Three Great Writers
Three Great Documentaries

April 9, 2010 at 6:30 PM
Strange Bird Consulting
832 South Colony Way, Suite 2
Palmer, AK

Charles Olson
Pollis is This: Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place
A film by Henry Ferinni

The essential document of the Black Mountain school of poetry, Charles Olson’s book-length work, The Maximus Poems is essential reading
for anyone who wants to understand the music of place in poetry. We’ll be presenting a film about Charles Olson’s work, with lots of readings from his poems, never before seen footage and interviews, and appearances by great actors like John Malkovich. The film by Henry Ferreni is called Polis is This:  Charles Olson and the Persistence of Place.
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Jack Kerouac
Lowell Blues
a film by Henry Ferrini

Lowell Blues remembers the place Jack Kerouac could not forget. By fusing visual history, language and jazz into a 30-minute film poem, Lowell Blues illuminates Kerouac's childhood holy land. Excerpts from Kerouac's novel, Dr. Sax, are read by: Gregory Corso, Johnny Depp, Carolyn Cassady, David Amram, Robert Creeley, and Joyce Johnson. Ferrini paints an illuminated landscape rich in mystery and possibility. Lowell Blues is a canvas in motion.
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Samuel Beckett
The Impossible Itself
a film by Jacob Adam

In 1957 a San Francisco theater troupe performed Samuel Beckett's  controversial tragic-comedy "Waiting for Godot" in front of 1200 to 1500 inmates at San Quentin Penitentiary. They expected boo's and hollers. They got just the opposite. It was as if prisoners were better prepared for Beckett's avante garde theater than the New York critics and intellectuals of the time. Jacob Adam documents the story in his film The Impossible Itself.