Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy is the first comprehensive film portrait of Robert Bly that presents his many engagements with American culture: as outstanding poet, groundbreaking publisher, pioneering translator of world poetry, political activist and penetrating social critic. The film will present a context for understanding how Bly’s numerous creative and intellectual pursuits have influenced our culture and how they resonate around us today.A farmer’s son, a graduate of Harvard, a Navy veteran, Robert Bly’s long reach across American culture began when he returned after World War II to the family farm in Madison, Minnesota. From a revamped chicken-coop named “Odin House,” his unlikely headquarters in rural Minnesota, Robert Bly, a man on a mission, caught the attention of the world. In the early 1990's his surprise bestseller, IRON JOHN, launched what the media dubbed a 'men's movement' that took America by storm. Later a backlash emerged and the notion of 'men drumming in the woods' became a shorthand put down. Through it all, Bly never stopped championing the power of poetry to help us navigate our inner world while also engaging with the events of the day. Bly is truly an American original.