Sarah Tremlett, MPhil, FRSA
Sarah Tremlett (born: Sheffield, Yorkshire, UK) MPhil, FRSA, is a British artist-philosopher, poet, leading poetry film theorist[i] and a prizewinning and multiple commissioned[ii] poetry filmmaker. She is known for working with subjectivity and voice, (including ancestral belonging), experimental videopoetry, and bringing poetry film to the public.
Poetry filmmaking centres on short films that typically include poetry either as voiceover and/or text on screen with the moving image and soundscape. Sarah's poetry film Selfie with Marilyn [iii] won the Maldito Festival de Videopoesía / Maldito Videopoetry Festival in 2021.[iv] She has given over 40 presentations and readings (and also essays) consistently since 2008, centering on subjectivity, image[v] and voice[vi], and the intersection between poetry, film and philosophy through creative practice, termed ‘connective aesthetics’.[vii] In terms of academic works, she is primarily known for the 400-page ‘groundbreaking industry bible’[viii] The Poetics of Poetry Film[ix] (Intellect Books, 2021). The publication is available to date in more than 650 academic libraries alone, worldwide. With the merging of ancestral forms from song, visual and lyric poetry alongside the origins of film, animation and performance, the book establishes historic sources and interweaves a philosophical lens through the genre, whilst introducing many approaches in the voices of different practitioners.[x]
The editor of Liberated Words online she is a major figure in bringing poetry film to the public in the UK, and at festivals worldwide, and is passionate about poetry film as a vehicle for inclusive debate for unheard voices. As a woman who has been both sides of the camera, including as a fashion model, Sarah is also recognized for expanding what the concept of a female artist as theorist might mean. She has made lasting contacts with Spanish-speaking festivals in Spain (Maldito Festival de Videopoesía / Maldito Video Poetry Festival in Albacete), and Latin America (VideoBardo [xi] in Buenos Aires, Argentina and FOTOGENIA Film Poetry and Divergent Narratives Festival in Mexico City, Mexico) and is learning Spanish as a result. Since the burgeoning of the genre at international events, she has been a juror at major festivals every year (often several times a year) from 2012 to (and including) 2024, with only one year’s absence in 2017.[xii]
Horse-Woman
'Horse-Woman is a poetic memoir about working as a fashion model, whilst trying to write and paint, in bohemian late-1970s London bedsit land. As a socially and emotionally isolated child of elderly parents, Sarah Tremlett was given a young horse to look after, which ultimately was sold against her wishes, due to studying for A-levels. In this account of events, in order to survive, Sarah’s autistic psyche creates a mythical, ‘otherkin’ horse persona which protects and interweaves with her experiences in the fashion world.'
Her major lifetime’s work TREE (forthcoming) is her investigation into her unknown family history. TREE has taken over 30 years to complete and is a mythic, geopoetic and healing chronicle combining poetry, prose, archival sources and poetry films. She has said that her isolated childhood not only gave her a strong connection to animals, but also turned her inwards (to the ancestors within us) and gave her a heightened instinct for the past. Poetry films from TREE can be found on this site and at Sarah Tremlett Poem Film at YouTube (link below).
'I am a poet, poetry filmmaker, writer, artist and arts theorist. I have an MPhil in Poetry Film, an MA in Creative Writing and a BA (first class honours) in Fine Art Practice. 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 my poetry films combine all of these areas. My wider background in fashion, textiles, modelling, the theatre, scriptwriting etc. all feed into the work I do today. Overall, I am interested in new ways of thinking about and through narrative.
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 to five 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 includes text (non-subjective) but not the spoken word and is created in the making of the film rather than illustrating a previously written page poem.
My work has evolved from experimenting with minimal, concrete video poems to more autobiographical, lyric poetry films with narrative, landscape and ‘performance’, particularly in relation to identity and belonging. More recently I highlighted ekphrastic poetry films in the project Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow, where poetry films are based on artworks. I am particularly interested in experimental performative poetry film, 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. I have always written poetry but I am very self-critical. I find poems in combination with film or video a really rewarding combination, particularly when voicing overwhelming issues, such as the desecration of the natural environment.'
BIOGRAPHY IN MORE DETAIL
Sarah Tremlett was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, but brought up in a village in Cambridgeshire, in a rambling old house bought at auction. She was an accident 11, 13 and 15 years younger than her evenly spaced siblings, and so spent a lot of time alone in the large garden or house. Her mother suffered depression (her father and sister having died at a young age) and Sarah’s retired father spent a lot of time in the garden.
