What Is Poetry to You?
Friday, September 19
What Is Poetry to You?
A FUNDRAISING AFTERNOON & EVENING TO CELEBRATE
THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY
OF LA’S OWN POETIC RESEARCH BUREAU
Presented by Rotations
at 2220 Arts+Archives
Purchase Tickets (from $15)
Full Day Pass: $25 | Per Program: $15
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In celebration of the 25th anniversary of LA's Poetic Research Bureau, "sister org" Rotations Film Series curates, across two programs that span the day and evening of September 19, moving-image works centering poetry. Funds go to sustaining and expanding the mission of the PRB—presenting poetry and adventurous literature—toward its second quarter-century in Los Angeles.
Alejandra Pizarnik: "I believe the question 'What does poetry mean to you?' deserves one of two responses: either silence, or a book that relates a terrible adventure—the adventure of someone who sets off to question the poem ... to ascertain its incantatory, electrifying, revolutionary, and consoling power .... it remains a study."
'What Is Poetry to You?' brings together films, video, and archival works directed by poets, about poets, starring poets, “about” poetry, derived in “poetry,” interrogating poetry. Titled after Cecilia Vicuña's 1980 documentary, and channeling Pizarnik, these programs offer, for such a mysterious form, almost too many responses. With special guests!
With works by Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Simone Fattal, Anne Tardos, Lynne Tillman & Sheila McLaughlin, Ruth Beckermann, Beatrice Gibson, Dionne Brand, Joanne Kyger, Sofia Theodore-Pierce, Guy Maddin, Shana Moulton, Cecilia Vicuña, Jackson Mac Low, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Sylvia Schedelbauer, & more
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Program 1 | Correspondences | 3:00-6:00pm
Program 2 | Commitments | 7:00pm–10:00pm
Video on View in situ both 9/19–9/20
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Correspondences
3:00–6:00 pm
Cecilia Vicuña. What Is Poetry to You? 1980, 23 min.
Beatrice Gibson. Leisure, Utopic, 2024, 2 min.
Sofia Theodore-Pierce. Half Halt, 2025, 11 min. — director in person!
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Untitled (Paris / France / jardin), 1976, 11 min. — rare screening
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. White Dust From Mongolia, 1980, 32 min. — rare screening
Ruth Beckermann. The Dreamed Ones, 1hr 29mins, 2016, 89 min.
TRT: 168 mins. (2 hrs. 48 mins.)
Dinner-drinks break
Commitments
7:00–10:00 pm
Sylvia Schedelbauer. In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun, 2022, 17 min.
Dionne Brand. Listening for Something…Adrienne Rich and Dionne Brand in Conversation, 1996, 55 min.
Jibade-Khalil Huffman. Good Jazz, 2017, 6 min. — director in person!
Shana Moulton. Restless Leg Saga, 2012, 7 min.
Lynne Tillman and Sheila McLaughlin. Committed, 1984, 76 min.
Video on View
from 9/19–9/20 (PRB Archives/2220 Bar)
Simone Fattal. Autoportrait, 1972/2012, 45 min.
Guy Maddin. John Ashbery’s ‘How to Take a Bath,’ 2009, 3 min.
Jackson Mac Low. Jacajurismatics: Participants at Home. 1966, 4 min.
Abigail Child & Mónica de la Torre. To and No Fro, 5 min.
Anne Tardos. Animals, 1971-72, 5 mins.
Joanne Kyger. Descartes and the Splendor Of, 1968, 28 min.
More tbd.
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Full program details: rotation-la.net
Tickets at 2220arts.org
Full Day Pass available ~ or purchase per program ~ walk-in | walk-out ~ as you please | tickets are priced for poets
With thanks to Joseph Mosconi, Andrew Maxwell, PRB, and 2220; EAI; Anne Tardos; Sylvia Schedelbauer; Sofia Theodore-Pierce; Khalil Huffman; Beatrice Gibson; Cecilia Vicuña; Simone Fattal and David Buuck; Canyon Cinema; National Film Board of Canada, UCSD Library — Special Collections and Archives, with thanks to Donald Guravich; Sixpack Film. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: Courtesy University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Gift of the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Memorial Foundation.