Sarah Tremlett, MPhil, FRSA, SWIP
2018Sarah Tremlett is a prize-winning poetry film-maker, poet and theorist www.sarahtremlett.com and co-director and editor of Liberated Words www.liberatedwords.com. A curator and judge at festivals, she has given talks on the subject and shown her work worldwide. Her new publication The Poetics of Poetry Film (Intellect Books UK, and Chicago University Press USA), has been described as ‘‘A ground-breaking, encyclopedic work, an industry Bible, and essential reading on the genre’ https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-poetics-of-poetry-film
I am a poetry filmmaker, writer, artist and arts journalist/theorist. I have an MPhil in Poetry Film, an MA in Creative Writing and a BA (first class honours) in Fine Art Practice. I have recently completed The Poetics of Poetry Film by Intellect Books (and distributed through The University of Chicago Press), and I write across all mediums, between the verbal, visual and performance arts with a short stage play produced in the US (and a film script optioned), but poetry film combines all of these areas.
Poem or Poetry Films link and fuse previously separate art forms as well as both intuitive and measured decision-making, and are often made as collaborations between poets and filmmakers. Poem films, poetry films, film poems or videopoems are creative, audio visual, verbal and musical short films (often around three minutes in length) that combine poetry and film. Reminiscent of MTV (and sometimes including singing), the poem can be spoken as a soundtrack or as visual text or both and accompanied by music or other sound form. Poetry films often display contrasting visuals to the content of the poem. The videopoem as defined by Tom Konyves is created in the making of the film rather than illustrating a previously written page poem.
My poem films and prints play with different forms of composition, from haiku and minimal, concrete visual text to live footage landscape or portraiture and sound with image. Overall I am interested in what I have termed contemplative poem films that are slow, minimal films that are part of my zenzonepoemfilm project. I am also interested in the concept of a moving painting as poem; and how a poetry film might work in new, contemplative or philosophical ways. In the past I painted in a much more active form of neo-Expressionist style before turning to digital media, as you can see from my selected artworks. I have always written poetry but now there is the possibility to combine it with visual art in response to a number of overwhelming issues - particularly the desecration of the natural environment.
Whilst poem film is a medium that can be made and enjoyed by all ages, it also provides a format for highly creative, avant-garde individuals worldwide. I believe that poetry film says it like no other medium, being both challenging and entertaining, bringing to light previously unspoken areas, caught between the subjective and the public domain.
You will find my written commentary on the subject both here and on the Liberated Words.com website. Also there is our expanding Liberated Words Facebook group that provides further information for everyone interested in making poetry films.
CV IN DETAIL
Sarah Tremlett: MPhil (UAL), FRSA, SWIP. Artist, Videopoet, Poetry Filmmaker, Curator, Theorist; Co-Director, Workshop Creator and Online Editor of Liberated Words CIC (2012– present).
Qualifications: MPhil, UAL Fine Art 2014; MA, Bath Spa University, Creative Writing, 2001. TEFL qualification 2010.
Research Areas: the philosophy of poetry film; the relationship between ‘audio-visual philosophy’ poetic text and the moving image; text and relational subjectivity (matternal philosophy, Springer, 2009); and contemplative poetry films – she has been known since 2005 for researching and defining the term, developed in her thesis on Graphic Poetics, Audio-Visual Rhythm and Poetry Film (2014). She is cited in Who’s Who in Research: Visual Arts (Intellect, 2012) and has shown and presented her videopoems and poetry films worldwide.
Judge for: Liberated Words, Bristol; Newlyn PZ Short Film Festival; LYRA, Bristol, REELpoetry, Houston; Fotogenia, Mexico City and Light Up Poole.
FIRST PRIZE: Maldito Festival of Video Poetry, Albacete, Spain, 2021, with Selfie with Marilyn, poem by Heidi Seaborn, from the prize-winning An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe; performer: Hatti Rees, additional photographs of young Norma-Jeane Georgi Rees.
Selected Screenings: Maldito, Albacete, Spain; ZEBRA, Berlin; The Poetry Society, London; O’Bheal, Cork; The Film and Video Poetry Symposium, Pasadena; Lyrical Visions, New Zealand; Athens International Video Poetry Festival; Visible Verse, Vancouver; REELpoetry, Houston; Festival of Hope, Versopolis; Fotogenia, Mexico City; Rabbit Heart, Boston; Cyclop, Ukraine; At the Fringe, Tranås, Sweden; Absurdah, UK; Elephant's Footprint, UK; Poetry Film Live, UK. presentations include: VideoBardo, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Tarp, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Lithuania; The South Bank Poetry Festival, Festival of Love, South Bank Centre, London; Encounters Film Festival, Bristol; ZEBRA, Berlin; REELpoetry, Houston; LYRA, Bristol Poetry Festival; Fotogenia, Mexico City and The Geopoetics conference (online).
Liberated Words CIC: In 2012, Sarah co-founded Liberated Words poetry film events with poet Lucy English to screen international poetry filmmakers alongside films from lesser heard voices in the local community. As editor of Liberated Words online she provides a locus for poetry film research, whilst the Facebook group generates further discussion. She organized the Liberated Words festivals and accompanying publications between 2012 and 2015. She has created innovative projects for adults with dementia, teenagers with autism and projects in schools between English, Media and Dance students.
