Join us on Saturday, April 4, 2026 starting at 6 PM for a screening of video poems from around the world. Eleven videos centering around place and belonging from Ireland, the Netherlands, Benin, the United Kingdom, Cuba, New York City, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and Ysplanti.
Save your seat for one or more of the evening's programs by clicking the button below:
Additional video poems will be shown at 7 and 8 PM.
1) Anything with a Switch (04m34s)
Directed by Charli Brissey
Written by Charli Brissey
Michigan, United States
Charli Brissey's website
Charli Brissey (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and teacher who works choreographically with various technologies and materials. This primarily includes bodies, cameras, objects, genders, desire, instincts, language, and ecosystems. "Anything with a Switch" is a short movement study on sapphic longing and obsession.
2) Beside Myself (03m00s)
Directed by H. Paul Moon
Written by Bob Holman
District of Columbia, United States
H. Paul Moon's website
“BESIDE MYSELF” is a poem/film that engages the reader/viewer to trade places with the poet for a generative new thing that can, with your help, change the world.
3) Shrapnel (05m51s)
Directed by Víctor Rodolfo Jiménez
Written by Víctor Rodolfo Jiménez
Cuba
This visceral poem captures the inheritance of fear: the anxious litany of family, the racial and cultural landmines, and the tangled code-switching required for survival—language can wound. Warnings throughout. Spanish with English subtitles.
4) Lettre à ma fille (04m09s)
Directed by Michael Maurissens
Written by Amee
Benin
Unfolding on the beaches and streets of Benin, a group of women dispel fairy tales to center embodied values of feminine power: strength, independence, and self-worth through song and dance.
5) Upon Landing (06m03s)
Directed by Damian Gonzalez
Written by Damian Gonzalez
Wisconsin, United States
Upon Landing is a short film that captures the emotional landscape of the immigration experience.
6) Good Girl (03m57s)
Directed by Matthew Thompson
Written by Kim Addonizio
United Kingdom
Adrian Brinkerhoff Website
A woman contemplates the dubious merits of being "a good girl."
7) An Ode to Tony MacMahon's Den (05m46s)
Directed by Luke De Brún
Written by Stephen James Smith
Ireland
Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation
Poet Stephen James Smith performs his poem in homage to locally-performed traditional Irish music, "An Ode to Tony MacMahon's Den." His words weave through a background of music and the people and businesses of Dublin's Liberties neighborhood.
8) Limerent Pittsburgh (02m48s)
Directed by Anne Ciecko
Written by Anne Ciecko
Pennsylvania, United States
Limerence is an intense, involuntary state of obsessive infatuation. The object of it in this video poem is a rust belt city as a site of rekindling of memories and mythologies of labor and family.
9) That's My Heart Right There (01m19s)
Directed by Jake Alexander McAfee
Written by Willie Perdomo
New York, United States
Adrian Brinkerhoff Website
Poet Willie Perdomo performs his iconic poem "That's My Heart Right There" against the backdrop of New York City's East River.
10) Marinating (04m17s)
Directed by Helmie Stil, Sjaan Flikweert
Written by Sjaan Flikweert
Netherlands
"Marinating" is a feast where every person feeds and is fed by each other, serving as a powerful testimony to the power and beauty of interdependence.
Arts + Literature Laboratory is located at 111 S. Livingston Street #100, Madison, Wisconsin, 53703.
Our galleries are open Tuesday through Friday 10am-5pm and Saturday noon to 5pm, and other programs take place throughout the week. Please check the events calendar and education section for details.