Roland is an academic researcher who discovers some important letters written by a famous Victorian poet, Randolph Henry Ash. Ash was presumed to have been totally devoted to his wife, but Roland finds letters written to another unnamed woman, and soon determines that the intended recipient was another, less well-known poet, Christabel LaMotte. Roland contacts Maud, an expert on LaMotte's life and work. Despite her skepticism, the two begin to investigate,...

The upstart Bowery Slam Poetry Team, made up of five young African-American, Afro-Hispanic and queer poets, prepares for the national championships. Mentored by a demanding coach who pushes them past their personal boundaries to write from a painfully honest place, the poets break down, break through, and compose their best work ever. Will their soul-searching pieces about police violence and the whitewashing of Black culture be able to compete against...

Three Bronx teens search for their voices and an answer to the question: Can language change lives? Karina, Pearl, and Anthony are precariously balanced on the edge. Inspired by three teachers in a radical poetry workshop, can they write their own life stories, imagining a future where fathers aren't in jail, mothers aren't abusive and college is a place where you awake every morning instead of just dreaming about it every night? A dedicated filmmaking...

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS, junkie, genius, influential postmodern author and subject of films, biographies and stage performances is the star of his own convoluted life.

Most notable for his vast poem, The Divine Comedy, Dante's work continues to resonate with audiences today. Filmmaker Malcolm Hossick uncovers the Italian poet's background and his influential work from the Renaissance period.

This documentary explores the artistic connection between Robert Motherwell’s Open Series and Rafael Alberti’s poetry cycle, A La Pintura. Infatuated with Alberti’s text, Motherwood uses his words as the subject for his first venture into aquatints at Tatyana Grosman’s printmaking workshop. Historic footage shows Alberti, the last member of the Garcia Lorca generation, reading his poetry aloud. His poetic themes voice an homage to painting,...

THE CANCER JOURNALS REVISITED is prompted by the question of what it means to re-visit and re-vision Black lesbian feminist poet Audre Lorde’s classic 1980 memoir of her breast cancer experience today. At the invitation of filmmaker Lana Lin, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, twenty-seven writers, artists, activists, health care advocates, and current and former patients recite Lorde’s manifesto aloud on camera, collectively dramatizing...

When the brilliant writing and troubled life of Californian Larry Levis came to an abrupt halt at age 49, his death posed a question: is self-destruction required for a life fully committed to art? Featuring an original score by Iron and Wine, this innovative documentary searches his childhood working alongside Mexican-American field hands, three marriages, friendships with America’s greatest poets, and his own words for answers. The film had its...

An acclaimed documentary following the journey of a most extraordinary couple. Young-Chan is an accomplished poet who can no longer hear or see. He communicates with his wife Soon-Ho through finger braille, a unique form of communication where words are tapped on each other's hands. Combining breathtaking imagery with Young-Chan's personal writings, PLANET OF SNAIL becomes a transfixing portrait of life on what seems like another planet, where touch...

What does it take to carve out a career as a poet? Why on earth would anyone attempt it? AL PURDY WAS HERE is the portrait of an artist driven to become a great Canadian poet at a time when the category barely existed. Al Purdy is a charismatic tower of contradictions: a "sensitive man" who whips out a poem in a bar fight; a factory worker who finds grace in an Arctic flower; a mentor to young writers who remained a stranger to sons. Purdy has been...