18 August 2001 - Saturday
forum: 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
at Center Portion, 2850-1/2 W Fullerton
$10 donation requested -
- good for entire evening
poetry video screening follows immediately

Tonight, we're convening the creators of poetry film and video, and inviting the public to join in our continuing investigation of cinema in service to the language arts. How do language and image interact? What makes a film a successful expression of a poem? How do different artists approach poetry cinema? We'll address these questions and more in a free-ranging forum. Our invited artists include:

Heather Haley

Heather Haley is Canadian a freelance writer, editor, web author and media poet. She was a staff editor and writer for the LA Weekly before returning to Vancouver in 1993. Haley also published Rattler, a critically acclaimed multimedia arts and literary journal and in a previous life, wrote songs for and fronted the .45s, with Brad Kent and Randy Rampage, and the all-girl power pop band, the Zellots.

Heather is published in many North American journals, including the Antigonish Review, the Coe Review, Northern Lights, sub-TERRAIN, Treeline, On The Bus, High Performance, Verb, the Manic D Press anthology The Verdict Is In, and others. She has performed at the Vancouver Press Club, Black Sheep Books, the Kootenay School of Writing and the Word on the Street Festival. She is the founder of the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre, which produces the videoconferenced reading series, TelePoetics©, and the Vancouver Videopoem Festival.

Kent Foreman

Kent is a renowned performance poet and literary mentor from Chicago, whose collaborators include Max Roach and Allen Ginsberg. In the early 1990s, Kent won a fellowship from the American Film Institute (AFI), Los Angeles, to explore and develop poetry video as a new genre. He will discuss some of his findings with us tonight. Kent's performance poetry blends literary, historical, and jazz themes, and explores the archetypal African-American man in his personna "The Gravedigger." Kent has competed with much success in slams at the Uptown Poetry Slam, the Woodlawn Tap, and at the national poetry slam.

Mary Russell & Gerard Wozek

Mary Russell and Gerard Wozek have collaborated in the poetry video genre for the past six years, creating short pieces that have played at conferences and festivals around the world. Both full time instructors at Robert Morris College in Chicago, they recently led a six month workshop in videopoetry for Gallery 37. Gerard's poetry, featured in "Spirit of Place: Belmont Rocks", took People's Choice Award at the Sixth National Poetry Video Festival. Their latest collaboration, "Elemental Reels" is currently featured online at Planet Out's Popcorn Q cinema. Wozek is the author of a book of poems, "Dervish", forthcoming from Gival Press.

Sean Culver

Sean is the cinematographer and sound artist for the film "Viridian", directed by Joseph Ramirez, based on the writing of Paul Hoover. Sean has collaborated with Joseph Ramirez on one other long-format poetry film, "Descent", based directly upon Ramirez' poetry. Sean has a career a fine art painter and is expanding creatively into audio art.

The discussion will be moderated by Kurt Heintz, founder, e-poets network [1999-present] and former chairman of the Guild Complex's Poetry Video Festival [1991-1994].

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