Daniel Thompson Documentary To Debut In Cleveland Heights

From Heights Library: Heights Libraries is pleased to present the world premiere of a new documentary about the late Cuyahoga County Poet Laureate and activist Daniel Thompson. Directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Jim Wolpaw, Daniel Thompson: One Tough Poet follows Wolpaw’s 12-year effort to document this fearless poet, social activist, and larger-than-life cultural hero.

This free event will take place on Tuesday, March 26, at 6:30 p.m. at the Lee Road branch of Heights Libraries, located at 2345 Lee Road in Cleveland Heights. Wolpaw and the film’s co-producer Barry Zucker will be on hand for a Q & A after the film.

Wolpaw, who grew up in Shaker Heights and teaches film production at the University of Rhode Island, has worked in independent film for thirty years. His films include the Academy Award-nominated documentary Keats and His Nightingale: A Blind Date; Cobra Snake for a Necktie, a portrait of Bo Diddley that aired on Showtime; the feature comedy Complex World, and Loaded Gun: Life, and Death, and Dickinson.

The genesis of the film occurred in 2008, when Wolpaw saw an older amateur film about Thompson, Famous in the Neighborhood, made by fans and friends of the poet, Eric and Gail Buchbinder. Wolpow was so moved by Thompson’s story that he wanted to expand it and bring it to a wider audience. With the Buchbinders’ blessing, he re-edited the film and further deveoped it with Zucker’s help, interviewing Cleveland-area friends and admirers. The film also features footage of Thompson in the last two years of his life, performing in Cleveland and abroad.

“Daniel was fearless,” said Zucker, a University Heights resident, poet, and activist. “He was a freedom rider in the 60s, and ended up in Parchman Prison in Mississippi. He complained that white protesters were getting better treatment than the black, and he sent poems to the warden about it. The warden confronted him and he was thrown into solitary confinement.”

Zucker also remembers the poet throwing himself between Ku Klux Klan and Black Panther members at a rally, saying the two sides were so shocked by the reckless act that the tension of the situation was broken. “He was brave, fearless, and fun.”

The film also tells the story of the making of the film, the twists and turns it took to bring it to life. “It’s an unusual film in that it’s partly a mea culpa,” said Wolpow, with a laugh. “As in, ‘Why did it take me ten years to make this film?’ ”

Wolpow is looking forward to the screening, and hopes it will be well received. “It’s a little scary to be presenting it here to people who were friends of his.”

Thompson died in 2004 at the age of 69 from leukemia. He published six books of poetry and performed throughout Northeast Ohio and abroad. He organized Cleveland’s first poetry slam in 1992.