Vancouver poet, singer and author Heather Haley returns to Pacific Cinémathèque to host our annual special evening devoted to videopoetry and film, a hybrid creative form that integrates verse with media-art visuals produced by a camera or a computer. This year Heather promises another wild ride, with an exciting and eclectic program that features 33 films and videos from Canada, the USA, Great Britain, France and Australia.

The dizzying array of works on display vary tremendously in budget, style, theme, and even total running time (ranging from 44 seconds to over ten minutes.) Earle Birney, William Carlos Williams, Christian Bök, Anne Sexton, Tom Konyves, Penn Kemp, Hugo Ball, Lenelle Moise, Cy Street, Komninos Zervos are a few of the featured voices, as is one of the first poets to work with film, Jean Cocteau.

Spoken word artist, raconteur, Fernando Raguero and Vancouver poet and impresario Sean McGarragle will perform live for the screening audience, continuing a Visible Verse tradition that celebrates the connection between the cinematic and language arts.

These annual screenings have become North America's sustaining venue for the presentation of artistically significant poetry film and video. Artists in the genre and fans of it should recognize that it is now the touchstone venue for the form in North America. If new poetry cinema of significance erupts anywhere between the Atlantic and Pacific, Visible Verse is where it will get its best screening.

Bios: Architect of the Edgewise ElectroLit Centre and the Vancouver Videopoem Festival, Heather Haley pushes boundaries by creating across disciplines and media. Her work appears on stage, paper, video, CD and the Internet at e-poets.net and heatherhaley.com. Fernando Raguero, a poet known for his hilarious and brutal honesty, has been performing in Vancouver's spoken word scene for over five years.  Samples of his work can be found on latchkey.net. Originally from Toronto, Sean McGarragle is a performance poet and storyteller currently living and working in east Vancouver.  He's the artistic director of the West Coast Poetry Festival and one of the organizers behind the Vancouver Story Slam and the Vancouver Poetry Slam.

The Program: Part I

Fernando Raguero in performance

On Screen:

Cocteau Cento (Dan Boord, Luis Valdovino/USA)            
Black Coffee Nights            (Komninos Zervos/Australia)                                                           
Childhood in Richmond (Komninos Zervos/Australia)                                                           
High Street/Kew Street (Komninos Zervos/Australia)                       
The Term (William Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Lewis/Canada)
To Erzulie (Lenelle Moise, Mara Alper/USA)
13 Instances-5 chapers (David Poolman/Canada)
The Touch (Anne Sexton, Vanessa Woods/USA)
To the Stones (David Bengtson, Mike Hazard/USA)
Sparkling Igloo (Emily Novalinga, Brigitte Lebrasseur/Canada)
Sea Horses & Flying Fish (Rick Raxlen, Hugo Ball, Christian Bök/Canada)  
I Can’t Keep Up (Martha Colburn/USA)                           
Rhapsody to Orpheus on Pomegranate Wine (David Witzling/USA)
Fuck Authority (Paul Grivas/France)
Primiti Too Taa (Ed Ackerman/Canada)                                    
Purple Lipstick (Josef Roehrl, Double H/Canada)

Intermission (15 mins)

Part II

Sean McGarragle in performance

On Screen:

PNN (Donna Szoke, Maki Yi/Canada)
Job 4 Life (Mac Dunlop/Great Britain)           
Moon Rises (David Bengtson, Mike Hazard/USA)
In the Garden (Larissa Fan/Canada)
You Are Not the Boss of Me (Allison Beda/Canada)
Not Waving but Drowning (Penn Kemp/Canada)                        
The Crossroads (David Bengtson, Mike Hazard/USA)
Kokoro Is for Heart (Phil Hoffman/Canada)                                   
Dirty Bomb (Mac Dunlop/Great Britain)                                   
The Self (Blake Parker/Canada)
Candle Dance (David Bengtson, Mike Hazard/USA)                                   
Poem for the Rivers Project (Tom Konyves/Canada)                        
May I Brand Your Forehead? (Cy Street/USA)
The Bell (Donna Szoke/Canada)            
Villanelle (Earle Birney, Elizabeth Lewis/Canada)                       
Cities of the Dead (David Madgalene/USA)
How Did He Get Here?  (David Bengtson, Mike Hazard/USA)

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