Welcome to Moving Poems, an on-going compendium of the best video poetry from around the web, with a new video every weekday. I’m defining video poetry as poems in video form (including film and animation), and that’s the main focus here. But I also include poetry readings, spoken word performances, documentaries, concert performances of poems set to music, interviews with poets — pretty much any video that has to do with poetry, if I like it. See the directory for a complete listing of poets, nationalities, and filmmakers.
At least for now, Moving Poems will not be hosting videos, but simply embedding videos hosted on YouTube, Vimeo, Blip.tv, and other sites. There’s no formal submissions process, but any and all suggestions of videos to include are welcome. Feel free to use the comments below, or email me: bontasaurus [at] yahoo [dot] com.
About the curator
My name is Dave Bonta, and you can find all my links and background at my Google profile. I started this site in part to learn how to make better video poetry; I’m very much a beginner. You can see examples of my work here.
About video poetry
Video poetry as a medium has begun to attract critical attention. I’ll add more links to this list as I become aware of them.
Tom Konyves, Read Write Poem forum comment
I believe we are witnessing the evolution of a unique form of poetry, a form which was barely recognizable 50 years ago, a new form of “visual poetry” which has survived the leap from the page to the screen, a form that is so intriguing and new that its definition, its features, characteristics, categories, its very NAME is being questioned — videopoetry.
[...]
I now propose that there are 5 principal categories of videopoetry:KINETIC TEXT
VISUAL TEXT
SOUND TEXT
PERFORMANCE
CIN(E)POETRY
Gerard Wozek: “poetry video”
A poetry video is an illuminated electronic manuscript that records the voice, the spirit, and vision of the poet, and frames this technological intersection between visual art and literature.
Ren Powell, AnimaPoetics: “If not a manifesto, an explanation”
Two areas of exploration led me to animation: my own characteristic use of space on a page to guide the reader into multiple readings of a single text, and my research into the preliterate poetry of the Bedouin Arabs and a desire to adapt the pre-Islamic qasida, with its characteristic use of didacticism, intertextuality and telescoping metaphors, for a postmodern, feminist world view.
The pre-Islamic qasida (as performed by men) was a form of mass media in the Bedouin cultures. Over the centuries it became the spring board for other (now traditional) forms of prosody, for the shape of the verses of the Q’uran and for the structure of contemporary secular songs. At least one contemporary qasida, written using Classical formal elements, exists in video form. In Western culture we speak of a “return” to oral poetry. However, while slam poetry/spoken word is popular, I would argue that it is essentially a “live medium” (CD versions and youtube documentation performances notwithstanding) and therefore not a true mass media in our culture. Our primary medium for information and entertainment today is electronic.
Ron Silliman: “Tom Konyves has a mission…”
For videopoetry to exist, the form has to be able to distinguish itself from the gumbo that is intermedia. Or perhaps polymedia would be a more accurate term. [Billy] Collins’ piece is nothing more than a reading of the piece over which a cartoon has been superimposed. The use of language is more interesting in the pieces by Konyves & Vassilakis, but each imports elements from other media, other worlds. Vassilakis treats his sound track more as a score, and more than a few of his visuals harken back to the heyday of lightshows that accompanied the rock bands of the late ’60s and early ’70s.
Alex Dmitrov, Poets & Writers: “Video Thrilled the Poetry Stars”
The ideal result is to give the reader, now a viewer, a new experience of poetry through sonic and visual layering. The effect is not unlike that of a music video—and given how the invention of that medium, with its unique point of access and presentation, brought a new audience to music, the video poem may be ushering a whole new demographic to poetry.
Heather Haley, Visible Verse: “About Visible Verse”
In my experience the greatest challenge of this hybrid genre is fusing voice and vision, aligning ear with eye. Some poets like to see words on the screen. The effect can be exquisite but I find that film/video doesn’t accommodate text well. We are busy listening to the poem with our eyes, assimilating it through our ears. I prefer spoken word. Voice is the critical element, medium and venue secondary considerations. Unlike a music video—the inevitable and ubiquitous comparison—a videopoem stars the poem rather than the poet, the voice seen as well as heard.
Credits
As the footer indicates, this site runs on WordPress and uses the theme Oulipo, from the very talented and typographically conscious Andrea Mignolo. I’ve made quite a few alterations to the theme, though, so if something looks funny or doesn’t validate, it’s probably my fault. Contact me if you’re interested in the code I used to implement custom taxonomies; I’d be happy to share from my limited knowledge. Justin Tadlock’s post Using custom taxonomies to create a movie database was a key inspiration, in addition to the previously linked post.
To embed the videos, I’m using the plugin Viper’s Video Quicktags — both for the convenience (it installs buttons right in the post editor) and to try and keep HTML validation from failing too horribly. There are other video plugins for WordPress, but this seems to be the most popular one right now, and it’s under very active development.
Hi Dave,
Your ceaseless creative outpouring is homeric.
Thanks for creating this video poetry site. I’ve only begun to explore the offerings. You got me — hook, line and sinker.
Beth W.
What a fantastic discovery – thanks and congratulations for the initiative!
I am getting ready to subscribe to your site :)
If you have a “press release” of sorts drop me an email and i’ll send it out with our weekly update at “Shape of a Box”, YouTube’s First Literary Magazine. We have been publishing for about a year http://shapeofabox.wordpress.com and http://www.youtube.com/shapeofabox!