Current Leading Publication: The Poetics of Poetry Film – a scholarly reference work on the subject (with over 40 contributors) published by Intellect Books (June 2021). As author and editor of this 120,000-word work, Sarah Tremlett identifies how both the content and formal aspects of the poetry film genre combine within a lyric aesthetic and a framework of connective ethics.
Part of editorial team on Earth Lines, Geopoetry and Geopoetics, published by the Edinburgh Geological Society, October, 2021. Conceived the poetry film section of the project Earth Lines Online at the Edinburgh Geological Society website: https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/earth-lines/ and the geopoetry map which shows the locations of the original inspirations for the poems.
Recent Interviews
with Genial Daniels of Artlitlab and the Midwest Videopoetry Festival
Making Marilyn – an interview with Sarah Tremlett
https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
on The Poetics of Poetry Film:
Dr Meriel Lland, online broadcast at REELpoetry, Houston, 26 February, 2021
https://vimeo.com/521526072
also at the 10th International Video Poetry Festival, Athens, 6 June, 2021
Dr Rebecca Kosick, Bristol Poetry Institute and in collaboration with the Indisciplinary Poetics Research Cluster), online broadcast 21 April, 2021
Coming soon
Christian Pacheco-Cámara, director of Fotogenia, online broadcast 25 November, 2021
Coming soon
Javier Robledo, 25 Years of VideoBardo, 3 December, 2021
Coming soon
Rebecca Hilton, 15 December, 2021
Recent Commissions
2017 Commission by Filmpoem (Alastair Cook) film for one of the commended Poetry Society 2016 National Poetry Competition poems Sam Harvey’s ‘Claire Climbs Everest’ https://vimeo.com/228666910.
2018 Directed three poetry films for The Book of Hours by Lucy English – Mr Sky https://vimeo.com/251826023; Solstice Sol Invictus https://vimeo.com/266275739 and Summer Solstice Summer Solstice https://vimeo.com/290230463
2020 Commission by the Visible Poetry project, New York (April 2020 online) pairing filmmakers and poets for National Poetry Month. In Selfie with Marilyn (April 25th) she chose to be paired with American poet Heidi Seaborn.
2020 Bird Poem a collaborative family history poetry film with poet Dr Helen Johnson. A commission from the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, Brighton University (June 2020).
Recent Presentations
ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, December, 2019
Invited speaker on British poetry films and part of the colloquium on workshops and teaching poetry film.
Reel Poetry, Houston, Texas, January, 2020
Invited speaker presenting Uprooted – a curation of poetry films on migration and the refugee crisis. Also screened at: North Cornwall Book Festival, October, 2018; Bath Spa Empathy Conference, November, 2018; Bristol Poetry Festival, April, 2019.
VideoBardo, Buenos Aires at Bristol Poetry Institute, February, 2020
Sarah Tremlett was instrumental in bringing Marisol Bellusci from VideoBardo, Buenos Aires, Argentina to Bristol Poetry Institute, co-hosted by Dr Rebecca Kosick of Bristol University. Bellusci spoke about the role of video poetry in Latin America. Tremlett wrote a bilingual interview with Marisol for Liberated Words.
Poetry Films on the Environment, LYRA, March 2020
co-curation and panel discussion with Lucy English Bristol Poetry Festival.
Solstice Sol Invictus poetry film selected by ZEBRA poetry film festival for the online joint event The Festival of Hope – subtitled The Versopolis Global Virtual Poetry Festival, April 2020.
Judging poetry films at Newlyn PZ short film festival and presenting Paper River (2019) as part of a talk on poetry films and environmental issues, April 2020.
Presentation of I Swallow poetry film to Technology for the Arts Learning Circle convened by Maskwacis Cultural College and Mary McDonald of Pinnguaq (Canada online), August 2020.
Presentation of Firewash, poetry film from Tree, family history research and poetry project for Geopoetry 2020, October 2020 (online). On editorial team for the printed and online Geopoetry 2020 Anthology.
Presentation of Bird Poem a collaborative family history poetry film with poet Dr Helen Johnson. A commission from the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing postgrad group, Brighton University.
Lockdowning – [co]video notes, eight videopoems in eight days on the COVID-19 crisis, month by month; an online Facebook poetry challenge (October 2020). Selfie with Marilyn, poetry film at ZEBRA poetry film festival, Berlin, November 2020.
The Poetics of Poetry Film publication at REELpoetry, Houston, February 2021 (online).
The Poetics of Poetry Film publication, LYRA poetry festival, March 2021.
curated poetry film screening on ‘connections’ theme for LYRA with Lucy English.
MIX conference 2021 ‘Amplified Voices’ presentation and screening (online) on audio-visual poetry and voicing our ecosystems.
Older Conferences / Exhibitions
2019 MIX, July – Experiential Storytelling presentation, screening and reading of Paper River (2019) from Tree, online geopoetic and mythopoetic family history poetry film novel https://vimeo.com/344068197. Creative interpretations of family history through research, poetry, prose and poetry film, where toponymic identity, place and trees feature. Paper River (2019) the first film in the collection, centres on an incident that happened at a paper mill during the First World War, and how the pollution of the River Culm through papermaking, has created its own stain on ancestral identity.
2019 Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, June Paper River, reading and screening.
