Explore parallels between poetry and film

Five Tuesdays • April 28–May 26
6:30–8:30 PM CT • Zoom
Nonmember $250 | Member $215 | Student/Educ/Mil: $175
*EARN CPEs

Film has the power to evoke striking images, capture history, and transport us to alternate realities. Poetry does the same. But what happens when poets borrow elements from film?

Over five weeks, we’ll explore the intersections between cinema and poetry, and imagine the poet as director, cinematographer, actor, screenwriter, stage designer, documentarian, and editor–all at once. Through an eclectic mix of poems, essays, and screenplay excerpts, we’ll uncover how poetry and film share the key elements of discovery, the transformative tools of language and image, and the uniting of the speaker’s inner and outer worlds. This class will strengthen your writing skills, help you to see your work with new eyes, and deepen your revision process.

For intermediate poets (18+)

Workshop participants will leave with the following:

• An understanding of how film elements can strengthen poetry
• Strategies for using cinematic elements in poetry
• Fresh revision techniques 

Former 12-year Regional Director of the Poetry Society of America, Elena Karina Byrne worked as a Contributing Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books, a final judge for PEN’s “Best of the West” award, one of the final judges for the Kate and Kingsley Tufts Poetry Awards in Poetry from 2016-2018, and one of three 2018-2019 Georgia Circuit visiting poets. Elena also served as a co-judge for the 2022 international Laurel Prize, the annual award for the best collection of environmental poetry.

Elena Karina Byrne holds a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from Antioch University. She has curated programs for the J. Paul Getty Center, MOCA, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, and USC’s Doheny Memorial Library, among others. She is a private manuscript editor, freelance lecturer, longtime Programming Consultant and Poetry Stage Manager for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and Poetry Programs Director for the historic Ruskin Art Club. A Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry recipient, she is the author of five poetry collections, including If This Makes You Nervous, No, Don’t, Squander, MASQUE, and The Flammable Bird. Her work has appeared in POETRY, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere.