Programs

Above Strands of Earth: Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation at Tippet Rise

Beginning in January 2023, we're delighted to present Above Strands of Earth: Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation at Tippet Rise, a new film series co-created with our sister organization, Tippet Rise Art Center, and produced in collaboration with the Academy of American Poets.

Above Strands of Earth will feature new poem films released each Thursday for the next twelve weeks, performed by Rocky Mountain West–based poets Brian Blanchfield, CMarie Fuhrman, Sean Hill, Keetje Kuipers, and M. L. Smoker and by our and Tippet Rise's co-founder, Peter Halstead. The films, directed by Irish filmmaker Matthew Thompson, were shot on location at Tippet Rise's 12,500-acre working ranch in Montana. Weaving together language, land, sound, and vision, this collaborative endeavor complements poetic performance by acclaimed contemporary poets with the background of Tippet Rise's stunning landscapes and artistic spaces.

January 26th marks the release of the first film: "The Sandhills," written by renowned Chickasaw poet Linda Hogan and performed by poet, non-fiction writer, and current Idaho Writer in Residence CMarie Fuhrman. "The Sandhills," from which we drew our series title, celebrates "the language of cranes" and the birds' inhabited landscape:

Millions of years
they have blown here
on ancestral longing,
their wings of wide arrival,
necks long, legs stretched out
above strands of earth
where they arrive
with the shine of water,
stories, interminable
language of exchanges
descended from the sky

Please join us and Tippet Rise each Thursday for new releases, featured here and at tippetrise.org, as well as in joint posts on our YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.