Piece image

Bill Murray the poet

From: Eric Molinsky
Length: 00:04:52

Bill Murray can't write poetry, so he does the next best thing. Read the full description.

Mg44762_small Every good cause needs some celebrity support, and poetry is no different. Bill Murray joined hundreds of people at an event for the Poets House, in New York. He's a frustrated poet himself, as Studio 360's Eric Molinsky found out.

To hear the full audio, sign up for a free PRX account or log in.

More from Eric Molinsky

Piece image

Voting by Remote (00:07:47)
From: Eric Molinsky

Every year, a consumer research group surveys the most popular TV shows for liberals and conservatives. Independent producer Eric Molinsky investigates what makes a show Red ...
Piece image

Ghostwriters (00:06:20)
From: Eric Molinsky

Have you ever wondered how that busy politician or celebrity found the time to write a book? They didn't. Ghostwriting an big part of the publishing industry that's kept away ...
Caption: The Big Bad Wolf dressing up as a Jewish peddler in The Three Little Pigs (1933)

Disney's Jewish Problem (00:07:53)
From: Eric Molinsky

Comedy shows like Family Guy and Saturday Night Live often portray Walt Disney was a paranoid anti-Semite. But what evidence is there that Walt hated Jews, and why does it ...
Piece image

Bring Back Wonder Woman (00:06:33)
From: Eric Molinsky

Wonder Woman, the only A-list female superhero, has been MIA while every other guy in a cape and cowl is getting his shot at stardom. What gives?
Caption: One of several vampire safe-houses in New Haven.

True Vampires of New Haven (00:07:00)
From: Eric Molinsky

Real vampires are nothing like the ones we see depicted in Twilight or True Blood. Most of them are just trying to get by. (NOTE: This is a radio drama that sounds like a ...
Piece image

Museum of Humans (00:02:45)
From: Eric Molinsky

Centuries after aliens wipe out the human race and take over the Earth, an alien couple enjoys a day of cultural enlightenment at The Museum of Humans.
Piece image

Bin Laden's Hollywood Ending (00:02:39)
From: Eric Molinsky

The raid on Osama bin Laden's compound, as told through movie and TV clips where life imitates art imitating life.
Piece image

A More Perfect Union (00:04:41)
From: Eric Molinsky

Artist-programmer Luke DuBois created new maps of the United States that reclassify us as Americans -- but he didn't need the census. His data came from profiles on dating ...
Piece image

Pink Floyd's The Wall: 30 Years On (00:07:56)
From: Eric Molinsky

Pink Floyd's The Wall was one of the biggest blockbusters in rock history. Does it still hold up?
Piece image

Bookstore Survival Strategies (00:06:46)
From: Eric Molinsky

Independent bookstores struggle to survive -- and reinvent themselves -- in the age of Amazon and the Kindle.

Piece Description

Every good cause needs some celebrity support, and poetry is no different. Bill Murray joined hundreds of people at an event for the Poets House, in New York. He's a frustrated poet himself, as Studio 360's Eric Molinsky found out.

1 Comment Atom Feed

User image

Review of Bill Murray the poet

Bill Murray fans like me will cotton to this feisty drop-in. Who would've thunk that the original "Saturday Night Live" celeb, the star of such flicks as "Ghostbusters" and "Lost in Translation," is a poet?

Producer Eric Molinsky takes us on an annual summer walk over Brooklyn Bridge overloaded with poetry buffs. Rather than dissing it as Marianne Moore appeared to do in the first line of her chestnut, "Poetry" -- with "I, too, dislike it" -- the crowds on Brooklyn Bridge care enough about it to write it, to read magazines that feature it, plus buy pamphlets and books of it.

Molinsky starts by interviewing Tom and Kate Chapell, the CEOs of Tom's of Maine. When Molinsky says he uses Tom's Toothpaste, Kate fires back, "We use poetry a lot in our company. We start every meeting with a poem."

The main attraction, Bill Murray, admits that he's been cajoled by his long-time neighbor, Frank Platt, on the board of directors at the event's sponsoring organization, Poets House, to attend the Brooklyn Bridge festival. In fact, Murray has loved poetry ever since grade school, when "you could get out of homework" if you wrote it. When asked whether he'd be interested in publishing some of his own verses, Murray demurs, confessing that he needs "an injection of ambition."

Still, he pays homage to Billy Collins's poem, "Divorce" (a tough thing for Murray to do during the very week when his own divorce was being covered by the tabloids). Then he goes on to do a splendid job of reciting the closing lines of Galway Kinnell's "Oatmeal."

Overall, this curiosity piece would be a doozy for National Poetry Month or "Weekend America."

Broadcast History

Produced for Studio 360