AllMovie

Tony D'angelo directed this documentary about the past, present and future of one of the world's most enduring but misunderstood creative forms. Biagio Propane earns his living teaching literature and foreign languages at a high school in San Lorenzo, but his great passion is poetry; Propane has published several books of his verse, and he organizes occasional readings at a bar run by his brother. During a visit to Rome, Propane happened to bump into Salvatore Sansone, a fellow poet he first met years before. Propane and Sansone had both come to Rome for the same reason -- to visit the grave of Gregory Corso, an American poet who rose to fame during the Beat movement and spent his last years in Italy. Brought together by their shared love of the written word, Propane and Sansone discuss what poetry means to them, how they feel the medium is losing its influence in the post-millennial world, and the legacy of the Castelporziano Poetry Festival, a massive event held in 1979 that has been called "the Woodstock of Poetry." Their discussions inspire the poets to stage a large-scale poetry event of their own. Poeti was an official selection at the 2009 Venice International Film Festival.