This seminar explores the intersection of poetry and cinema and asks: What is poetry? What is cinema? How do poetry and cinema intersect to express and intervene in human experience, aesthetic experimentation, and social change? Drawing on poets and filmmakers who work across and between these forms, the seminar examines the dynamic contours of both mediums. Students will engage in critical discussion of readings and screenings while also creating their own works of poetic cinema through workshop-based exercises. In doing so, the course bridges creative writing and media arts through collective conversation and collaborative creation. Through an investigation of poetics, the seminar approaches film and poetry as practices shaped by gesture—formal, visual, sonic, and performative. Graduate students will participate in discussions, creative exercises, and workshops that deepen their engagement with the questions animating the course. The seminar culminates in a public reading and screening celebrating final projects, which may take the form of a chapbook, short poetry film, or performance.