Sarah became a cleaner and gardener for her parents from the age of five (see Horse-Woman). Unlike her siblings who went to boarding school, she went to a highly academic day school where she fell between the cracks. She was drawn to animals for comfort. She went on to complete an Art Foundation at Cambridge College of Arts and Technology where she won a prize to design a dress for Miss Cambridge. Rather than doing an Art degree she then changed to Fashion and Textiles at St Martin’s School of Art, where she achieved top grades in her first year. She was also chosen to model final year students’ clothes and then signed with an agency. At the time the college didn't allow students to model and she had to choose between her course or earning a living in the fashion world. She travelled to New York, Paris and Milan and for a short time she was the chosen model for Thea Porter – the theatrical fashion designer with an artist’s eye for bohemian styles and exotic fabrics.[xiii] She posed for Porter for both Angela Landels’ fashion illustrations, and also photographs in her garments.[xiv] Porter took her to New York with her on a fitting trip, where she modelled for actress Lauren Bacall in The Algonquin Hotel (see Horse-Woman).
After a year or so, the highs and lows of her lifestyle became too much[xv] and she left modelling (even though she was booked to model for the talented Irish designer and artist Paul Costelloe). She began working backstage at The Arts Theatre in Cambridge, where she was a dresser for Stephen Fry in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue, and also in 1982 assistant to Judy Birdwood as costume maker and dresser for 100 Years of The Cambridge Greek Play. She also started making hand-painted lampshades with ‘cave paintings’ on, which, because they were ‘incised or drawn’ into the thick paint, lit up when the light shone through. They sold at Practical Styling in London. In 1984 she began working for an academic publishing company[xvi] whilst painting, exhibiting and writing novels and plays. A TV play Dancing was under consideration for The Radio Times Comedy and Drama Awards (1992).[xvii] She became a features writer across all the arts for The Cambridgeshire Journal (1993–1995), whilst working for Silent Books, Swavesey, Cambridgeshire, producing and marketing art books on wood engravings.
In 1995, Sarah and her partner the science publisher Robin Rees relocated for his work from the Cambridgeshire Fens to the Main Line just outside Philadelphia, USA, where they were married. They were there until 1998 and Sarah had two daughters during that time, the performance artist and special effects and makeup artist Elizabeth ‘Hatti’ Rees aka XaiLA[xviii] (1995) and singer and performer Georgi Rees [xix] (1998). Sarah showed her paintings across America, and wrote stage plays and film scripts, with one being produced, another optioned as a film, and two were shortlisted for prizes,[xx] then they returned to the UK.
Whilst the children were young Sarah found it easier to make short films rather than painting, even including her young daughters in the narratives: Hatti in Imaginary Friend[xxi] and Georgi in MamaBabaDada. The girls would also put on their own shows and make the costumes. Sarah also found painting did not ‘say’ anything anymore, and she began to read feminist theory and philosophy and admired the text-based American women artists Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University (2001) and went on to gain a distinction in a Fine Art Practice degree at Amersham and Wycombe College (2005) with her thesis ‘Women and Text.’[xxii] She also worked as a proofreader and copy editor for Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company.[xxiii]
Visual Philosopher
In 2006 she began a part-time research degree at The University of the Arts, London, which became titled ‘Re : turning from graphic verse to digital poetics’ (2015),[xxiv] giving presentations at major international conferences and organizing exhibitions. She has been foremost in thinking about the relationship between poetry (both lyric verse and visual) on the ‘still’ page and the ‘moving’ screen, particularly the rhythmic and transitional aspects. She produced slowly appearing and disappearing videotexts, asking what they might signify for (audiovisual) philosophy of language. Her later essay ‘Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-based Videopoems’ (2017) published by Poetry Film Magazin[xxv] and the online sites: Moving Poems and Atticus Review encapsulates her thinking on one area of this subject. She also attempted to examine the materiality of the screen through entrenched patriarchal Western hierarchical philosophical dualisms (male over female, culture over nature and, in her case particularly) word over matter. She was described as a ‘Visual Philosopher’ by Karina Karaeva of the NCCA, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, who exhibited her videopoems.[xxvi] One of her most conceptual works Patterned Utterance[xxvii] (see image below), involved a verbal interaction with a scanning probe microscope. Since the probe was sensitive to vibration in the room, she recited poetic lines which caused error lines in the reading (a slow scanning) of a piece of silicon. This was recorded on video as a marrying of the two types of reading and the voice becoming part of the silicon data. She also continued her research absorbing theories of materiality and non-duality in relation to feminist philosophical thinkers.[xxviii]
In 1995, Sarah and her partner the science publisher Robin Rees relocated for his work from the Cambridgeshire Fens to the Main Line just outside Philadelphia, USA, where they were married. They were there until 1998 and Sarah had two daughters during that time, the performance artist and special effects and makeup artist Elizabeth ‘Hatti’ Rees aka XaiLA[xviii] (1995) and singer and performer Georgi Rees [xix] (1998). Sarah showed her paintings across America, and wrote stage plays and film scripts, with one being produced, another optioned as a film, and two were shortlisted for prizes,[xx] then they returned to the UK.
