Screenwriter Scott Myers explains how closely poetry relates to screenwriting over on his Go Into the Story blog. He writes:
Consider poetry. How a poem can take a simple moment – a boy watching a moth, an old man splayed on a porch chair, a single drop of rain trickling down a window – and create a universe of meaning. And what are screenplays but a series of meaningful moments?
Then there is the use of language in poems. When you read a line of poetry from a writer like Tom Chandler (“To the Woman at the Red Edge Motel”):
Some tourist of love in his cheap suit of longing elbows the bar in the lounge of no last names.
Or Howard Nemerov (“Fiction”):
The people in the elevator all, face front, they all keep still, they all look up with the rapt and stupid look of saints.
Those lines read like a screenplay’s scene description. They depict the scene, but equally as important they convey the mood and tone of the moment, making it become that much more alive and vivid in the imagination of the reader.
Yes! I’m surprised more poets don’t try screenwriting out since so many poets already produce such image-driven work. I’m also amazed that more people don’t recognize the poetry in screenplays, but then who thinks to read them? You can check out some of the screenplays for your favorite movies on sites like SimplyScripts.
I love that poetry is getting some recognition for the role it plays in such a widely-accepted form of entertainment.
