“America has always seemed to hate its poets,” said Ken Siegelman, a Gravesend resident and Brooklyn’s poet laureate. “But to see a film done about me — it’s really given me a new lease on life.”
The film, “Fading to Zero,” will have its world premiere at Kingsborough Community College on May 7. It brings to life the work of Siegelman, who taught poetry at Abraham Lincoln High School for 33 years, to the big screen.
Directed by Hollywood heavyweight Silvana Gallardo — former acting coach to Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reaves — the film takes the poems from Siegelman’s 10th book, “City Souls,” and turns them into celluloid vignettes.
“It’s humbling,” said Siegelman. “I’m aware of only one other American poet who they made a movie about, Charles Bukowski, and he was drunk the entire time.”
“Fading to Zero” will premiere at 6 pm on May 7 at Kingsborough Community College’s Performing Arts Center (2001 Oriental Blvd. at Quentin Street in Manhattan Beach). Free. Reservations are required. For information, call (718) 802-3531 or visit www.kbcc.cuny.edu.