2018 North Cornwall Book Festival, Uprooted curation on migration and the refugee crisis
2018, LYRA, Bristol Poetry Festival, Uprooted curation on migration and the refugee crisis
2017 Commission by Filmpoem (Alastair Cook) film for one of the commended Poetry Society 2016 National Poetry Competition poems Sam Harvey’s ‘Claire Climbs Everest’ https://vimeo.com/228666910.
Presentation, North West Universities Poetics and Poetry Network Symposium, January 2017 Invited by Dr Judy Kendall of The University of Salford to present on the theme of poetry film.
2014/15 Liberated Words III Organiser of Reflections and Memory poetry film festival, commemorating the anniversary of the 1914-18 war at The Arnolfini Art Gallery, Bristol; including Marc Neys’ workshop at The YMCA, Bristol. Sarah hosted an international poetry film discussion and screening on poetry film and form at Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival. There was a second screening of Reflections at The Little Theatre, Bath, 2015 with workshops from schools and older patients suffering dementia.
MIX Conference, Bath Spa University, June 2015
I gave a presentation on Liberated Words’ workshops with schools and elderly patients at The Royal United Hospital, Bath courtesy of Art at the Heart.
2015 TARP, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius Audio Visual Poetry Film Festival, Lithuania, September Talk and presentation on ten years of the artist’s minimal videopoems at the National Gallery of Art, and premier of two new haiku videopoems.
2014 The South Bank Poetry International Festival (Festival of Love), July. Invited presentation: Re: Turning – rhythm and poetry film, graphic poetics, contemplative poetry film and visual philosophy.
Liberated Words III, 2014
Co-organised Reflections and Memory poetry film festival, commemorating the anniversary of the 1914-18 war at The Arnolfini Art Gallery, Bristol; including Marc Neys’ workshop at The YMCA, Bristol. I also hosted an international poetry film discussion and screening on poetry film and form at Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival. There was a second screening of Reflections at The Little Theatre, Bath, March 2015. The programme included workshops from schools and older patients suffering dementia at The RUH Hospital, Bath courtesy of Art from the Heart.
2013 e-Poetry conference, June, Kingston University – From Prosody to Moving Prosody, presentation of paper and overview of historical poetry films.
MIX Conference, June 2013
I was on the organising committee.
Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival II
Curated and organised Liberated Words II at The Arnolfini Art Gallery, Bristol, October, with a guest panel discussing poetry film including Philip Gross, Professor Martin Rieser, Professor Suzie Hanna, Joe Magee, David Johnson and Jackie Calderwood.
MIX (Merging Intermedia, 2012)
Conference originator, co-organiser and presenter; subject videopoetry and rhythm; also Liberated Words I poetry film screening
2012 VideoBardo – For The Earth – symposium/screening, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Invited speaker; ‘The Word as a Leaf’ paper; screening of video She/Seasons/Contemplating Nature and AMAM/AMMA.
2011 Liliane Lijn/ SarahTremlett – From Kinetic Works to Digital Poetics Chelsea Library and Old College Library
Goldsmiths Library (Special Collections) exhibition of Lilian Lijn's cones and sketchbooks and Sarah Tremlett's poetry film Patterned Utterance.
Interview with Liliane Lijn, Chelsea Lecture Theatre.
‘Signature’, Bath Literature Festival
2010 Fabrika Project Space, in conjunction with NCCA, Moscow
MODUS group and screening of Patterned Utterance and Blanks in Discourse: 03 (Mistaken Identity).
2010 Poetry and Voice Conference, Chichester University, June 25–27th
Speaker – forty minute lecture with three videos
2010 International Festival of Literature, Video Bardo, Buenos Aires
2010 London Metropolitan University, March
lecture with videos on philosophy in videopoetry practice
2009 VOICES and SILENCES, British Council supported solo show, of prints and videos, Cultural Communication Centre, Klaipeda, Lithuania
2009 Consciousness Reframed X – experiencing design, behaving media
Macromedia, Munich, November
Paper: Design and non-dualist filmic experience
Video: Some Everybodies
Presenting paper and showing videopoem (on-line papers and proceedings published)
2009 Society of Dance History Scholars, Stanford University, USA,
Paper: Matter-nal Philosophy – Gathering, Dominion and Passing By
Video: Some Everybodies
skyped presentation, on-line conference proceedings
Topographies, Sites, Bodies, Technologies
2009 Bury Festival of Text, Bury Art Gallery, May – July
Video in opening highlights
presentation and showing of videopoem Some Everybodies, June
2009 Chelsea College of Art and Design, Subjectivities and Feminism Dinner
screening of Guns, Hot Water Bottles and Angels in response to Valerie Solanas’ Scum Manifesto.
2008 Urban Identity, Brooklyn, New York
videopoem
2008 Videoformat - National Centre for Contemporary arts, Moscow group show
Consciousness Reframed, IX – New Realties, Being Syncretic
The Planetary Collegium, University of the Applied Arts, Vienna, July 2008, (conference proceedings published by Springer, New York)
Paper: Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art
Primary video: Patterned Utterance
Digital Media Festival, New York
Videopoesia Festival, VideoBardo, Buenos Aires
2007 Public Pages, Plymouth University
BAC!07 Babylon, Centre of Contemporary Art, Barcelona
2006 EXiS, Seoul, Korea
Glossolalia, video installation, Brooklyn, USA.
