'The soul of a poet, it’s all of our soul': Bill Murray on PBS Newshour

Francesca Maxime visits NYC's Poets House in this Newshour piece, and in the process learns a little more about one of the non-profit organization's major supporters: actor and comedian Bill Murray. Watch this video to learn more about Poets House and about Murray's love for poetry. Transcript excerpted here:

FRANCESCA MAXIME: But there’s also the Bill Murray we aren’t as familiar with, one who trades comedic lines for lines of poetry at a yearly benefit for Poets House.

BILL MURRAY: “What the Mirror Said” by Lucille Clifton.

“Listen, you a wonder. You a city of a woman. You got a geography of your own. Listen, somebody need a map to understand you. Somebody need directions to move around you.”

I used to be able to look in the mirror and see who’s there. You know, who’s there? And, sometimes, it’s a reminder that there’s no one there at all. There’s not very much there. And, sometimes, there’s someone that gives me confidence.

And I feel that that poem is about someone who has an inner — you know, a self-confidence that’s bigger than — that can’t be contained in the frame of a mirror.

FRANCESCA MAXIME: Murray loves poetry so much, he wants to share some of that confidence with poets, writers, and readers. His support of Poets House, a nonprofit library and cultural center in New York City, has helped make classes and writing workshops like this one possible.

MAN: What we should be doing in the poem is, like, thinking about the way information is released at every step of the way throughout the poem. Now, how do we do that?

FRANCESCA MAXIME: One way to do that, according to Poets House executive director Lee Briccetti, is having all kinds of poetry available to read, for free, under one roof.

LEE BRICCETTI, Executive Director, Poets House: It is really the national poetry collection. We have collected, for the last 25 years, absolutely comprehensively. You can walk in and have an experience that almost doesn’t exist anymore, especially doesn’t exist for poetry.

FRANCESCA MAXIME: Poets House sits along the waterfront in Lower Manhattan, boasting a 60,000-volume public library, exhibition space, reading room, and children’s room. Every year, it collects and displays hundreds of books from publishers in its annual showcase, which assembles all American poetry published in one year in one place.

Learn more and watch the Newshour segment at PBS.