Friday, September 19, 2025 at 3:00 PM to Friday, September 19, 2025 at 10:00 PM
2220 Arts + Archives, Los Angeles
**What Is Poetry to You? Rotations Screens Poetry Films for PRB's 25th** In celebration of the 25th anniversary of LA's Poetic Research Bureau, "sister org" Rotations Film Series curates, across two programs that span the day and evening of September 19, moving-image works centering poetry. Funds go to sustaining and expanding the mission of the PRB – presenting poetry and adventurous literature – toward its second quarter-century in Los Angeles. Alejandra Pizarnik: "I believe the question 'What does poetry mean to you?' deserves one of two responses: either silence, or a book that relates a terrible adventure—the adventure of someone who sets off to question the poem ... to ascertain its incantatory, electrifying, revolutionary, and consoling power .... it remains a study." An entertaining study. 'What Is Poetry to You?' brings together films, video, and archival works directed by poets, about poets, starring poets, “about” poetry, derived in “poetry,” interrogating poetry. Titled after Cecilia Vicuña's 1980 documentary, and channeling Pizarnik, these programs offer, for such a mysterious form, almost too many responses. With special guests! ∆ **Day Program: Correspondences** (3:00-6:00 pm) Cecilia Vicuña. What Is Poetry to You? 1980 Anne Tardos, Animals, 1971-72 Sofia Theodore-Pierce. Half Halt, 2025 -- director in person! Jibade Khalil-Huffman, TBA Joanne Kyger, Descartes and the Splendor Of, 1968 Shana Moulton, Restless Leg Saga, 2012 Ruth Beckermann, The Dreamed Ones, 2016 ∆ *Dinner break* ∆ **Evening Program: Commitments** (7:00-10:00 pm) Sylvia Schedelbauer, In the Beginning, Woman Was the Sun, 2022 Lynne Tillman and Sheila McLaughlin, Committed, 1984 Simone Fattal, Autoportrait, 1972/2012 Guy Maddin, John Ashbery’s ‘How to Take a Bath,’ 2009 Jackson Mac Low, Jacajurismetics: Participants at Home, 1966 Dionne Brand, Listening for Something … Adrienne Rich and Dionne Brand in Conversation, 1996 *More tba!* Programs are subject to changes and additions. Film/director details and program acknowledgments at https://rotations-la.net. 'What Is Poetry to You?' curated by Corina Copp, co-presented with the Poetic Research Bureau.