Selected Writings
‘Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art’, 2008. New Realities: Being Syncretic, Springer Wein, New York, 292–296. Consciousness Reframed Conference IX.
Some Everybodies – Design and non-dualist filmic experience. 2009 in: Experiencing Design, behaving media, Consciousness Reframed Conference X, pp. 99-100; and Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books Ltd, Vol. 8 (2), pp. 139–147.
Stage play: The Forger commissioned and produced at Wilmington Opera House, Delaware, 1998.
On Poetry Film see www.liberatedwords.com for all latest interviews and essays
– Selfie with Marilyn in ZEBRA 2020 – Representing Identity (now and then), Heidi Seaborn and interview with Sarah Tremlett by Dr Meriel Lland, (October 2020).
– Rebecca Hilton, a New Generation of Poetry Filmmakers, 2019.
Mix Conference, July 2019 – Experiential Storytelling: poetry film meets profiling and the panoptic gaze – Unseen Forces and the Protagonist’s Point of View (ZEBRA presentation comparing six British poetry filmmakers, December, 2019, and www.movingpoems.com).
Contextual Essay Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas for Video Poetry (Small Walker Press, 2020).
‘Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-based Video Poems’ – abridged essay as online multi-site publication at: Moving Poems, Atticus Review, Poetry Film Live and Poetry Film Kanal (June–August 2017), from the The Poetics of Poetry Film, Intellect Books.
‘Finding a New Approach to Interpreting Family History Research as Creative Narrative with Poetry and Poetry Film’, essay, poetry film and field notes on ‘Paper River’, chapter on the First World War at a Devon paper mill, from Tree, for The International Journal of Creative Media Research, Bath Spa University, October 2020.
The Performance Dinners, ed Dr Mo Throp, CCW Graduate School, 2013
Guns, Hot Water Bottles and Angels, poetry film d.v.d. and short essay/ rationale on Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto.
http://www.ayearofbeinghere.com
Phyllis Cole-Dai's wonderful Mindfulness project.
SoundsRite, Creative Online Journal, Vol 6 soundsrite.uws.edu.au
In The Turning and She, Seasons, Contemplating Nature
Ekleksographia, [online] ed. Judith Skillman. http://ekleksographia.ahadadabooks.com
Some Everybodies (full version)
+Plus Minus Online Magazine
created by sound artist Daniel Tapper looking at intersections of Art and Science
Archive July 12, 2015 - microscopy
httphttp://issuu.com/plusminusmag/docs/-_fin
interview on my microscopy poem film Patterned Utterance
Matternal Philosophy / Non-Dualist Screen
‘Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art’, 2008. New Realities: Being Syncretic, Springer Wein, New York, 292–296.
Consciousness Reframed Conference IX
Some Everybodies – Design and non-dualist filmic experience. 2009 in:
Experiencing Design, behaving media, Consciousness Reframed Conference X, pp. 99-100
Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books Ltd, Vol. 8 (2), pp. 139–147
‘Matter-nal Philosophy – Gathering, Dominion, Passing-By’.
Topographies: Sites, Bodies, Technologies, Society of Dance History Scholars Conference, 2009 [online]
Chance Operations MIX 2012 Conference
Maria Nepomuceno at Victoria Miro Gallery – Saatchi-gallery.co.uk
Selected poems for The Poetry Archive online guide
PUBLICATIONS
Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art, 2008, in Consciousness Reframed 9, New Realities : Being Syncretic, New York: Springer
Matter-nal Philosophy – Gathering, Dominion, Passing-By online conference proceedings, Topographies: Sites, Bodies, Technologies - SDHS Conference 2009Some Everybodies - Design and non-dualist filmic experience, 2009, in Consciousness Reframed 10 - Experiencing Design, behaving media, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books, Vol.8 Issue 2.
Ekleksographia, on-line poetry magazine, editor Judith Skillman http://ekleksographia.ahadadabooks.com/
Poem Your Body Contains Traces for ‘Price Cut matters’ booklet - Super Farmers’ Market, Handel Street Projects, Chelsea College of Art and Design Research Group
Maria Nepomuceno at Victoria Miro Gallery – Saatchi-gallery.co.uk
Selected poems for The Poetry Archive online guide
Poetry published:
– ‘The Last Green Mile’ an ekphrastic poem on Peter Lanyon, in Transitional: Otter Gallery Poetry Anthology, Chichester University, 2015.
– ‘Firewash’ poem and poetry film on a mining ancestor and site (visited) from the 12th century, from Tree for the Geopoetry 2020 Anthology.
'Your Body Contains Traces' for Price Cut matters,
Super Farmers’ Market, Handel Street Projects, Chelsea College of Art and Design Research Group
A Selection of Earlier Events
2006 Widcome Artists Studios
Talk and Presentation: Bath, November, 2006
Lamport Court Magazine – front and back covers Issue 6 (commission)
2005 Secrets, Womens’ Work 9th Exhibition
print artwork repeat series
Pink, Seven UK artists at Heriot Watt University
feature film script optioned, USA
The Forger, stage play produced and performed in the USA
Reality Bites, shortlisted for a ten-minute documentary series for Carlton TV
Edinburgh film festival, Imaginary Friend short film
short film mamababadada
1998 Texas National ‘98: Stephen F Austin State University, Texas
1997 San Bernadino County Museum 32nd Annual Juried Exhibition
A commissioned series of paintings concerning adoption for Bath County Court, UK
I am a poetry filmmaker, writer, artist and arts journalist/theorist. I have an MPhil in Poetry Film, an MA in Creative Writing and a BA (first class honours) in Fine Art Practice. I have recently completed The Poetics of Poetry Film by Intellect Books (and distributed through The University of Chicago Press), and I write across all mediums, between the verbal, visual and performance arts with a short stage play produced in the US (and a film script optioned), but poetry film combines all of these areas.
