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Judith Chernaik founded Poetry on the Underground for the London Underground public metro system in 1986. This seven-minute documentary explores the project's evolution through poetry readings and an interview with Chernaik, who says the Underground is the perfect place to promote poetry because "you're in a strange place, and it's nice to have the comfort of language which is human and humane."
"I breathe in infinite curiosity and I write because I must." This short documentary by Jake Cushnir shows poet Gabe Kittle as he writes poems on his Royal typewriter at a Boston subway station.
This PBS video explores the very complex and compelling phenomenon of creativity—a component of writing that all poets and writers must learn to understand for themselves. “Whatever we can do to expand our capacity for uncertainty, that is wonderful preparation for creativity.”
“Poetry gave me something that school didn’t,” says CJ Suitt, one of three subjects in this documentary, directed by Garret Warner, that follows spoken word poets from North Carolina. In front of live audiences they search for what is personal and universal, what Maya Angelou called “a brave and startling truth.”
For your viewing pleasure we present this 1963 documentary Ray Bradbury: Story of a Writer, produced and directed by Terry Sanders, in which the late science fiction author (who was forty-three when the film was made) shares his thoughts on writing and perseverance: "You've got to be inspired and mad and excited and love it more than anything else in the world!"
In Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder, which opens tonight in New York City, director Christopher Felver reveals the poet's true role as a catalyst for numerous literary careers and for the Beat movement itself. The documentary features one-on-one interviews with Ferlinghetti as well as appearances by Allen Ginsberg, Dennis Hopper, Dave Eggers, and others. For more opening dates, visit the First Run Features website.
This brief documentary by Kristin Moe follows Kendall Merriam, the Johnny Appleseed of poetry in Rockland, Maine. The video was produced at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Portland, Maine.
Poet Ron Silliman recently drew attention to this footage of Frank O’Hara from the 1966 TV series USA: Poetry. O’Hara died a few weeks after the filming was completed.
While essentially a promo for the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world, this clip does offer a valuable look at the jobs of a few of the many people who work at Random House, from editorial and design through production, marketing, sales, and distribution.
Commissioned by America: Now and Here, an organization founded by Eric Fischl to promote conversation about contemporary America through the arts, the forty-five-minute film "Crossing State Lines: An American Renga" is based on the book of the same name, curated by Bob Holman and Carol Muske-Dukes and published by FSG last April, that features fifty-four poets from across the country in conversation.
