go down to the creek beautifully dressed in white, with all the other people dressed in white, and be held by the people of the community.”

Denise Levertov - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1984 series)

 

Reading from Candles in Babylon, Denise Levertov discusses the threat of nuclear war and its psychological effect on adults and on children: “I’ve heard of a child, who, when asked what he was going to do when he grew up, said, ‘But I’m not going to grow up.’”

Seamus Heaney - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1983 series), Part Two

 

In this continued reading and conversation Heaney talks about the political tensions between Protestants and Catholics, as well as the more friendly relations he observed in the countryside: “The individual Protestant farmer in your own district was your neighbor, rather than your enemy.”

Seamus Heaney - interviewed by Henry Lyman for Poems to a Listener (1983 series), Part One

 

Reading from Poems 1965-1975 and Field Work, Seamus Heaney, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature, speaks of the landscape of Northern Ireland, the farm where he grew up, and the workers and craftsmen of the neighborhood: “The poet has to be a voice-box for something that is in the land and in the people.”

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Seamus Heaney speaking about Gaelic and the Irish landscape

 

3 Poems by Strider Marcus Jones ON BBC RADIO LANCASHIRE -Upload with Joel Mitchell on 12/03/2026

 

A Life in Study: Robert Lowell

 

Strider Marcus Jones Poet - Lothlorien: SEAMUS HEANEY - R.I.P. New Poem by Strider Marcus ...

Strider Marcus Jones Poet - Lothlorien: SEAMUS HEANEY - R.I.P. New Poem by Strider Marcus ...: SEAMUS HEANEY even his hair and clothes were poetic- the strands and fibres blowing and smelling phrasing words digging up r...

5 Poems by Diane Di Prima

 

5 Poems by Gary Snyder

 

5 Poems by Dudley Randall

 

5 POEMS BY STANLEY KUNITZ

 

5 Poems by Robin Blaser

 

5 Poems by Madeline Gleason

 

5 poems by James Laughlin