Poem or Poetry Films link and fuse previously separate art forms as well as both intuitive and measured decision-making, and are often made as collaborations between poets and filmmakers. Poem films, poetry films, film poems or videopoems are creative, audio visual, verbal and musical short films (often around three minutes in length) that combine poetry and film. Reminiscent of MTV (and sometimes including singing), the poem can be spoken as a soundtrack or as visual text or both and accompanied by music or other sound form. Poetry films often display contrasting visuals to the content of the poem. The videopoem as defined by Tom Konyves is created in the making of the film rather than illustrating a previously written page poem.
My poem films and prints play with different forms of composition, from haiku and minimal, concrete visual text to live footage landscape or portraiture and sound with image. Overall I am interested in what I have termed contemplative poem films that are slow, minimal films that are part of my zenzonepoemfilm project. I am also interested in the concept of a moving painting as poem; and how a poetry film might work in new, contemplative or philosophical ways. In the past I painted in a much more active form of neo-Expressionist style before turning to digital media, as you can see from my selected artworks. I have always written poetry but now there is the possibility to combine it with visual art in response to a number of overwhelming issues - particularly the desecration of the natural environment.
Whilst poem film is a medium that can be made and enjoyed by all ages, it also provides a format for highly creative, avant-garde individuals worldwide. I believe that poetry film says it like no other medium, being both challenging and entertaining, bringing to light previously unspoken areas, caught between the subjective and the public domain.
You will find my written commentary on the subject both here and on the Liberated Words.com website. Also there is our expanding Liberated Words Facebook group that provides further information for everyone interested in making poetry films.
CV IN DETAIL
Sarah Tremlett: MPhil (UAL), FRSA, SWIP. Artist, Videopoet, Poetry Filmmaker, Curator, Theorist; Co-Director, Workshop Creator and Online Editor of Liberated Words CIC (2012– present).
Qualifications: MPhil, UAL Fine Art 2014; MA, Bath Spa University, Creative Writing, 2001. TEFL qualification 2010.
Research Areas: the philosophy of poetry film; the relationship between ‘audio-visual philosophy’ poetic text and the moving image; text and relational subjectivity (matternal philosophy, Springer, 2009); and contemplative poetry films – she has been known since 2005 for researching and defining the term, developed in her thesis on Graphic Poetics, Audio-Visual Rhythm and Poetry Film (2014). She is cited in Who’s Who in Research: Visual Arts (Intellect, 2012) and has shown and presented her videopoems and poetry films worldwide.
Judge for: Liberated Words, Bristol; Newlyn PZ Short Film Festival; LYRA, Bristol, REELpoetry, Houston; Fotogenia, Mexico City and Light Up Poole.
FIRST PRIZE: Maldito Festival of Video Poetry, Albacete, Spain, 2021, with Selfie with Marilyn, poem by Heidi Seaborn, from the prize-winning An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe; performer: Hatti Rees, additional photographs of young Norma-Jeane Georgi Rees.
Selected Screenings: Maldito, Albacete, Spain; ZEBRA, Berlin; The Poetry Society, London; O’Bheal, Cork; The Film and Video Poetry Symposium, Pasadena; Lyrical Visions, New Zealand; Athens International Video Poetry Festival; Visible Verse, Vancouver; REELpoetry, Houston; Festival of Hope, Versopolis; Fotogenia, Mexico City; Rabbit Heart, Boston; Cyclop, Ukraine; At the Fringe, Tranås, Sweden; Absurdah, UK; Elephant's Footprint, UK; Poetry Film Live, UK. presentations include: VideoBardo, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Tarp, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Lithuania; The South Bank Poetry Festival, Festival of Love, South Bank Centre, London; Encounters Film Festival, Bristol; ZEBRA, Berlin; REELpoetry, Houston; LYRA, Bristol Poetry Festival; Fotogenia, Mexico City and The Geopoetics conference (online).
Liberated Words CIC: In 2012, Sarah co-founded Liberated Words poetry film events with poet Lucy English to screen international poetry filmmakers alongside films from lesser heard voices in the local community. As editor of Liberated Words online she provides a locus for poetry film research, whilst the Facebook group generates further discussion. She organized the Liberated Words festivals and accompanying publications between 2012 and 2015. She has created innovative projects for adults with dementia, teenagers with autism and projects in schools between English, Media and Dance students.
Current Leading Publication: The Poetics of Poetry Film – a scholarly reference work on the subject (with over 40 contributors) published by Intellect Books (June 2021). As author and editor of this 120,000-word work, Sarah Tremlett identifies how both the content and formal aspects of the poetry film genre combine within a lyric aesthetic and a framework of connective ethics.
