Poetry filmmaker Charles Olsen is inviting international poetry filmmakers to help mark the 10th anniversary of a project he’s spearheaded called Given Words. As he explains in the CFW,

Given Words is a poetry competition run by me—artist, writer and poetry filmmaker Charles Olsen—for Aotearoa New Zealand’s National Poetry Day in August. Each year I present five words and poets (New Zealand citizens and residents, both adults and children) write poems including all five words. I have also been a judge of the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (2023) and the ekphrastic poetry film competition Frame to Frames: Your Eyes Follow (2022).

In the last three editions, the five words have been presented in ‘word videos’ made by students in Honduras, Spain, and Aotearoa New Zealand.

Here’s an example of a given words video from López de Arenas Secondary School, Marchena, Spain, used for the 2023 competition:

And here’s the invitation:

For the tenth edition of Given Words I would like to invite poetry filmmakers from around the word to collaborate by contributing very short—from 5- up to 20-second—’word films’, from which I will choose five to inspire the poets of the 10th edition of Given Words. My reason for asking established poetry filmmakers is I would like to use this platform to both demonstrate the possibilities of the audiovisual medium, and hopefully inspire experimentation, as well as young future poet-filmmakers.

In a way it is breaking down poetry film into its most basic element: how to convey a single word through moving image and sound. In selecting the five word films I will consider the poetic nature and originality of each piece, alongside the final combination of the five words.

What will you get out of this?

There are no prizes or laurels or festival screenings. If chosen, your word film will help to inspire around 250 poems by adults and children across Aotearoa New Zealand next National Poetry Day in August 2025. It is an opportunity to be part of this innovative project, and may also get you questioning the relationship between text, sound and image in your own work. You should also have fun!

I have run Given Words for nine years with prizes donated by New Zealand publishers, and a minimal seed fund towards judging fees. No fee is asked of participants, and many schools across Aotearoa New Zealand invite their students to take part. We will promote the results and the winner’s profiles on our social networks during the National Poetry Day celebrations.

Guidelines

1. Make a film that presents one word in an original poetic way. The word must be present visually, or in audio, or both.
2. Each film should be less than 20 seconds long.
3. You can choose any word. We usually choose a mix of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Words in languages other than English will need to be accompanied by the English translation.
4. You can submit as many word films as you like, although for the five words we will only choose one per filmmaker.
5. You may submit clips of your previous work if it fits the guidelines.
6. Please do not include credits or logos.
7. Submission is free.
8. By submitting you acknowledge that the work is yours, and that you have obtained permission(s) where required.
9. Email your word film, preferably as .MOV or .MP4, to nzgivenwords@gmail.com by 28 February 2025.
10. Include your full name, a brief bio (up to 80 words), links to your social media and website, and an English translation of the word where necessary.
11. By submitting your work you allow us to crop and edit the work, and present the work online. We will include the credit of your work.
12. Any questions can be addressed to Charles at nzgivenwords@gmail.com.

Click through to watch more videos from the project and check out the winning poems that these videos have inspired. It’s interesting to see videopoetry being used to spark further poems. That’s kind of as it should be, I think. Let’s end with the 2024 Given Words video: