Ignition Press is a publisher of poetry pamphlets (which is what chapbooks are called in the UK) recently launched by the Poetry Centre at Oxford Brookes University. I’ve just learned about a cool contest they’ve set up to generate filmpoems for their initial crop of pamphlets. The prizes aren’t terribly big, but I know a lot of poetry filmmakers are mainly just looking for good texts to work with, so I expect this will be a success, and I would encourage other poetry presses to try something similar. Check it out:

Make a short film about a poem published by ignitionpress and win recognition and prizes!

The films should last 2-5 mins & be about one of the five following poems

(apart from that you have complete creative freedom):

‘//’ by Mary Jean Chan (available here)

‘reasons for leaving home’ by Belinda Zhawi (available here)

‘Moss’ by Natalie Whittaker (available here)

‘Half Measures’ by Patrick James Errington (available here)

‘We are to blame for the decline of the giraffes and only we can save them’ by Lily Blacksell (available here)

You can find the individual poems at the links above and all five here.

What is a poetryfilm? Alastair Cook, Filmmaker and Director of Film-poem Festival, says: ‘A poetry film is a single entwined entity, a melting, a cleaving together of words, sound and vision. It is an attempt to take a poem and present it through a medium that will create a new artwork, separate from the original poem.’

Inspiration & examples of other filmpoems can be found here.

Prizes: £50, £30, £20 Amazon vouchers

Major exposure: the winners’ films will be shared on our website, social media and could be shown at events organised by, or involving, ignitionpress.

Deadline: Friday 7th June, 5pm. To enter, please submit your poetryfilm to Niall Munro at p0076993@brookes.ac.uk If the file is too large to e-mail, share it via Google Drive or another file sharing service.

Winners announced: Friday 14th June.

Judges: Niall Munro, Director of ignitionpress, and interns.

ignitionpress is a pamphlet press based at Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre. Find out more about the pamphlets and the poets here. All poems are copyright, but the poets have granted permission for filmmakers to use their work.

Questions? Please contact Theodora Vida (15094967@brookes.ac.uk) or Niall Munro (p0076993@brookes.ac.uk).