Part of editorial team on Earth Lines, Geopoetry and Geopoetics, published by the Edinburgh Geological Society, October, 2021. Conceived the poetry film section of the project Earth Lines Online at the Edinburgh Geological Society website: https://www.edinburghgeolsoc.org/earth-lines/ and the geopoetry map which shows the locations of the original inspirations for the poems.
Recent Interviews
with Genial Daniels of Artlitlab and the Midwest Videopoetry Festival
Making Marilyn – an interview with Sarah Tremlett
https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
on The Poetics of Poetry Film:
Dr Meriel Lland, online broadcast at REELpoetry, Houston, 26 February, 2021
https://vimeo.com/521526072
also at the 10th International Video Poetry Festival, Athens, 6 June, 2021
Dr Rebecca Kosick, Bristol Poetry Institute and in collaboration with the Indisciplinary Poetics Research Cluster), online broadcast 21 April, 2021
Coming soon
Christian Pacheco-Cámara, director of Fotogenia, online broadcast 25 November, 2021
Coming soon
Javier Robledo, 25 Years of VideoBardo, 3 December, 2021
Coming soon
Rebecca Hilton, 15 December, 2021
Recent Commissions
2017 Commission by Filmpoem (Alastair Cook) film for one of the commended Poetry Society 2016 National Poetry Competition poems Sam Harvey’s ‘Claire Climbs Everest’ https://vimeo.com/228666910.
2018 Directed three poetry films for The Book of Hours by Lucy English – Mr Sky https://vimeo.com/251826023; Solstice Sol Invictus https://vimeo.com/266275739 and Summer Solstice Summer Solstice https://vimeo.com/290230463
2020 Commission by the Visible Poetry project, New York (April 2020 online) pairing filmmakers and poets for National Poetry Month. In Selfie with Marilyn (April 25th) she chose to be paired with American poet Heidi Seaborn.
2020 Bird Poem a collaborative family history poetry film with poet Dr Helen Johnson. A commission from the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, Brighton University (June 2020).
Recent Presentations
ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, December, 2019
Invited speaker on British poetry films and part of the colloquium on workshops and teaching poetry film.
Reel Poetry, Houston, Texas, January, 2020
Invited speaker presenting Uprooted – a curation of poetry films on migration and the refugee crisis. Also screened at: North Cornwall Book Festival, October, 2018; Bath Spa Empathy Conference, November, 2018; Bristol Poetry Festival, April, 2019.
VideoBardo, Buenos Aires at Bristol Poetry Institute, February, 2020
Sarah Tremlett was instrumental in bringing Marisol Bellusci from VideoBardo, Buenos Aires, Argentina to Bristol Poetry Institute, co-hosted by Dr Rebecca Kosick of Bristol University. Bellusci spoke about the role of video poetry in Latin America. Tremlett wrote a bilingual interview with Marisol for Liberated Words.
Poetry Films on the Environment, LYRA, March 2020
co-curation and panel discussion with Lucy English Bristol Poetry Festival.
Solstice Sol Invictus poetry film selected by ZEBRA poetry film festival for the online joint event The Festival of Hope – subtitled The Versopolis Global Virtual Poetry Festival, April 2020.
Judging poetry films at Newlyn PZ short film festival and presenting Paper River (2019) as part of a talk on poetry films and environmental issues, April 2020.
Presentation of I Swallow poetry film to Technology for the Arts Learning Circle convened by Maskwacis Cultural College and Mary McDonald of Pinnguaq (Canada online), August 2020.
Presentation of Firewash, poetry film from Tree, family history research and poetry project for Geopoetry 2020, October 2020 (online). On editorial team for the printed and online Geopoetry 2020 Anthology.
Presentation of Bird Poem a collaborative family history poetry film with poet Dr Helen Johnson. A commission from the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing postgrad group, Brighton University.
Lockdowning – [co]video notes, eight videopoems in eight days on the COVID-19 crisis, month by month; an online Facebook poetry challenge (October 2020). Selfie with Marilyn, poetry film at ZEBRA poetry film festival, Berlin, November 2020.
The Poetics of Poetry Film publication at REELpoetry, Houston, February 2021 (online).
The Poetics of Poetry Film publication, LYRA poetry festival, March 2021.
curated poetry film screening on ‘connections’ theme for LYRA with Lucy English.
MIX conference 2021 ‘Amplified Voices’ presentation and screening (online) on audio-visual poetry and voicing our ecosystems.
Older Conferences / Exhibitions
2019 MIX, July – Experiential Storytelling presentation, screening and reading of Paper River (2019) from Tree, online geopoetic and mythopoetic family history poetry film novel https://vimeo.com/344068197. Creative interpretations of family history through research, poetry, prose and poetry film, where toponymic identity, place and trees feature. Paper River (2019) the first film in the collection, centres on an incident that happened at a paper mill during the First World War, and how the pollution of the River Culm through papermaking, has created its own stain on ancestral identity.
2019 Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, June Paper River, reading and screening.
2018 North Cornwall Book Festival, Uprooted curation on migration and the refugee crisis
2018, LYRA, Bristol Poetry Festival, Uprooted curation on migration and the refugee crisis
2017 Commission by Filmpoem (Alastair Cook) film for one of the commended Poetry Society 2016 National Poetry Competition poems Sam Harvey’s ‘Claire Climbs Everest’ https://vimeo.com/228666910.