Whilst the children were young Sarah found it easier to make short films rather than painting, even including her young daughters in the narratives: Hatti in Imaginary Friend[xxi] and Georgi in MamaBabaDada. The girls would also put on their own shows and make the costumes. Sarah also found painting did not ‘say’ anything anymore, and she began to read feminist theory and philosophy and admired the text-based American women artists Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University (2001) and went on to gain a distinction in a Fine Art Practice degree at Amersham and Wycombe College (2005) with her thesis ‘Women and Text.’[xxii] She also worked as a proofreader and copy editor for Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company.[xxiii]
Visual Philosopher
In 2006 she began a part-time research degree at The University of the Arts, London, which became titled ‘Re : turning from graphic verse to digital poetics’ (2015),[xxiv] giving presentations at major international conferences and organizing exhibitions. She has been foremost in thinking about the relationship between poetry (both lyric verse and visual) on the ‘still’ page and the ‘moving’ screen, particularly the rhythmic and transitional aspects. She produced slowly appearing and disappearing videotexts, asking what they might signify for (audiovisual) philosophy of language. Her later essay ‘Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-based Videopoems’ (2017) published by Poetry Film Magazin[xxv] and the online sites: Moving Poems and Atticus Review encapsulates her thinking on one area of this subject. She also attempted to examine the materiality of the screen through entrenched patriarchal Western hierarchical philosophical dualisms (male over female, culture over nature and, in her case particularly) word over matter. She was described as a ‘Visual Philosopher’ by Karina Karaeva of the NCCA, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow, who exhibited her videopoems.[xxvi] One of her most conceptual works Patterned Utterance[xxvii] (see image below), involved a verbal interaction with a scanning probe microscope. Since the probe was sensitive to vibration in the room, she recited poetic lines which caused error lines in the reading (a slow scanning) of a piece of silicon. This was recorded on video as a marrying of the two types of reading and the voice becoming part of the silicon data. She also continued her research absorbing theories of materiality and non-duality in relation to feminist philosophical thinkers.[xxviii]
She also became a Foreign Language teacher, working one to one with students of all ages, and for varying lengths of course, and used videos and poetry in her classes. She was aware that poetry film could be a teaching method for students, and in 2020 she was interviewed by the Brussels academic Paul Simon for his Masters in Language and Modern Letters on ‘Poetry Film in the Language Classroom: its benefits for language teaching and its use in the Federation Wallonia-Brussels’.[xxix]
Her work began to appear in videopoetry festivals, initially VideoBardo in Buenos Aires, Argentina (2006 and 2008) directed by Javier Robledo, then on two occasions in Bury Festival of Text (2009): firstly, selected by Tom Konyves[xxx] for his poetry film screening,[xxxi] and in a spoken word and screening event, which featured her videopoem some everybodies (2009).[xxxii] In 2010 she met the poet Lucy English[xxxiii] at Chichester Poetry and Voice Conference, Chichester University, 2010,[xxxiv] and they began a discussion about a multimedia festival at Bath Spa University, also featuring poetry films. In 2012 the first MIX[xxxv] conference was born, and with Lucy English she formed the project Liberated Words to screen poetry films from around the world.
In her own work, she has graduated from being known as an experimental, visual or concrete videopoet to a lyric poet and poetry filmmaker (or from conceptual to performative, subjective, narrative work), with identity and family history playing a more important part. She is also unusual in having worked with her daughters in her more recent poetry films – both in front of and behind the camera. See Villanelle for Elizabeth not Ophelia [xxxvi] for both onscreen with Sarah, and Selfie with Marilyn [xxxvii] where Hatti plays Marilyn in front of the camera and Georgi photographed her as Marilyn before she became famous. This poetry film, with sublime poem by poet Heidi Seaborn (US) and commissioned by The Visible Poetry Project, reflexively questions performance and female subjectivity.
Villanelle for Elizabeth not Ophelia and Selfie with Marilyn
Sarah is known for being a proponent of poetry film as an ideal medium for marginalized voices to express difficult subjects.[xxxix] She has also said that she feels that theory that evolves from and with practice, is a type of method that should be a wider philosophy for working with the planet and the biosphere today. We urgently need to implement ‘custodianship planetary politics’ if we are to survive and thrive for future generations. She also believes she is on the autistic spectrum, which also accounts for much of her creative journey, (see the poem and visual poem ‘Stimming Spell to Ward Off Neurotypical Banter’ in Sea of Po by Vispo creator Jim Andrews).[xl] She has continually explored subjectivity and belonging, language, voice [xli] and ‘error’ – see Voices and Silences, solo show, Klaipeda, Lithuania, 2009;[xlii] and the position of the individual or waif in the social system, (see Horse-Woman). How to produce meaning in relation to all of these elements is vital in her work. For her, finding a voice through poetry film remains key. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London, UK, 28 June 2017.
