Partner SeriesApril 1, 2026

Where Film Becomes Verse: Renzo Del Castillo on Turning Cinema into Living Poetry Through Reel Poets

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Renzo Del Castillo is redefining how we experience film by transforming it into something deeply personal and creatively alive through Reel Poets. Instead of analyzing movies from a distance, he and his collaborators respond to what lingers—the images, silences, and emotions that refuse to fade—translating them into original poetry shaped by each film’s essence. By blending conversation, collaboration, and real-time creation, Renzo is making poetry feel immediate and accessible, while building a growing space where filmmakers, poets, and audiences connect through shared interpretation and expression.

Renzo, Reel Poets sits at a fascinating intersection. What sparked the idea to bring cinema and poetry into direct conversation?
Film and poetry have always been doing the same work, just in different languages. Film uses image, movement, sound. Poetry uses rhythm, line, silence. But both are about compression. Both are about feeling something precise and hard to name.

Reel Poets came from conversations Scottt Raven and I kept having. We didn’t want to just talk about movies. We wanted to respond to them. To treat film the way poets have always treated the world as material. The show is really about that moment when watching something turns into needing to say something.

Your format goes beyond film discussion into original creative response. What is your process for translating a film’s themes into poetry?
We don’t start with theme. We start with what stays with us.

What’s the image that won’t leave? What’s the line, the silence, the gesture that lingers after the credits roll? That’s usually where the poem begins.

From there, Scottt and I look at structure. If the film is fragmented, maybe the poem fractures. If it’s cyclical, maybe it becomes a villanelle. If it’s raw and immediate, maybe it stays in free verse. The form isn’t decoration, it’s part of the translation.

So the process is: watch closely, identify what stays, choose a form that carries that weight, and write toward the emotional truth, not the plot.

You emphasize collaboration through guest poets, how do these different voices shape the direction and depth of each episode?
The guests are a huge part of show.

They choose the film, which means they’re bringing their own lens, their own history, their own way of seeing. That shifts everything. The same film becomes a completely different conversation depending on who’s in the room with Scottt and me.

What I care about are the different perspectives. One poet might see a story about power. Another sees grief. Another sees love disguised as violence. That layering deepens the episode in a way a single perspective never could.

It also keeps it honest. We’re not trying to land on one “correct” reading. We’re showing how interpretation itself is a creative act.

Many people see poetry as distant or academic. How does your podcast help make it feel more accessible and relevant today?
We take poetry out of academia and put it back into conversation.

We start with something people already love, film. And then we show that the way you talk about a movie with your friends, the way you say “that scene wrecked me,” that’s already poetic thinking. Scottt and I just give it language and form.

And then we go one step further. We write original pieces for the show. In real time. You hear the process, not just the finished product. That demystifies it.

Poetry isn’t distant. It’s just been framed that way. We’re reframing it as something alive, something you can do, not just study.

Looking ahead, what’s your bigger vision for Reel Poets – do you see it expanding beyond the podcast into live events, publications, or other creative spaces?
The podcast is just the foundation.

Scottt and I see Reel Poets expanding into live events, screenings paired with readings, where audiences experience the film and the poetry in the same space. We see curated publications where each issue is built around a film or a director. We see collaborations with filmmakers, festivals, maybe even original short films built from poems.

And locally, especially in Miami, we want to build community around it. Spaces where poets, filmmakers, and audiences actually meet and create together.

At the core, the vision stays the same: keep the conversation alive between image and language, and always, above all, keep it reel.

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