-Jessie
Editor, Shape of a Box
Hi Jessie – Thanks for stopping by. I’ve included a link to Shape of a Box in our sidebar since I launched, and I have linked one of your videos, Barry Pomeroy’s “Great Crowd.” I’m sure I’ll feature more as time goes on.
I appreciate the offer to mention the site in your mailing. I don’t have a press release — I’m afraid my promotional skills are lacking — but you could paraphrase the first paragraph if you like, e.g.: “Moving Poems is an on-going compendium of the best video poetry from around the web, with a new video every weekday. The curator defines video poetry as video interpretations of poems, and that’s his main focus, but he also includes poetry readings, spoken word performances, documentaries, concert performances of poems set to music, interviews with poets, and other material. The site also features a detailed indexing system and links to other video poetry sites, including Shape of a Box.”
Dave – drop me an email at shapeofabox(at)gmail.com if you want to be added to our mailing list or if you want to know any other vids that were made by the authors.
I saw Barry’s poem linked here after I posted my comment. Thanks so much!
I’ll try to give you a shout out on Tuesday! (we reopen to submits in Oct if you are a writer yourself :)
I created my first Poetry video and I wanted to get it out there for people to see. I was wondering if you knew other sites that would enjoy this video as a submission. Please let me know what you think ^_^
Hi Mark – thanks for sharing that link, and wecome to the world of videopoetry! The visual approach in this one is very interesting. I thought the piano music was a distraction, though, almost drowning out the words of the poem. You might consider redoing it with a different soundtrack, or none at all apart from the recitation and maybe the noise of the projector.
Hi Dave
We’ve just added your site onto our blogroll and hope you will consider adding us to yours. We’re a (relatively) new UK website, Viral Verse: http://viralverse.co.uk/ showcasing video poetry on the web.
We believe verse is perfect for the web-based films, where shorter viewing times are preferred. Poetry can speak great truths in few words. And as film makers, it gives us short scripts rich in imagery and rhythm.
Yet it surprises us how few dramatised verse videos exist! We therefore hope to encourage more through our website, upcoming forum for film makers and poets, as well reaching out to poets and other film makers in the web community. Hence this email!
Please stop by anytime!
All the best
Vanessa
Hey, great to learn of another project! I will add your link to my sidebar directly. And knowing that there’s another site very much like this one makes me happy, not only because it will help focus attention on the medium and thereby, I hope, fuel the creation of more video poetry, but also because it lets me relax a little: now I know that if/when I burn out here and stop updating, there will still be others blogging and discussing the medium. Best of luck to you, and let’s keep in touch.
By the way, be sure to check out the Video Poetry group at Read Write Poem, too. The discussion in the “Tom Konyves” forum thread is especially interested — Konyves himself has joined in. (It’s easiest to read and comment from the forums, side, readwritepoem.org/forums/forum/video-poetry-forum).
Hello,
Blue’s Cruzio Cafe has been presenting poetry animations since 2005. The site has more than 75 videos and includes toons of Robert Bly, Ted Kooser, Robinson Jeffers and many, many others. http://www.cruziocafe.com … please consider listing the link on your “Other Poetry Video Sites” roll. Thanks or your time.
-Blue
Was that comment aimed at Moving Poems, or Viral Verse? Because we’ve had a link to Blue’s Cruzio Cafe in the “Other Poetry Video Sites” linkroll since this site’s inception. It’s there now. Under the Bs.
I guess it’s a comment on my inability to see the listing when I looked, yesterday. Well, as my eyes get older they let me down more often. I see the listing there today, thanks.
I probably should be embarrassed, huh? But that seems to be something else older age lets a man out of. Of course, the eyes thing could get a man killed.
-blue
This might be interesting for you:
Invitation to enter the 5th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival
For the 5th time, the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin and interfilm Berlin are inviting entries for this competition to choose the best poetry films!
Entries should be short films based on one or more poems. A programme commission will decide which of the films entered will be featured in the competition or shown in the programme as part of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival from 14 –17 October 2010 in Berlin in the Babylon Cinema. An international jury will decide the winners. The prizes awarded will be the ZEBRA Award for the Best Poetry Film, the Film Poetry Award of the Goethe Institute and the Ritter Sport Award, donated by Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co KG, to a total value of € 10,000. The deadline for entries is 14 June 2010 (full conditions of entry can be found at http://www.literaturwerkstatt.org). The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival has established itself as an international forum for short films that deal with the content, aesthetics or form of poems. It offers filmmakers and poets from around the world the opportunity to exchange ideas and define positions.
The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is a cooperation project between the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin and interfilm Berlin and is kindly supported by the Capital Cultural Fund, the Goethe Institute, Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co KG and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH. It takes place as part of the poesiefestival berlin.
Deadline: 14.6.2010
Dear Editor,
We wanted to pay a “Visual Hommage” to 4 of Latin American greatest poets, Pablo Neruda (Chile), Octavio Paz (Mexico) , Vinicius de Moraes (Brazil) and Andres Eloy Blanco (Venezuela), so we wrote the images that we felt blossom when listening to this selection… and then filmed them for HBO.
In times of trouble, we consider that humanity particularly in Latin America, needs to rescue the value and beauty of our poet´s message though the lens of our children. Poetry might help us to rediscover our inner self, the subconscious and beautiful images that lie deep within everyone….those souvenirs that make us better human beings, closer to the God we cherish.
http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi2680816665/