Sarah is known for being a proponent of poetry film as an ideal medium for marginalized voices to express difficult subjects.[xxxix] She has also said that she feels that theory that evolves from and with practice, is a type of method that should be a wider philosophy for working with the planet and the biosphere today. We urgently need to implement ‘custodianship planetary politics’ if we are to survive and thrive for future generations. She also believes she is on the autistic spectrum, which also accounts for much of her creative journey, (see the poem and visual poem ‘Stimming Spell to Ward Off Neurotypical Banter’ in Sea of Po by Vispo creator Jim Andrews).[xl] She has continually explored subjectivity and belonging, language, voice [xli] and ‘error’ – see Voices and Silences, solo show, Klaipeda, Lithuania, 2009;[xlii] and the position of the individual or waif in the social system, (see Horse-Woman). How to produce meaning in relation to all of these elements is vital in her work. For her, finding a voice through poetry film remains key. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London, UK, 28 June 2017.
Sarah Tremlett at the Voices and Silences solo exhibition in Klaipeda, Lithuania, 2009.
REFERENCES
[i] Who’s Who in Research, the Visual Arts, Intellect Bristol, UK and Chicago, USA, 2013.
[ii] Commissions include: Horse-Woman, 2025, Moncton, Canada: Basic Bruegel Editions.
Bird Poem, 2020. Filmmaker. Poet: Dr Helen Johnson (UK). A collaboration and commission from Dr Helen Johnson, Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, Brighton University, Brighton, UK. Selfie with Marilyn, 2020. Director. Poet: Heidi Seaborn (USA). From the poem ‘Snapping a Selfie’ in An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, Pank Books, USA, 2021. A commission by the Visible Poetry Project, USA. Claire Climbs Everest, 2017. Director. Poet: Sam Harvey. A commission from Alastair Cook of Film Poem in conjunction with The Poetry Society and National Poetry Competition finalists. Stage play: The Forger, 1998. A forger and a curator and their uncertain relationship. Commissioned and produced by First Stage. The Grand Opera House, Wilmington, Delaware, USA, July 9, 10, 11, & 17, 18, 19, 1998.
[iii] Selfie with Marilyn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMq72HlQwU commissioned by The Visible Poetry Project with poem by Heidi Seaborn and her daughter performance and special effects artist Hatti Rees aka XaiLA.
[iv] Maldito Video Poetry Festival, Albacete, Spain (annually since its first edition in 2017), Director: Javier Garcia.
[v] ‘Making Marilyn: An Interview with Filmmaker Sarah Tremlett’, interview by Rita Mae Reese, All Review, June, 2021, https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
[vi] ‘The Voice in the Poetry Film’, interview live online by Dr Chris Pacheco-Camara Director, FOTOGENIA Film Poetry and Divergent Narratives Festival no. III, Mexico City, Mexico, 24–27 November, 2021. https://vimeo.com/657133741
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-Y1NvuS6s
[vii] Gablik, S., (1992), ‘Connective Aesthetics, American Art, Vol. 6, No. 2, Spring 1992, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/424147
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/424147?journalCode=amart
[viii] ‘groundbreaking industry bible’ The Poetics of Poetry Film, interview by Dr Meriel Lland, March, 2021 and screened at: 9th International Video Poetry Festival, Athens, Lectures and Performance Zone
6 June, 2021, Filmpoetry.org. https://vimeo.com/547690329.
[ix] The Poetics of Poetry Film, June, 2021. https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-poetics-of-poetry-film
[x] ‘The Archaeology of the Text – The Poetics of Poetry Film’, interview by Rebecca Rezakhani Hilton, Atticus Review, 10 September, 2022, https://atticusreview.org/the-archaeolog y-of-text/
[xi] Javier Robledo, director of VideoBardo, Buenos Aires, conducted a bilingual interview with Sarah on ‘The Poetics of Poetry Film and the role of videopoetry and poetry film today’, POÉTICA DE SARA TREMLETT (UK)
Festival Internacional de Videopoesía 25 años, 25th anniversary of VideoBardo Festival, 29 November, 2021https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35MGD-Y0gzs&t=124s
[xii] JUROR for: Liberated Words, Bristol: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016; Newlyn PZ Film Festival: 2018, 2019, 2020; Light Up Poole, 2018; LYRA, Bristol, screening 2020, 2021: REELpoetry, Houston 2021, 2022, 2023; FOTOGENIA, Mexico City: 2021, 2022; The International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia, Weimar, Germany 2023 and 2024; Women in Word poetry film screening, the Hypatia Trust, Penzance, UK 2023 and 2024; Maldito Video Poetry Festival, Albacete, Spain 2024.
