Apocrypha by Gerard Wozek

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Gerard Wozek and Mary Russell have been collaborating on videopoems for years; since the inception of this website, I’ve included on the About page a quote from, and link to, the page about poetry video on Wozek’s website (q.v. for more on both of them and the history of their collaboration). But I believe this is the first example of their work to be uploaded to a video sharing site for embedding elsewhere. It’s rather more like a video slideshow than a film, but includes just enough moving images to meet my admittedly subjective standard for inclusion here. (Also, as a nature lover, I really appreciated the content!) Here’s the description Russell included at Vimeo:

Apocrypha: What secretive inspirations nurture one’s ability to draw, sketch or write? The word “apocrypha” comes from the Greek language meaning “those having been hidden away” and this video hints at some of the esoteric mystery that is involved in the creative process—in particular, the translation of images of nature into works of art.

Apocrypha premiered at the 2010 Visible Verse Poetry Video Festival in Vancouver, and was selected for the University Film and Video Association Conference at Emerson College, Boston for a June, 2011 screening.

One Comment

  1. Reply
    Claire Sykes 2 June, 2011

    Rich with imagery–visual and verbal–and succulent with the mystery of possibility, Gerard and Mary’s videopoem reaches that universal place where creativity charges through the heart of the artist and lands squarely on the eye and the ear. I delight in what I see and hear in this work: Gerard’s voice is both comforting and urgent, riding the slow melodic tones, carrying the words that so easily take me into his world of nature, within and without. Mary’s images are as precise as her sharpened pencil, preciously loyal to what she sees; and then she collages it, transporting reality into a realm of what imagination means and makes. This videopoem is absolutely gorgeous.

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