The Poetry Series Title Listing Home Kids Poetry
Honorable Mention -Columbus IFV Festival
This classic award-winning program presents the excitement on the faces of elementary school children when they are deeply involved in the writing process, and in listening to the work of their friends. You see the joy and hear the laughter, and this excitement about creating meaningful poems inspires students, whatever their background, color or race, to use language to express themselves better. Since there are no right or wrong answers in poetry writing, and no tests or threats, what becomes clear is that there are meaningful satisfactions in life that are well worth working and living for. Produced by Edwards Films, Inc. 07DR PI 20 min.
Associated Programs Teaching Children to Write Poetry and Finding New Roads: Poetry in the Classroom

Vachel Lindsay: Look Into Your Heart
"Highly Recommended. Filmmaker Lucas Persinos, very much like Vachel Lindsay, was ahead of his time, motivated by a desire to cultivate goodness and to fight social injustice and environmental pollution. His well-crafted tribute to Lindsay helps ensure a lasting legacy." -Chip Taylor
Born in Springfield, Illinois, in 1879, (Nicholas) Vachel Lindsay was internationally known in the early-twentieth century not only for his poetry, but also for his beautiful art work that accompanied many of his poems, and for his unique, animated way of performing his poetry instead of just reading it to audiences. Today, the Vachel Lindsay Home is designated a National Historic Landmark. His most important work, The Congo and Other Poems, established him, along with Carl Sandburg and Edgar Lee Masters, as part of the Chicago "Renaissance." As this biographical documentary shows, there is a growing appreciation for many of Lindsay's themes, including his love for individualism, simplicity and nature, along with his abhorrence of hypocrisy and pettiness. Produced by Lucas Persinos. 07DR/CL JSCA 30 min.
Associated Program: Mark Harris: Something About a Writer

Living Poetry 1: A Year in the Life of a Poem
Blue Ribbon Winner -AF&V Festival
A classic program that features the late, renowned poet Theodore Weiss, who concentrates on the year-long making of a poem, while reflecting on poetry of William Blake and W.B. Yeats, helping viewers understand the creative process involved in writing poetry, from idea to realization, and the importance of tenacity and revision. After twenty-two revisions the former Princeton University professor reads the "final" version at New York's Cooper Union. Produced by Edwards Films, Inc. 07DR/CL JSCA 30 min.
Associated Programs: Living Poetry 2: Yes, With Lemon: Weiss' Poem - "Fractions" and Tree: A Paraplegic's Heroic Story) and William Butler Yeats
Also with Theodore Weiss: Backpacking and Hiking: Let the Mountains Speak

Living Poetry 2: Yes, With Lemon: Weiss' Poem - "Fractions"
Chris Award -Columbus IFB Festival
The sequel to Living Poetry 1, this classic, award-winning program offers another approach to understanding the creative writing process, this time through the deciphering of a "finished" poem. The film dramatizes and documents an analysis by Princeton University students and their professor, a 237-line autobiographical poem, titled Fractions, which appeared in The American Poetry Review, and is read on and off screen by the late renowned poet Theodore Weiss, and his wife, Renée. Enlarged and enriched, the canvas plumbs the tragic fires of Weiss' childhood in rural Pennsylvania, and finds parallels in the burning of the books in the 1930's and the Holocaust. Anti-Semitism in small-town life is contrasted to man's imperfections, while examining conflagrations and issues of our time. Produced by Edwards Films, Inc. 07DR/CL JSCA 30 min.
Associated Programs: Living Poetry 1: A Year in the Life of a Poem and The Defiant: The Holocaust Memoirs of Shalom Yoran
Also with Theodore Weisee: Backpacking and Hiking: Let the Mountains Speak

Kenneth Patchen: An Art of Engagement
Born in Niles, Ohio, in 1911, Kenneth Patchen kept a diary from the age of twelve, which started him on a life-long pursuit of writing. After marrying the love of his life, Miriam Oikemus, his first book of verse, Before the Brave, was published in 1936; thereafter he published over 40 books of poetry, prose and drama, which was quite an accomplishment considering for over thirty years he lived with a severe spinal ailment that caused him constant physical pain. Thanks to a fund set up by fellow poets, including T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and E. E. Cummings, Patchen regained his mobility for several years until an accident during another surgery left him almost completely bedridden. Despite this terrible setback, his love for experimenting in all forms of writing and multi-media kept him motivated and he created his most visually remarkable works during the last thirteen years of his life. This biographical profile brings Patchen's world alive and introduces viewers to many of the diverse and innovative forms of writing he pioneered, including the anti-novel, concrete poetry, poetry and jazz, painted books and picture poems. Produced by Larry Smith and Tom Koba. 07DR/CL JSCA 30 min.
Associated Programs: Enjambment: William Carlos Williams and the Imagists and A Tribute to Beat Poet Charles Bukowski

Edmund Skellings: Biography (Poet Laureate) & SuperPoems
Two programs on the illustrious author, educator and poet, Edmund Skellings. Produced by Dr. Edmund Skellings. 07DR JSCA "Special Box-Set Savings" - 2 Programs in a Box Set! Also available on 2 DVDs, Videos or Digital Files.
Edmund Skellings 1: Biography (Poet Laureate)
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry - Edmund Skellings
This is a biographical profile of Dr. Edmund Skellings, nationally regarded as a pioneer in the use of electronic technology for the arts, humanities, and education; he was a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature and for a Pulitzer Prize and is Florida's Poet Laureate. The Founding Director of the Florida Center for Electronic Communication at Florida Atlantic University, this multi-talented educator is also the best-selling author of numerous books, including Nearing My Age, and his new form of poetry, called "SuperPoems," has received worldwide recognition from organizations such as the American Film Institute, the National Poetry Festivals, the Telly Awards and the New York and Berlin Film Festivals. 60 min.
Edmund Skellings 2. SuperPoems
Best Animation Award -Telly Awards
Dr. Edmund Skellings, Florida's Poet Laureate, a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the winner of a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, has long been regarded as a pioneer in the use of electronic technology for the arts, humanities and education. In this program we see numerous examples of his new form of 3D computer-animated poetry, called "SuperPoems," which has won him worldwide recognition. 30 min.


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