[xiii] McLaws Helms, L. and Porter, V. (2015) Thea Porter – Bohemian Chic, London: V&A Publishing, p. 140.
[xiv] These images are held in the Thea Porter private collection by Laura McLaw Helms and Venetia Porter.
[xv] As chronicled in Horse-Woman, Basic Bruegel Editions, Moncton, Canada: April 2025.
[xvi] Hobsons Publishing Company, Cambridge.
[xvii] Dancing, 1992. TV drama. A TV film, about a lonely dance teacher who falls in love with her student. Was considered for the Radio Times Comedy and Drama Awards, 1992.
[xviii] Hatti Rees aka XaiLA https://www.hattirees.com/ insta: Hatti @ Hatti_Rees
[xix] Georgi Rees instagram
[xx] The Forger, 1998. One-act stage play. A forger and a curator and their uncertain relationship. Commissioned and produced by First Stage. The Grand Opera House, Wilmington, Delaware, USA, July 9, 10, 11, & 17, 18, 19, 1998. Hail Mary, 1997. A black comedy. What happens when you really believe in God.
Screenplay quarter finalist in The Writers Network Screenplay and Fiction Competition, Los Angeles, USA.
The Removal Man, 1996. Psychological drama. An old lady is visited by a young man and a dark story begins to emerge. A finalist in the White-Willis Theatre awards New Playwrights competition, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Optioned as a feature film with Director Marcus Spiegel, New York, 1996.
[xxi] Imaginary Friend, 2001. Short film. Director, filmmaker, scriptwriter. A little girl (Sarah Tremlett’s daughter Hatti) has an imaginary friend, and how it reflects and impacts on family dynamics. Ebensee Festival Der Nationen, Austria, 2002, recognised and awarded. Edinburgh film festival, 2001.
[xxii] Tremlett, S. (2005) ‘Women and Text’, BA thesis, High Wycombe: Amersham and Wycombe College, Buckinghamshire New University. Available on request.
[xxiii] Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company. Her husband Robin Rees is publisher for the company.
[xxiv] Tremlett, S. (2015) 'Re : turning – from graphic verse to digital poetics – historical rhythms and digital transitional effects in Graphic Poetry Films', MPhil thesis, London: University of the Arts. ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk
https://search.worldcat.org/title/1376268386
[xxv] ‘Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-Based Video Poems’Poetry Film Magazin no. 3, Literary Society of Thuringia, Weimar, 2017, p. 32–35. ISBN 9783936305517
[xxvi] In relation to her conceptual text-based work, e.g.: Patterned Utterance and Blanks in Discourse : 03 she was described by curator Karina Karaeva of the NCCA, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow as a ‘Visual Philosopher’ email to Tremlett: June, 2009. She was exhibited in the VideoFormat – [Linearity] National Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, co-curated by Arjon Dunnewind / Impakt Festival, 2009; Modus Group and Sarah Tremlett – Project Fabrika, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia, 2010.
[xxvii] Patterned Utterance, 2006 & 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtFcrUNhJg&t=1s. Daniel Tapper interview: Tapper, D. (ed.) (2013) ‘Microscopy – The Intersection of Poetry and Philosophy’,
Microscopy + – , 18 November, pp: 6–9 https://issuu.com/plusminusmag/docs/-_fin
[xxviii] see, as an example Stehlikova, T. (2022) ‘The Poetics of Poetry Film’, Tangible Territory Journal, ISSUE 4, September. https://tangibleterritory.art/journal/issue-4-content/poetics-of-poetry-film/
[xxix]Simon, P. (2021) ‘Poetry Film in the language classroom: its benefits for language teaching and its use in the Federation Wallonia-Brussels’.
https://matheo.uliege.be/bitstream/2268.2/13959/6/TFE_PoetryFilmasLanguageTeachingTool_PaulSIMON.pdf
[xxx] Tom Konyves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Konyves / see also The Poetics of Poetry Film is known for theorising the term ‘videopoetry’ as one word, with a manifesto outlining the specific characteristics such a videopoem might have. This overlaps with some definitions of poetry film, and in Spanish-speaking countries the term videopoesia also means poetry film. It is still under discussion.
