In the early 80s, Canadian director Ron Mann attended a poetry performance by John Giorno and William Burroughs at a rock club. While there, Mann learned about Giorno’s Dial-A-Poem poetry recordings for the first time, inspiring him to create a documentary on contemporary poetry. The resulting film, Poetry in Motion (1982), also draws on Donald Allen’s poetry anthology The New American Poetry 1945-1960. The 90-minute documentary includes performances by a diverse range of poets—many of whom appeared on Giorno’s Dial-A-Poem—including Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg, Diane DiPrima, Amiri Baraka, William Burroughs, Jayne Cortez, and Giorno himself.