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Every Child Is Born a Poet: The Life and Work of Piri Thomas

Every Child is Born a Poet is a multimedia chronicle of Nuyorican author Piri Thomas’s transformation from gang member and prison convict to acclaimed writer, activist, and educator.

Series

Independent Lens, True Stories

Premiere Date

April 6, 2004

Length

60 minutes

Funding Type

Co-Production

Jonathan Robinson

Producer

Jonathan Robinson was born in New York City in 1960. He received a B.A. in Modern History at the University of California, Berkeley, and received an M.F.A. in Live-Action Film Production from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia. His video on India, cultural difference and the contemporary colonial imagination, sight unseen: a travelog, was featured at the 1993 Biennial Exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, won the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s SECA Video Art Award, and was named Best Experimental Video at the Image Atlanta Film and Video Festival. Robinson has worked as a freelance editor and script consultant and extensively in the non-profit world of criminal and juvenile justice. He currently lives in New Haven, Connecticut with his wife and two daughters.