[xxxi] Poetry Film event curated by Tom Konyves. Thursday April 30, 2009. Bury Text Festival (curator Tony Trehy) Review: Matt Dalby, 30 April, 2000 https://santiagosdeadwasp.blogspot.com/2009/04/poetry-film-at-bury-text-festival.html
[xxxii] some everybodies in ‘An evening of poets and texts’ The Other Room, Bury Art Gallery, Moss St, Bury, UK, Friday 12 June 2009, 07:30. ‘ An evening of experiment and challenge in the company of Japan-based Jesse Glass, Nick Thurston, Sarah Tremlett and Judy Kendall.’
[xxxiii] then a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, Bath, UK.
[xxxiv] Sarah Tremlett gave a 40-minute lecture on ‘VOICE as Site’ at the Poetry and Voice Conference, Chichester University, Chichester, UK, 2010.
Matternal Philosophy of Practice – Materiality of the Unvoiced. Presentation and three videopoems: Blanks in Discourse: 03 (error and public language); Some Everybodies (‘communal-poem-as-subtitle’, and a language poem from the working notes of the film) Patterned Utterance.
[xxxv] MIX https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/projects/mix-conference/
[xxxvi] Villanelle for Elizabeth not Ophelia, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5y5vocJZr0
[xxxvii] Selfie with Marilyn, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju6zhR19IHc&t=40s and also: Meriel Lland interview: https://liberatedwords.com/2020/10/27/selfie-with-marilyn-in-zebra-2020-representation-who-makes-the-image/ and Rita Mae Reese interview: ‘Making Marilyn: An Interview with Filmmaker Sarah Tremlett’, All Review, June 2021.
https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
[xxxviii] Tremlett, S. (2024) ‘Voice and Identifying New Diegetic and Dialogic Frameworks in the Poetry Film’ in Intermedial Art Practices as Cultural Resilience, UK: Routledge.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003412762-4/voice-identifying-new-diegetic-dialogic-frameworks-poetry-film-sarah-tremlett
[xxxix] ‘Making Marilyn: An Interview with Filmmaker Sarah Tremlett’, All Review, June 2021.
https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
[xl] see Sarah Tremlett at Sea of Po https://seaofpo.vispo.com Jim Andrews – a leading figure in the world of visual poetics / interactive literature / kinetic text and founder of Vispo https://vispo.com. see also: https://liberatedwords.com/2024/05/18/jim-andrews-sea-of-po-animisms-and-a-different-sort-of-poetry-magazine/
[xli] ‘The Voice in the Poetry Film’, interview live online by Dr Chris Pacheco-Camara Director
FOTOGENIA Film Poetry and Divergent Narratives Festival no. III, Mexico City, Mexico,
24–27 November, 2021, https://vimeo.com/657133741
[xlii] SOLO SHOW, Voices or Silences / Garsai Ar Tyla, The Cultural Communication Centre, Klaipeda, Lithuania, 2009.
REFERENCES
[i] Who’s Who in Research, the Visual Arts, Intellect Bristol, UK and Chicago, USA, 2013.
[ii] Commissions include: Horse-Woman, 2025, Moncton, Canada: Basic Bruegel Editions.
Bird Poem, 2020. Filmmaker. Poet: Dr Helen Johnson (UK). A collaboration and commission from Dr Helen Johnson, Centre for Arts and Wellbeing, Brighton University, Brighton, UK. Selfie with Marilyn, 2020. Director. Poet: Heidi Seaborn (USA). From the poem ‘Snapping a Selfie’ in An Insomniac’s Slumber Party with Marilyn Monroe, Pank Books, USA, 2021. A commission by the Visible Poetry Project, USA. Claire Climbs Everest, 2017. Director. Poet: Sam Harvey. A commission from Alastair Cook of Film Poem in conjunction with The Poetry Society and National Poetry Competition finalists. Stage play: The Forger, 1998. A forger and a curator and their uncertain relationship. Commissioned and produced by First Stage. The Grand Opera House, Wilmington, Delaware, USA, July 9, 10, 11, & 17, 18, 19, 1998.
[iii] Selfie with Marilyn https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebMq72HlQwU commissioned by The Visible Poetry Project with poem by Heidi Seaborn and her daughter performance and special effects artist Hatti Rees aka XaiLA.
[iv] Maldito Video Poetry Festival, Albacete, Spain (annually since its first edition in 2017), Director: Javier Garcia.
