The Festival of Visualized Poetry was launched by PoetryVisualized.com as its initial effort at promoting interest in visual poetry over the internet. The festival is open to anyone who can produce a Video Poem, a format of poetic expression which combines a poem with sounds, music and visual images. Poetryvisualized.com is itself a recently launched website which focuses primarily on showcasing Video Poems, and whose stated goal is to promote visualized poetry as an emerging genre in the renaissance of poetry in the 21st Century. In many ways, we are like YouTube, except that we specialize in presenting poetry combined with music and images says Tansel Yilmaz, one of the website’s founders.

The Festival will be for a period of at least six months and could be extended up to one year. The winning entries will be included in a feature film documentary on visualized poetry which will be produced and released in DVD. It could also be released through television and submitted to film festivals, according to Rod Underhill, the Chief Visionary Officer and General Counsel of PoetryVisualized.com. Mr. Underhill, who is also one of the original founders of the widely successful MP3.com says the festival provides an opportunity for budding, new artists, poets, film directors and producers to get their works published by becoming part of a documentary film project which will be submitted to film festivals, released through television and sold to the public as DVDs.

Participation is open to the public, 18 years and older. The poems can be original composition, or previously published poetry. There is so much material out there, already in the public domain that can be used in this contest from the works of William Shakespeare, to Robert Frost, or Edgar Allan Poe, that one does not have to be a poet to participate says Rod Underhill. You do need to have the visionary creativity and imagination of a poet combined with the talent for video editing and production  the kind of stuff a lot of people already do on YouTube, Mr. Underhill adds. The subject is open on a wide ranging category from love to social commentary. It should be produced as a Video Poem or Visualized Poem, (VPoem, for short), from 1 to 10 minutes in length, in which the poem is read with accompanying sounds, music, and visual images. The images can be still photographs, videos, graphics, animation or a combination of all, where imagery projects the message of poem as interpreted by the artist.

More information can be found on our web site PoetryVisualized.com

What has been building up over the years, starting with individual creations here and there, mingling with all other forms of poetic expression, has finally come on its own. We now officially recognize the emergence of a new genre of poetic expression Visualized Poetry, or Poetry Visualized. It is actually known by many names as is typical of any developing trend that has gained popularity and will continue to gain momentum and public adherence over the years. It is being called Video Poems, Vid Poems, Cine Poems, Movie Poetry, VPoems, etc

VPoems, under the genre: PoetryVisualized
What it really is, regardless of the many names it has been called, is poetry visualized; so that is what we call its genre: poetryvisualized. The poems that fit in the new genre are what we call VPoems for short.

Thus, with the opening of poetryvisualized.com, we not only recognize this new poetic form, we are providing it a permanent home launching pad, if you will; that it deserves and needs. With the internet as the principal medium, and the availability of digital multimedia tools, both hardware and software, now in the hands of amateurs and professionals alike, the creation of Visualized Poetry is now practically within the capability of most everyone!!! What is even more exciting is that poetry enjoyment is now enhanced. It is no longer just written words for silent reading, nor merely verbal recitations as has been traditionally done. Now we can render poetry as we see it in our minds by using photography, animation, videography, special effects utilizing not just the pen, but the myriad tools of todays digital technologies, digital cameras, camcorders, video editing software, multimedia computers, etc.. We can mix poetic verses with sounds, musical backgrounds, stunning visual images from animation to photographs and videos, setting the mood and projecting the message of the poem as we see it. The creative possibilities are mind boggling!!!

YOU, with your camera (still or video), and your friend with his musical creativity, another friend who is a poet, in collaboration with still another who has the video editing and production skills can actually put your collective talents together and come out with a MASTERPIECE!!!

WE, from the creators of VPoems to those who simply just appreciate it, are all instrumental in the birth of Visualized Poetry as the newest and most exciting form of self-expression ushering its enjoyment into the new century of digital technology and global reach, and actually bringing about the renaissance of poetry in the 21st Century and beyond!!! WOW!!!

So what are you waiting for? Join in the surging tide, jump into the bandwagon, fly with the wind, float with the current, whatever else you want to call it. Make your Visualized Poem, and post it at its new home, poetryvisualized.com, where it will be given its due recognition, presented to the world, and forever treasured evidence of your own birth and passing as a creator of visualized poetry.

PoetryVisualized.com