Poetry Film Screening Feb. 22

The Creative Writing Program & the Department of English Studies at Illinois State University will present "Cinépoetry," poetry films on Monday, Feb. 22, 7 p.m. at The Normal Theater, 209 North Street in Normal. This event is free and open to the public.

Poet and new media artist and executive director of the Poetry Center of Chicago Francesco Levato will present a series of short poetry films in an examination of the convergence of cinema and poetry in the emergent genre of cinépoetry. The 50-minute program, which will include Levato's award winning documentary short film War Rug, will be followed by a Q&A.

Named an Official Selection at the Potenza International Film Festival, War Rug, the film, is based on the documentary poetics of the book length poem of the same name. Interwoven narratives-from first hand accounts and news reports to counterintelligence manuals and autopsy reports-explore life within conflict zones through the lens of current warfare. The film collages and juxtaposes archival source material with U.S. Military footage in an exploration of alternative narrative interpretations of the source text.

Levato is the executive director of the Poetry Center of Chicago. He is the author of three books of poetry: Elegy for Dead Languages; War Rug; and Marginal State and his translations of the works of Italian poets, Tiziano Fratus, Creaturing, and Fabiano Alborghetti, The Opposite Shore, are forthcoming from Marick Press in 2010. His work has been published internationally in journals and anthologies, including The Los Angeles Review, Drunken Boat, The Progressive, XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics, and Versal.  His poetry-based video artwork has been exhibited in galleries and featured at film festivals in Berlin, Chicago, Italy, New York, and elsewhere.

For more information contact Duriel E. Harris at dharri2@ilstu.edu or 309.438.1401