Poetry News

Twelve filmmakers respond to Li-Young Lee’s poetry and the city of Chicago

By Harriet Staff

In a recent essay, Alastair Cook explored the genre of poetry-film and the delicate collaborative balance between a poet and a filmmaker. The City in Which, co-produced and curated by Joshua Dumas and Christy LeMaster, adds not one (or even two) filmmakers to the equation, but a grand total of twelve to create one final product. Dumas and LeMaster invited each Chicago-based experimental filmmaker to use a roll of 16mm film to contribute to a project based on Li-Young Lee’s “The City in Which I Love You.” The new short film, spliced together from the filmmakers’ individual responses “to the poem and to their own experience of living and making in Chicago” will premiere in April accompanied by a live reading of the poem by Dumas and followed by other cine-poem shorts curated by LeMaster.

The intersections: Where the curiosity and vision of twelve emerging filmmakers meet a poem set in our hometown. How a whirring projector sings with verses read aloud. Where image and language stride side streets together, navigating an intimate and abstract emotional topography of our city.

Tags: Christy LeMaster, Joshua Dumas, Li-Young Lee, poetry-film
Posted in Poetry News on Thursday, March 24th, 2011 by Harriet Staff.