MOTIONPOEMS. Where big poems meet the big screen.

Thanks for considering a donation to MOTIONPOEMS!

MOTIONPOEMS is a poetry film initiative that broadens the audience for poetry by turning great contemporary poems into short films for big-screen and online distribution.

Contemporary poetry is a mystery to most casual readers: they rarely read it, and would have a hard time discovering great new poetry on their own. We think that's a shame! So...

MOTIONPOEMS subverts that paradigm by giving casual readers a new way to discover poetry ... as short films! That way, they can be distributed virally and on YouTube, in social networks, in classrooms, and in broadcast and film media. Each fall, we host a free public screening at Open Book in Minneapolis, in cooperation with the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. The screening is also available for touring.

BIG NEWS -- Motionpoems announces a pilot partnership with BEST AMERICAN POETRY (Scribner) to develop films based on poems in that annual anthology. New films in 2011-12 will include poems by thrilling new and emerging poets.

MOTIONPOEMS was co-founded in 2008 by Todd Boss (poet) and Angella Kassube (artist, animator, artistic director, and producer). Our roles are primarily curatorial. Since 2008, we've paired poets with video teams to develop nearly two dozen one-minute films from poems by Robert Bly, Jane Hirshfield, Marvin Bell, Freya Manfred, David Mason, and others. Over 30 artists have been involved in just the past two years alone.

You will be STUNNED at the level of professionalism and creativity our video artists bring to their work. See more at www.vimeo.com/motionpoems.

BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP! We want to start paying a SMALL STIPEND to our technical and video artists. Many of them are putting more than 100 hours into these projects, outside of the 40-hour work week! We want to reward them for their passion, their creativity, and their willingness to take an artistic risk. Our video artists are our greatest asset, a key to our growing success. We'd like to show them that our community loves and supports their extensive investment in MOTIONPOEMS.

But we can't do it alone. We need your help.

Your support means a lot to us. Thanks.

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BELOW: technical info about our FISCAL AGENT, an innovation lab called SPRINGBOARD FOR THE ARTS.

It looks like your donation is going to THEM (and technically it is)... but THEIR job is to give it to us. So you can give with confidence!