About this collection

The NET Outtakes Series was produced by The Poetry Center American Poetry Archives staff in the late 1970s. The videos are composed of outtakes from the series USA: Poetry, produced in 1965–66 for National Educational Television by Richard O. Moore and the film unit at KQED-TV, San Francisco. 

Videos in the Outtakes Series preserve in actual shooting sequence all retrievable footage not used in the original 15-minute USA: Poetry television broadcasts. Footage was shot on 16-mm film in the poets’ home environment or settings of their choosing. The television programs are on view at PennSound, their page on Richard O. Moore. Recommended reading on Moore and the series: by Olivier Brossard at Jacket2 and, adapted with videos added, at Poets & Critics; and by Garrett Caples at Harriet. Further film work for television by Moore (among other films, Take This Hammer, on James Baldwin) is on view at the SF State Bay Area Television Archive.

Original Outtakes Series programs were funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with video transfers made from film, and subsequently to digital video, by the Bay Area Video Coalition. 

Opening title sequence: Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, December 14, 1965. Closing music: Bruce Conner, harmonica and tambourine, with Michael McClure, January 27, 1966.

©© The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University