Documentary Film for Poets

Poets use words that point us beyond words. Filmmakers work with images to reveal what lies beneath their surfaces. This will be our starting point for a generative workshop about film and poetry. Words are already one step removed from the world. How do filmmakers make us believe that a series of images at 24 frames a second is the world? By looking at the language of films, we can begin to find new strategies for writing our poems. We’ll be asking:

What can we learn about writing poems from films, specifically documentary films which are wedded to reality? What techniques do filmmakers use to deepen an image? What can a poet learn from a cameraman? A film editor? What can a poet learn about the music of words from how a filmmaker works with musical instruments and song? What structural techniques do filmmakers have in their bag of tricks that poets might find useful?

Along the way, we’ll write our own poems inspired by the craft of filmmaking.

David Grubin is a director, writer, producer, and cinematographer who has produced documentary films for decades, ranging across history, art, science, and poetry, winning every award in the field of documentary television, including two Alfred I. Dupont awards, three George Foster Peabody prizes, five Writers Guild prizes, and ten Emmys. 

Grubin has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, been a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Hamilton College. He has taught documentary film producing in Columbia University’s Graduate Film Program, and has lectured on filmmaking across the country.​ A former chairman of the board of directors of the Film Forum, he is currently a member of the Society of American Historians, and sits on the board at Poets House.

Grubin received an MFA in poetry from Pacific University in 2025. His work has appeared in Narrative, the American Poetry Review, Minyan, and Gyroscope. He says, “Tolerance for the disquieting limbo of uncertainty in the midst of chaos is at the center of my creative process.”

*If the ticket fee is a hardship, Yetzirah offers a pay-what-you-can option for workshop participation. No one will be turned away for lack of funds, but please contact Program Coordinator Kyra Lisse at klisse@yetzirahpoets.org if you would like a sliding-scale ticket. 

Yetzirah is a nonprofit organization, and any gift you make is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by the law.