Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth (Texas State University), "Right Voice, Wrong Body: Poetic Voice and Address on Screen in The Kindergarten Teacher"

"Right Voice, Wrong Body: Poetic Voice and Address on Screen in The Kindergarten Teacher"

This paper examines The Kindergarten Teacher (dir. Sara Colangelo, 2018), a thriller about a teacher who plagiarizes a child’s poetry, as it literalizes critical metaphors for poetic voice through its cinematic form, script, and story. Using an interdisciplinary approach she describes as “collaborative formalism,” Bursztajn-Illingworth suggests that the film presents a case study of persona poetry’s ethics.

Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth is an Assistant Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of English at Texas State University. Her research focuses on the intersection of film and media studies, contemporary poetry, and digital humanities. She is currently at work on her book project Shooting Script: Poetry, Film, and Form, which argues that contemporary poetry and narrative film are overlooked sister arts, connected by shared theoretical investments and an emergent “platformalism.”