Presentation, North West Universities Poetics and Poetry Network Symposium, January 2017 Invited by Dr Judy Kendall of The University of Salford to present on the theme of poetry film.
2014/15 Liberated Words III Organiser of Reflections and Memory poetry film festival, commemorating the anniversary of the 1914-18 war at The Arnolfini Art Gallery, Bristol; including Marc Neys’ workshop at The YMCA, Bristol. Sarah hosted an international poetry film discussion and screening on poetry film and form at Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival. There was a second screening of Reflections at The Little Theatre, Bath, 2015 with workshops from schools and older patients suffering dementia.
MIX Conference, Bath Spa University, June 2015
I gave a presentation on Liberated Words’ workshops with schools and elderly patients at The Royal United Hospital, Bath courtesy of Art at the Heart.
2015 TARP, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius Audio Visual Poetry Film Festival, Lithuania, September Talk and presentation on ten years of the artist’s minimal videopoems at the National Gallery of Art, and premier of two new haiku videopoems.
2014 The South Bank Poetry International Festival (Festival of Love), July. Invited presentation: Re: Turning – rhythm and poetry film, graphic poetics, contemplative poetry film and visual philosophy.
Liberated Words III, 2014
Co-organised Reflections and Memory poetry film festival, commemorating the anniversary of the 1914-18 war at The Arnolfini Art Gallery, Bristol; including Marc Neys’ workshop at The YMCA, Bristol. I also hosted an international poetry film discussion and screening on poetry film and form at Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival. There was a second screening of Reflections at The Little Theatre, Bath, March 2015. The programme included workshops from schools and older patients suffering dementia at The RUH Hospital, Bath courtesy of Art from the Heart.
2013 e-Poetry conference, June, Kingston University – From Prosody to Moving Prosody, presentation of paper and overview of historical poetry films.
MIX Conference, June 2013
I was on the organising committee.
Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival II
Curated and organised Liberated Words II at The Arnolfini Art Gallery, Bristol, October, with a guest panel discussing poetry film including Philip Gross, Professor Martin Rieser, Professor Suzie Hanna, Joe Magee, David Johnson and Jackie Calderwood.
MIX (Merging Intermedia, 2012)
Conference originator, co-organiser and presenter; subject videopoetry and rhythm; also Liberated Words I poetry film screening
2012 VideoBardo – For The Earth – symposium/screening, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Invited speaker; ‘The Word as a Leaf’ paper; screening of video She/Seasons/Contemplating Nature and AMAM/AMMA.
2011 Liliane Lijn/ SarahTremlett – From Kinetic Works to Digital Poetics Chelsea Library and Old College Library
Goldsmiths Library (Special Collections) exhibition of Lilian Lijn's cones and sketchbooks and Sarah Tremlett's poetry film Patterned Utterance.
Interview with Liliane Lijn, Chelsea Lecture Theatre.
‘Signature’, Bath Literature Festival
2010 Fabrika Project Space, in conjunction with NCCA, Moscow
MODUS group and screening of Patterned Utterance and Blanks in Discourse: 03 (Mistaken Identity).
2010 Poetry and Voice Conference, Chichester University, June 25–27th
Speaker – forty minute lecture with three videos
2010 International Festival of Literature, Video Bardo, Buenos Aires
2010 London Metropolitan University, March
lecture with videos on philosophy in videopoetry practice
2009 VOICES and SILENCES, British Council supported solo show, of prints and videos, Cultural Communication Centre, Klaipeda, Lithuania
2009 Consciousness Reframed X – experiencing design, behaving media
Macromedia, Munich, November
Paper: Design and non-dualist filmic experience
Video: Some Everybodies
Presenting paper and showing videopoem (on-line papers and proceedings published)
2009 Society of Dance History Scholars, Stanford University, USA,
Paper: Matter-nal Philosophy – Gathering, Dominion and Passing By
Video: Some Everybodies
skyped presentation, on-line conference proceedings
Topographies, Sites, Bodies, Technologies
2009 Bury Festival of Text, Bury Art Gallery, May – July
Video in opening highlights
presentation and showing of videopoem Some Everybodies, June
2009 Chelsea College of Art and Design, Subjectivities and Feminism Dinner
screening of Guns, Hot Water Bottles and Angels in response to Valerie Solanas’ Scum Manifesto.
2008 Urban Identity, Brooklyn, New York
videopoem
2008 Videoformat - National Centre for Contemporary arts, Moscow group show
Consciousness Reframed, IX – New Realties, Being Syncretic
The Planetary Collegium, University of the Applied Arts, Vienna, July 2008, (conference proceedings published by Springer, New York)
Paper: Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art
Primary video: Patterned Utterance
Digital Media Festival, New York
Videopoesia Festival, VideoBardo, Buenos Aires
2007 Public Pages, Plymouth University
BAC!07 Babylon, Centre of Contemporary Art, Barcelona
2006 EXiS, Seoul, Korea
Glossolalia, video installation, Brooklyn, USA.
Selected Writings
‘Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art’, 2008. New Realities: Being Syncretic, Springer Wein, New York, 292–296. Consciousness Reframed Conference IX.
