POETRY’S CINEMATIC PROPOSITIONS: Character & Identity

 (Voice, Tone, Subtext)

                                                Film critic Robert Ebert called films “empathy machines.”

 During this 90-minute class we will explore the intersections between film and poetry and the dynamism of seeing, of being in the world.

 The in-class assignments, inspired by poems and screenplay excerpts, will reveal how poetry and film share key vantage points of discovery, using transformative active ingredients of language, image, and voice, thereby igniting unexpected ways to re-see your work. The screenwriter’s adage: there is no plot without character. Cinematic flashbacks, dialogues between the self and other––monologues, epistolary letters, personas, and declarations all defy gravity, and yet, if the work of art does its job, the poem will also be grounded by a lively understanding of what makes us human. Like a film, a poem offers a set of proposals for us to consider. These are composed of a set of scenes and actions that tell us who the principal players are and what informs their emotional truths as each moment unfolds.