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You can download video podcasts of these segments through iTunes™ or manually from this page. When you click on the links below, the podcast will be saved to your hard drive. Then you can import it into iTunes or transfer to a video iPod. You can then play back the video to a full classroom or individual studio. We have a page of technical suggestions on how to use QuickTime movies in a classroom here. You also subscribe to the Video Podcasts through the popular iTunes software for both the Mac and PCs. Simply click on the iTunes button below and then click on the “Subscribe” button. Then, as new video podcasts are added to this site, they will automatically download when you open iTunes.
Tractor Shows: In this video podcast, former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser says a poem that began as an exercise in resentment became a love poem to a state.
In October 2006, dozens of antique tractor owners gathered at the Wessels Living History Farm at York, Nebraska, to show off their restored machines. This video podcast highlights the traditional Parade of Power
In the 30s, 40s and 50s, folks in rural America found inexpensive ways to have fun dancing to home-made music. In this video podcast, two women who would “rather dance than eat” remember those times.
In the early 20th century, threshing was a critical economic and social event. Several families would gather to separate wheat from the chaff using huge steam engines, horse-drawn wagons and threshing machines. In this video podcast, oral history interviews take you back to those days.
At its height, the Omaha Livestock Market hired 300 to 400 people to process six to seven million head of cattle, hogs and sheep a year. In this video podcast, both farmers and workers remember how the market operated and what it meant to them.
August 15, 1945, the news broke that World War II was over. Victory over Japan was celebrated all around the world – including the small city of North Platte, Nebraska. This video podcast features historic footage of the celebration in North Platte.
“Abandoned Farmhouse” is a poem that is reproduced in several school literature textbooks. This video podcast uses small details to fill out a full story of the lives lived in an abandoned farmhouse.
Because he grew up in the Midwest, former U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser has heard perhaps hundreds of ways to foretell the future. In this video podcast, Ted Kooser reads his poetic renderings of folklore weather predictions.
In this video podcast of his poem, Ted Kooser says “Osage” is a gift from the Great Plains to the world.
No one but a poet would look out of a bus and see a barn “loosen itself from its old foundations.” In this video podcast, Ted Kooser transforms a quick glance into an imaginative evocation of rural life.
In this short video podcast, Ted Kooser explores how he feels when he experiences the “Great Plains in Winter.”
The former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, reads “Tillage Marks,” a poem about the marks that farm tools make on stones in a farmer’s field in this video podcast.
In this video podcast, Ted Kooser reads “Memory” that, he says, is about the way memory works for writers. It’s also about some of the touchstones of rural life. (Note that this is a 21 MB file that may take a while to download.)