Some Everybodies – Design and non-dualist filmic experience. 2009 in: Experiencing Design, behaving media, Consciousness Reframed Conference X, pp. 99-100; and Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books Ltd, Vol. 8 (2), pp. 139–147.
Stage play: The Forger commissioned and produced at Wilmington Opera House, Delaware, 1998.
On Poetry Film see www.liberatedwords.com for all latest interviews and essays
– Selfie with Marilyn in ZEBRA 2020 – Representing Identity (now and then), Heidi Seaborn and interview with Sarah Tremlett by Dr Meriel Lland, (October 2020).
– Rebecca Hilton, a New Generation of Poetry Filmmakers, 2019.
Mix Conference, July 2019 – Experiential Storytelling: poetry film meets profiling and the panoptic gaze – Unseen Forces and the Protagonist’s Point of View (ZEBRA presentation comparing six British poetry filmmakers, December, 2019, and www.movingpoems.com).
Contextual Essay Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas for Video Poetry (Small Walker Press, 2020).
‘Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-based Video Poems’ – abridged essay as online multi-site publication at: Moving Poems, Atticus Review, Poetry Film Live and Poetry Film Kanal (June–August 2017), from the The Poetics of Poetry Film, Intellect Books.
‘Finding a New Approach to Interpreting Family History Research as Creative Narrative with Poetry and Poetry Film’, essay, poetry film and field notes on ‘Paper River’, chapter on the First World War at a Devon paper mill, from Tree, for The International Journal of Creative Media Research, Bath Spa University, October 2020.
The Performance Dinners, ed Dr Mo Throp, CCW Graduate School, 2013
Guns, Hot Water Bottles and Angels, poetry film d.v.d. and short essay/ rationale on Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto.
http://www.ayearofbeinghere.com
Phyllis Cole-Dai's wonderful Mindfulness project.
SoundsRite, Creative Online Journal, Vol 6 soundsrite.uws.edu.au
In The Turning and She, Seasons, Contemplating Nature
Ekleksographia, [online] ed. Judith Skillman. http://ekleksographia.ahadadabooks.com
Some Everybodies (full version)
+Plus Minus Online Magazine
created by sound artist Daniel Tapper looking at intersections of Art and Science
Archive July 12, 2015 - microscopy
httphttp://issuu.com/plusminusmag/docs/-_fin
interview on my microscopy poem film Patterned Utterance
Matternal Philosophy / Non-Dualist Screen
‘Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art’, 2008. New Realities: Being Syncretic, Springer Wein, New York, 292–296.
Consciousness Reframed Conference IX
Some Everybodies – Design and non-dualist filmic experience. 2009 in:
Experiencing Design, behaving media, Consciousness Reframed Conference X, pp. 99-100
Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books Ltd, Vol. 8 (2), pp. 139–147
‘Matter-nal Philosophy – Gathering, Dominion, Passing-By’.
Topographies: Sites, Bodies, Technologies, Society of Dance History Scholars Conference, 2009 [online]
Chance Operations MIX 2012 Conference
Maria Nepomuceno at Victoria Miro Gallery – Saatchi-gallery.co.uk
Selected poems for The Poetry Archive online guide
PUBLICATIONS
Matternal Philosophy, Female Subjectivity and Text in Art, 2008, in Consciousness Reframed 9, New Realities : Being Syncretic, New York: Springer
Matter-nal Philosophy – Gathering, Dominion, Passing-By online conference proceedings, Topographies: Sites, Bodies, Technologies - SDHS Conference 2009Some Everybodies - Design and non-dualist filmic experience, 2009, in Consciousness Reframed 10 - Experiencing Design, behaving media, Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books, Vol.8 Issue 2.
Ekleksographia, on-line poetry magazine, editor Judith Skillman http://ekleksographia.ahadadabooks.com/
Poem Your Body Contains Traces for ‘Price Cut matters’ booklet - Super Farmers’ Market, Handel Street Projects, Chelsea College of Art and Design Research Group
Maria Nepomuceno at Victoria Miro Gallery – Saatchi-gallery.co.uk
Selected poems for The Poetry Archive online guide
Poetry published:
– ‘The Last Green Mile’ an ekphrastic poem on Peter Lanyon, in Transitional: Otter Gallery Poetry Anthology, Chichester University, 2015.
– ‘Firewash’ poem and poetry film on a mining ancestor and site (visited) from the 12th century, from Tree for the Geopoetry 2020 Anthology.
'Your Body Contains Traces' for Price Cut matters,
Super Farmers’ Market, Handel Street Projects, Chelsea College of Art and Design Research Group
A Selection of Earlier Events
2006 Widcome Artists Studios
Talk and Presentation: Bath, November, 2006
Lamport Court Magazine – front and back covers Issue 6 (commission)
2005 Secrets, Womens’ Work 9th Exhibition
print artwork repeat series
Pink, Seven UK artists at Heriot Watt University
feature film script optioned, USA
The Forger, stage play produced and performed in the USA
Reality Bites, shortlisted for a ten-minute documentary series for Carlton TV
Edinburgh film festival, Imaginary Friend short film
short film mamababadada
1998 Texas National ‘98: Stephen F Austin State University, Texas
1997 San Bernadino County Museum 32nd Annual Juried Exhibition
A commissioned series of paintings concerning adoption for Bath County Court, UK