POETRY IN BLACK & WHITE is a touring showcase of contemporary film-poems resulting from collaborations between award-winning poets/writers and artist/filmmakers. The style of these events is intimate, informal and conversational, allowing the artists to introduce the work and take their audiences inside the collaborative process that led to the work being created.

At Ventnor Fringe, we will be presenting video pieces by IOW-based poet Maggie Sawkins from her live literature production, ‘Zones of Avoidance’, for which she was winner in 2013 of The Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry; these sequences all shot at locations in Portsmouth with artist Abigail Norris. Nationally recognised Caribbean-British poet John Agard, winner of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry and on the GCSE syllabus for over 20 years, will present two of his performance-driven film poems – ‘Wall Speaks’ and ‘Potato Speaks’ – both made working with young documentary filmmaker Millie Dobres. Playwright Mark C. Hewitt will present a few of his enigmatic collection of noirish black & white micro-videos made in collaboration with digital artist Matt Parsons during the lockdown of Spring 2020. Using out-of-copyright found footage from the 1930s & 40s, these miniature gems, each less than 90 seconds duration and each voiced by a different actor, have variously been screened now at over 40 short films festivals in 19 countries, earning 4 winner laurels as well as one of them, 'Premium', being a Finalist for the Arte Laguna Prize in Venice in March 2023.

Thursday 27th July 2023 - 3pm - 4pm Tickets: £12, Under 25 £8, Group of 4 £40, Culture / Unlimited Pass 2for1 (pass holders only) 16+