[v] ‘Making Marilyn: An Interview with Filmmaker Sarah Tremlett’, interview by Rita Mae Reese, All Review, June, 2021, https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
[vi] ‘The Voice in the Poetry Film’, interview live online by Dr Chris Pacheco-Camara Director, FOTOGENIA Film Poetry and Divergent Narratives Festival no. III, Mexico City, Mexico, 24–27 November, 2021. https://vimeo.com/657133741
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n-Y1NvuS6s
[vii] Gablik, S., (1992), ‘Connective Aesthetics, American Art, Vol. 6, No. 2, Spring 1992, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1086/424147
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/424147?journalCode=amart
[viii] ‘groundbreaking industry bible’ The Poetics of Poetry Film, interview by Dr Meriel Lland, March, 2021 and screened at: 9th International Video Poetry Festival, Athens, Lectures and Performance Zone
6 June, 2021, Filmpoetry.org. https://vimeo.com/547690329.
[ix] The Poetics of Poetry Film, June, 2021. https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-poetics-of-poetry-film
[x] ‘The Archaeology of the Text – The Poetics of Poetry Film’, interview by Rebecca Rezakhani Hilton, Atticus Review, 10 September, 2022, https://atticusreview.org/the-archaeolog y-of-text/
[xi] Javier Robledo, director of VideoBardo, Buenos Aires, conducted a bilingual interview with Sarah on ‘The Poetics of Poetry Film and the role of videopoetry and poetry film today’, POÉTICA DE SARA TREMLETT (UK)
Festival Internacional de Videopoesía 25 años, 25th anniversary of VideoBardo Festival, 29 November, 2021https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35MGD-Y0gzs&t=124s
[xii] JUROR for: Liberated Words, Bristol: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016; Newlyn PZ Film Festival: 2018, 2019, 2020; Light Up Poole, 2018; LYRA, Bristol, screening 2020, 2021: REELpoetry, Houston 2021, 2022, 2023; FOTOGENIA, Mexico City: 2021, 2022; The International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia, Weimar, Germany 2023 and 2024; Women in Word poetry film screening, the Hypatia Trust, Penzance, UK 2023 and 2024; Maldito Video Poetry Festival, Albacete, Spain 2024.
[xiii] McLaws Helms, L. and Porter, V. (2015) Thea Porter – Bohemian Chic, London: V&A Publishing, p. 140.
[xiv] These images are held in the Thea Porter private collection by Laura McLaw Helms and Venetia Porter.
[xv] As chronicled in Horse-Woman, Basic Bruegel Editions, Moncton, Canada: April 2025.
[xvi] Hobsons Publishing Company, Cambridge.
[xvii] Dancing, 1992. TV drama. A TV film, about a lonely dance teacher who falls in love with her student. Was considered for the Radio Times Comedy and Drama Awards, 1992.
[xviii] Hatti Rees aka XaiLA https://www.hattirees.com/ insta: Hatti @ Hatti_Rees
[xix] Georgi Rees instagram
[xx] The Forger, 1998. One-act stage play. A forger and a curator and their uncertain relationship. Commissioned and produced by First Stage. The Grand Opera House, Wilmington, Delaware, USA, July 9, 10, 11, & 17, 18, 19, 1998. Hail Mary, 1997. A black comedy. What happens when you really believe in God.
Screenplay quarter finalist in The Writers Network Screenplay and Fiction Competition, Los Angeles, USA.
The Removal Man, 1996. Psychological drama. An old lady is visited by a young man and a dark story begins to emerge. A finalist in the White-Willis Theatre awards New Playwrights competition, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Optioned as a feature film with Director Marcus Spiegel, New York, 1996.
[xxi] Imaginary Friend, 2001. Short film. Director, filmmaker, scriptwriter. A little girl (Sarah Tremlett’s daughter Hatti) has an imaginary friend, and how it reflects and impacts on family dynamics. Ebensee Festival Der Nationen, Austria, 2002, recognised and awarded. Edinburgh film festival, 2001.
[xxii] Tremlett, S. (2005) ‘Women and Text’, BA thesis, High Wycombe: Amersham and Wycombe College, Buckinghamshire New University. Available on request.
[xxiii] Brian May’s London Stereoscopic Company. Her husband Robin Rees is publisher for the company.
[xxiv] Tremlett, S. (2015) 'Re : turning – from graphic verse to digital poetics – historical rhythms and digital transitional effects in Graphic Poetry Films', MPhil thesis, London: University of the Arts. ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk
https://search.worldcat.org/title/1376268386
[xxv] ‘Exploring Contemplative Effects in Text-Based Video Poems’Poetry Film Magazin no. 3, Literary Society of Thuringia, Weimar, 2017, p. 32–35. ISBN 9783936305517
[xxvi] In relation to her conceptual text-based work, e.g.: Patterned Utterance and Blanks in Discourse : 03 she was described by curator Karina Karaeva of the NCCA, National Centre for Contemporary Arts, Moscow as a ‘Visual Philosopher’ email to Tremlett: June, 2009. She was exhibited in the VideoFormat – [Linearity] National Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, co-curated by Arjon Dunnewind / Impakt Festival, 2009; Modus Group and Sarah Tremlett – Project Fabrika, National Centre for Contemporary Art, Moscow, Russia, 2010.
