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Arts & Entertainment

Cadence presents Video Poetry from 21 countries at the 9th Annual Festival

Verse meets visuals in motion at Cadence Video Poetry Festival in April 2026.

Ryan Davis, Community Contributor

Verse meets visuals in motion at Cadence Video Poetry Festival in April 2026. Cadence Video Poetry is a series of screenings, workshops, and discussions on the genre of video poetry, taking place annually during National Poetry Month. The festival takes place in person April 17–19 at Northwest Film Forum, April 30 at Frye Art Museum, and online April 17–30. Cadence approaches video poetry as a literary genre presented as visual media, cultivating new meaning from the combination of text and moving image.

In its ninth year, Cadence Video Poetry Festival remains the only festival dedicated to the form in the Pacific Northwest. The festival program includes five themed screenings and a closing showcase. Screenings feature works selected from an open call for submissions, new work from Cadence workshop participants, and pieces from the Cadence programming team.

“The 2026 festival includes more than 50 video poems from 21 countries in 19 languages, with 18 World Premieres and 11 US Premieres! Pacific Northwest video poets contribute over a quarter of the works in the whole festival,” notes co-director Rana San. “We’re proud to be an international festival with excellent regional representation.”

“Unique to the 2026 festival is the screening of a feature-length video poem from Belgium in 10 languages. This is only the second time Cadence has presented a long-form video poem at the festival, and we’re excited to share the US premiere on Sunday evening. Accompanied by a screendance from Mexico, this showcase wraps up the festival with an appeal that we cherish the collective memory created by poetry.”

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FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS

The Sunday matinee includes new work created by participants in the Dreaming Ecosystems: Film Poetry Workshop, led by poet Mita Mahato and filmmaker Caryn Cline.

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Also in the Sunday matinee is the first film from Croatia to be included in Cadence.

The closing showcase at Frye Art Museum on April 30 will feature a live conversation between artists and curators with local, visiting, and virtual artists.

Across screenings, this year’s festival has a strong representation of experimental documentary and personal essay as a video poem.

84% of films are by artists Cadence has never shown work from before, and 25% of films are from artists based in the Pacific Northwest.

CADENCE VIDEO POETRY PROGRAMShort film programs at NWFF (online Apr. 17–30; in-person showtimes listed below)
  • April 17 at 7pm | you flew from my eyes
    Giving shape and voice to what’s felt but can’t always be seen, touched, or retrieved, these video poems meditate on the marks we leave and with which we are left. Between earthly boundaries and open sky, dances, phone calls, and a trampoline become buoys for self and other within the sea of time.
  • April 18 at 4pm | the gaps in me
    What lies beyond the watery weight of a body? Do mirrors reflect the dusty light of truth? Part ghost story, part performance art, and part art object, these video poems forsake flesh and revel in repetition. Emerging from the sand and slime of our collective grief, they reveal the shared realities of loss and persistence, as told through sutures, similes, and mise-en-scènes.
  • April 18 at 7pm | a sculpture of echoes
    Vegetal time meets time travel, demonstrating the subtle ways in which we are interconnected and influenced by our environments. Urban infrastructure defines new habitats, the hand that feeds nourishes a new intimacy, and a surreal spell brings new life into being. Creation myth, memory, humor, and history combine in unexpected ways as these video poems ask: Is it cake? Or is it chaos?
  • April 19 at 4pm | proof that we were here
    Inventing realities not as escapism but as determinism, these video poems perfect the alchemy of dreaming. A love story emerges out of the polluted atmosphere, plant life blooms into a collage of words, and ice melts into a procedural poem. Through new channels of communication with nature, these shapeshifting films prove that the key to providing a sustainable future is protecting the past.
  • April 19 at 6:30pm | an imperceptible mark
    Tracing a multilingual lineage through the condensation of our collective memory, this showcase peers into the abstract spaces of female poets. A feature-length video poem and an accompanying screendance expand our understanding of mother tongue and of presence, even in absence. Have we forgotten what the women before us bore, broke, and buried to survive? A chorus of layered voices invites us to remember.
Satellite screeningsArtist + audience gatheringsLiterary resources
  • Poetry Bookshelf [online]: Publications by Cadence artists over the years. All proceeds go directly to the artists; prices vary by book.
Full festival program
ABOUT CADENCE VIDEO POETRYCadence Video Poetry, co-directed by Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and Rana San, features generative workshops and an annual festival that foster critical and creative growth around the medium of video poetry. Cadence approaches video poetry as a literary genre presented as visual media that makes new meaning from the combination of text and moving image.

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