Who Keeps Observance in the Fever Room by Jane Draycott

Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

This is part of a series called Beginning to See the Light by Corinne Silva. The text is by Jane Draycott, “a UK-based poet with a particular interest in sound art and collaborative work.” As the Poetry Society (U.K.) webpage explains,

The Poetry Society and Jaybird Live Literature commissioned six poets to create new pieces to celebrate National Poetry Day 2015, the theme of which was ‘light’. The poems followed the path of light over one October day. Artist and filmmaker Corinne Silva then made filmpoems of six of the poems, which you can watch on Vimeo or YouTube.

I see these as more in the video art tradition than previous poetry films sponsored by the Society; some of the imagery reoccurs from film to film, and watching them in order does give an interesting impression of the passing of time. But the juxtaposition of footage and text most often feels arbitrary, so for me they don’t really work as videopoems or filmpoems. Still, kudos for the Poetry Society for continuing to push the envelope and sponsor interesting multimedia poetry projects.

2 Comments

  1. Reply
    Jean 28 April, 2016

    Poetry Society website says that filmpoems of 2015 competition-winning poems have again been commissioned: http://poetrysociety.org.uk/competitions/national-poetry-competition/

    • Reply
      Dave Bonta 28 April, 2016

      Oh good, I didn’t notice that! Thanks for the correction. I’ll edit the post.

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