[xxvii] Patterned Utterance, 2006 & 2008, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTtFcrUNhJg&t=1s. Daniel Tapper interview: Tapper, D. (ed.) (2013) ‘Microscopy – The Intersection of Poetry and Philosophy’,
Microscopy + – , 18 November, pp: 6–9 https://issuu.com/plusminusmag/docs/-_fin
[xxviii] see, as an example Stehlikova, T. (2022) ‘The Poetics of Poetry Film’, Tangible Territory Journal, ISSUE 4, September. https://tangibleterritory.art/journal/issue-4-content/poetics-of-poetry-film/
[xxix]Simon, P. (2021) ‘Poetry Film in the language classroom: its benefits for language teaching and its use in the Federation Wallonia-Brussels’.
https://matheo.uliege.be/bitstream/2268.2/13959/6/TFE_PoetryFilmasLanguageTeachingTool_PaulSIMON.pdf
[xxx] Tom Konyves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Konyves / see also The Poetics of Poetry Film is known for theorising the term ‘videopoetry’ as one word, with a manifesto outlining the specific characteristics such a videopoem might have. This overlaps with some definitions of poetry film, and in Spanish-speaking countries the term videopoesia also means poetry film. It is still under discussion.
[xxxi] Poetry Film event curated by Tom Konyves. Thursday April 30, 2009. Bury Text Festival (curator Tony Trehy) Review: Matt Dalby, 30 April, 2000 https://santiagosdeadwasp.blogspot.com/2009/04/poetry-film-at-bury-text-festival.html
[xxxii] some everybodies in ‘An evening of poets and texts’ The Other Room, Bury Art Gallery, Moss St, Bury, UK, Friday 12 June 2009, 07:30. ‘ An evening of experiment and challenge in the company of Japan-based Jesse Glass, Nick Thurston, Sarah Tremlett and Judy Kendall.’
[xxxiii] then a Lecturer in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, Bath, UK.
[xxxiv] Sarah Tremlett gave a 40-minute lecture on ‘VOICE as Site’ at the Poetry and Voice Conference, Chichester University, Chichester, UK, 2010.
Matternal Philosophy of Practice – Materiality of the Unvoiced. Presentation and three videopoems: Blanks in Discourse: 03 (error and public language); Some Everybodies (‘communal-poem-as-subtitle’, and a language poem from the working notes of the film) Patterned Utterance.
[xxxv] MIX https://www.bathspa.ac.uk/projects/mix-conference/
[xxxvi] Villanelle for Elizabeth not Ophelia, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5y5vocJZr0
[xxxvii] Selfie with Marilyn, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju6zhR19IHc&t=40s and also: Meriel Lland interview: https://liberatedwords.com/2020/10/27/selfie-with-marilyn-in-zebra-2020-representation-who-makes-the-image/ and Rita Mae Reese interview: ‘Making Marilyn: An Interview with Filmmaker Sarah Tremlett’, All Review, June 2021.
https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
[xxxviii] Tremlett, S. (2024) ‘Voice and Identifying New Diegetic and Dialogic Frameworks in the Poetry Film’ in Intermedial Art Practices as Cultural Resilience, UK: Routledge.
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003412762-4/voice-identifying-new-diegetic-dialogic-frameworks-poetry-film-sarah-tremlett
[xxxix] ‘Making Marilyn: An Interview with Filmmaker Sarah Tremlett’, All Review, June 2021.
https://artlitlab.org/all-review/making-marilyn-an-interview-with-filmmaker-sarah-tremlett
[xl] see Sarah Tremlett at Sea of Po https://seaofpo.vispo.com Jim Andrews – a leading figure in the world of visual poetics / interactive literature / kinetic text and founder of Vispo https://vispo.com. see also: https://liberatedwords.com/2024/05/18/jim-andrews-sea-of-po-animisms-and-a-different-sort-of-poetry-magazine/
[xli] ‘The Voice in the Poetry Film’, interview live online by Dr Chris Pacheco-Camara Director
FOTOGENIA Film Poetry and Divergent Narratives Festival no. III, Mexico City, Mexico,
24–27 November, 2021, https://vimeo.com/657133741
[xlii] SOLO SHOW, Voices or Silences / Garsai Ar Tyla, The Cultural Communication Centre, Klaipeda, Lithuania, 2009.