Matt Mullins’ videopoems have been a mainstay of this site since 2011, when I ran across his first one, Highway Coda, so it was fascinating to hear how he originally got into videopoetry and what he’s discovered along the way. He prepared this talk for the virtual-only portion of REELPoetry 2025, which ran from March 31 to April 9.
Matt has made a visually interesting presentation with overlays of the videos under discussion, and speaks fluently off-the-cuff (or from hidden notes, perhaps) rather than reading a prepared speech. The result is a real gift for students and scholars in the field, but more than that, I hope, an inspiration to other poets and filmmakers interested in upping their game.
I write poetry, I write fiction, I write screensplays, I am as I mentioned a musician, so I have this kind of unique skill-set. I’ve done a lot of film studies, I apprecite visual imagery, I appreciate visual composition, I appreciate sonic composition, I appreciate linguistic composition, and so back then, in 2010 or so, when I first stumbled upon this artform of videopoetry, I just kind of felt like I had found my home.
The Poetic Phonotheque is “a global archive preserving and sharing contemporary poetry through voice, film, and print,” based in Copenhagen, with several international partners, including Kultivera in Sweden, Write4Word in Wales, and ArsPoetica.US in the United States, where The Poetic Phonotheque is registered as a nonprofit organization. Their online archive of poetry films is turning into a valuable resource, growing each year with the winners in the poetry-film category from their annual Nature & Culture International Film Festival (which had flirted with a name-change to Resonans, which is how we previously listed it).
This festival focuses on the poetics of nature and environment, and takes place annually in Copenhagen, Denmark (with headquarters in Sweden and Finland for smaller features) as well as an online festival which is of free access at poeticphonotheque.com during the festival dates. […]
We invite you to submit your films on this important subject of environmental consciousness communicated through a poetic language, whether they’re animation, short film, poetry film, experimental, or documentaries. A focus on the NATURE & CULTURE (humanity’s connection with our environment) is encouraged.
Poetry films are invited to remain as part of the permanent video collection of the Poetic Phonotheque on our website and YouTube channel (ONLY FOR THE POETRY FILM CATEGORY). We encourage BIPOC and LGBTQ+ creators to submit their work.
Thanks to MP reader Adam Stone for the reminder to post this call. See our page of film festival links for other events we might be forgetting to promote.
Drumshanbo County Leitrim, Ireland, hosts an annual literary festival bringing together some of Ireland’s finest writers and poets to celebrate the written word. As part of this we host an annual Poetry Film competition open to filmmakers and poets from everywhere. Each year we have an evening where we screen the shortlisted films as part of the festival’s opening ceremony. Send your entries and come join us in this beautiful Lakelands town in August.
The films must have been made more recently than January 2023, and should not exceed ten minutes. June 30 is the deadline. Visit Film Freeway for all the rules and terms.
The upcoming International Video Poetry Festival in Athens looks to be a massive affair, with 97 films and 33 live performances from 43 countries, all free (with a suggested donation), on Friday 11 and Saturday 12 April at the Empros theater in Athens.
International Video Poetry Festival celebrates twelve years of creative collaboration with more than 2000 artists from 85 countries in general, a world of poetic visions for the benefit of humanity. Poetry, cinema, music and spoken word come together to communicate the inspiration, dreams, ideas and hopes of all of us. This year the festival hosts significant artists such as Capétte, Amanda Shea, J.Chambers and Mad Kate, among other top international performers of the spoken word scene. […]
The Institute for Experimental Arts founded the International Video Poetry Festival in 2011, introducing the art of Video Poetry to the Athenian audience for the first time. Inspired by the digital platform Moving Poems (USA), the festival has evolved into a dynamic international field of collaboration between artists from America, Asia, Europe, and Africa.
Through its Show Room Video Poetry Zone and Live Performance Zone, IVPF creates an open public space for all forms of contemporary visual poetry, spoken word performances, concerts, video art shows, workshops, and lectures.