 "Poet of the Swingin  Blade" is a 24-minute film about one raucous Saturday night in the lives of Black Turpentine Workers enslaved under debt peonage in the pine forests of the Florida Panhandle, 1937. Turpentiners often became Runaways, seeking to escape their oppressed circumstances in any way possible, sometimes even in death. "Poet" tells the story of three Black men who "fled" the turpentine camps: The Runaway, on foot, with the aid of the Woods Witch; Jake, through his stories and with the help of a White boy; and Tush, killed in a skin game. The "swingin  blade" of the title is a lyrical description of a turpentining tool, but also of the weapon used in a knife fight during the skin game (card game played by turpentiners) featured in the film.