The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation is partnering with Belfast Book Festival for a second year - on two projects.

During the Festival you can watch 4 film poems*, with artists Bebe Ashley, Leontia Flynn, Emma Must and Abby Olivera. The works were shot in Northern Ireland by film-maker Matthew Thompson, and in partnership with The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation. 

*Film poems: Combine language, performance, music, and moving image, a film poem builds an immersive experience that invites viewers to reconnect with poetry. 

The Foundation is also supporting Belfast Book Festival’s Poet in Residence! For Festival 2024 please join us in welcoming Belfast’s Zara Meadows as our Poet in Residence. The Residency is an opportunity for an emergent voice to be recognised for their work and its promise. 

Zara Meadows is a writer from the Greater Shankill area of Belfast. Their poems have previously appeared in The Stinging Fly, Banshee, bath magg, fourteen poems, and Catflap. In June of 2022, a pamphlet featuring seven of their poems was published by the Lifeboat Press. They have been involved in poetry projects for the Northern Ireland Office and they are currently serving as the Poet-in-Residence of the Shankill Road on behalf of Herstory Ireland. In 2020 they were selected as one of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year. They are in their final year of an undergraduate degree in English with Creative Writing at Queen’s University, Belfast, at which they also serve as the President of the student Writers’ Society.

The Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation is a New York–based literary organisation bringing great poetry from across places, eras, and traditions together. Founded by Peter and Cathy Halstead, the Foundation’s aim is to expand access to poetry for audiences worldwide by curating outstanding poems and creating films that bring poetry to vibrant life.

Over the past four years, the Foundation’s filmmakers have created multiple series totaling over 200 films, in partnership with organizations including Poetry Ireland (Dublin), Druid (Galway), IMMA (Dublin), the 92nd Street Y (New York), Irish Arts Center (New York), Tippet Rise (Montana), and Poet in the City (London).

In these films, acclaimed actors and established and emerging poets perform poems representing a wide range of forms and styles. By combining language, performance, music, and moving image, the films build an immersive experience that invites viewers to reconnect with an ancient art form in a wholly contemporary way.

Find out more and explore films poems at BrinkerhoffPoetry.org