If I Was a Poem (2024)
Katie Barkel
If I Was a Poem, Katie Barkel, USA, digital, 3.5 min, 2024
Poet James D. Fuson re-creates the events of the day he was released from prison after serving a sentence of nearly thirty years.
Streaming Details
This film is available to stream globally.
Program Partners
This film is co-presented with College for Creative Studies and Arts Council Windsor and Region.
Image credits: all artworks, portraits, and stills courtesy of the artist © Katie Barkel.
About the artist
Katie Barkel (USA) is a filmmaker and film editor born in Michigan in 1985. She frequently works in a collaborative process with musicians, authors and poets including Sixto Rodriguez and Tiya Miles. She received a BA in Film and Video Studies from the University of Michigan. Her previous films, including Draggers and Rip Spots (2008), They Cannot Touch Her (2012), and Chris Riddell Eats Pancakes and Bacon (2013), have screened at venues including Ann Arbor Film Festival, Freep Film Festival, The Museum of Modern Art, Media City Film Festival, and Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. She has also worked as a camera assistant on numerous feature films and commercials and has created music videos for bands including Jamaican Queens, Child Bite, and The Silent Years. She has been a member of the Detroit chapter of Film Fatales since 2014. She lives and works in Detroit, where she teaches at College for Creative Studies.