Moving Poems

An animation by Francesca Talenti. I wasn’t able to locate a website for the poet.

Another videopoem gone viral, with well over a million views at time of posting. It’s not high art, but I guess like a lot of people I love the message here, and I thought the film was charming, too. Andrea Dorfman is the filmmaker. Tanya Davis is the actor/performer as well as the author, justifying this video’s inclusion in my Spoken Word category.

“This is a motion graphics, kinetic text assignment” apparently created by Dara Elerath, a student at the Art Center Design College in Albuquerque. Michael McCormick narrates.

For more on Li-Young Lee, see his page at the Academy of American Poets.

Classic film poem from 1964, directed by Paul Julian and Les Goodman with animation by Margaret Julian. According to a Wikipedia entry on the poem, it was a co-winner of the Silver Sail award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 1964. A couple of the user reviews at IMDb are worth quoting. Old_tv_guy calls it

An eerie and disturbing little gem from Melrose Studios. Animation is excellent, of a photocollage style you hardly ever see: stark photo images and gaunt, jagged lines. It seems to be taking place in a backwater of infinity, or a nightmare world of pale colors and limitless space.

And tim_gatchell wrote in 2008,

I also saw this short as a child. Probably in about the 5th grade. It left an indelible impression on me and I continue to use this poem as an example for people when groups allow other groups to be ganged up on and have their rights taken away.

Even more remarkable is that while attending college at Cal Poly, I would take summer classes at the local community college to get credits and save money. Took 2nd Semester Freshman lit and guess who my teacher was…yes, Mr. Ogden himself. He is a remarkable man and I have total respect for the man.

He is still teaching I believe in Costa Mesa at the Coast Community College.

I was unable to verify this biographical information about Ogden.

Though a poorer-quality version of the film exists on YouTube, this was uploaded to the Internet Archive by the Academic Film Archive of North America.

This is the first time I’ve ever posted a video that doesn’t include the text of the poem in some way, either as type, as subtitles, or in the soundtrack, but this animation by Monika Umba was simply too gorgeous to ignore. The accompanying information at YouTube includes the text of the poem, but here’s another video that incorporates it in the soundtrack, a trailer for a documentary on the poet by Diego Jose Baud:

Baud mentions in a comment that the reading is his. I couldn’t find anything to indicate whether this documentary has in fact been released yet. The trailer was posted to YouTube a year ago.

Liz Dubelman directed and Paca Thomas provided the animation and score for this VidLit-produced piece. (See VidLit’s “Who We Are” page for bios of Dubelman and Thomas.) Vaneta Masson is the author of two books of poetry based in part on her 35 years as a family nurse practitioner in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Here’s a bio. She doesn’t appear to have a website, but in her Amazon profile, she says:

You can read about my clinic years in two books. The first, a collection of poems (come on you skeptics, give poetry a chance!), is ‘Rehab at the Florida Avenue Grill.’ The second, ‘Ninth Street Notebook–Voice of a Nurse in the City’ contains stories, lessons and reflections from the ragged edge of the real world of nursing and health care.

In 2008, I published a new collection of poems, “Clinician’s Guide to the Soul,” modeled on the pocket-size guides to lab values, drug doses, and treatment protocols I used to rely on during my clinic years. These poems about nursing, medicine, illness and life are meant for professional and family caregivers and all who care about the art and science of healing.

There’s a fine line between flash fiction and prose poetry, but I think this story crosses it. It was created by Australian writer Oceana Setayasha for the summer film competition at the 6S Social Network, which is associated with the popular online magazine Six Sentences. And yes, it’s just six sentences long.

(Thanks to Daily s-Press for the lead — a great blog for keeping up with small press and micro-publishing news. And I’m not just saying that because they’ve been very kind in linking to Moving Poems and qarrtsiluni print editions!)

A collaboration between Scottish poet Samuel Jackson and filmmaker Ali Hayes, produced for the This Collection project of videopoems set in Edinburgh, which now has a cool new website. You can read the poem here.

This strophe of the series from Revolver media is animated by Bart van Brussel. Here’s the translation included in the notes at Vimeo:

Descending inside, passing the layers
of the engine room, greasy, funereal
generators, often replaced
the steps on the iron stair are loose,
No more powerful sense of futility
than in a useless jungle of chaotic wires
unsalvageable organism, a body hanging on,
clinically dead, mummified in its scaffolding
handles and pawls to be pulled and set by creatures with knowledge
gauges for pressure, meter needles measuring longing
still someone’s longing, on board or on the shore,
Someone for whom the ship will moor when the evening falls
Where we are. We can do nothing,
as nothing obeys, we can only walk around
in the hollow echoing hold.
Flaking ladders take us to the bottom,
a cathedral of rust, an echoing grave of kings

To get a better feeling for the poet, be sure to visit the Ed Leeflang section of Poetry International Web. It might also be interesting to compare this poem with Adrienne Rich’s iconic “Diving into the Wreck.”

One of a series of nine animations, by seven different animators, of a piece by Dutch poet Ed Leeflang (1929-2008). Six of the nine have been uploaded to Vimeo by the Revolver media production company, which also produces ads for clients such as Heineken, Bacardi and Philips. Two sections of “Visiting the Cargo Vessel” on Vimeo include an English translation in the notes, so I’ve decided to take the liberty of reproducing those translations here along with the videos (I’ll share the other one tomorrow).

The stop-motion animation for Strophe #2 is by Percy Tienhoven. You can see all six of the Vimeo uploads on a page at the Revolver media site.

This obviously isn’t a great translation, but one can still get a good sense of the meaning:

We look over the railing at the city spread wide
the moon cartwheeling over the spires and towers
The curving roof of the Central Station glistens softly,
In this theatre a ship is the last balcony on the left
Lights spread their light so capriciously
Concentric rings that dance wider in the dark water and return
Heavy pain spreads itself thus in body and spirit
wherever the secret channels are.
The Amsterdam we can hear buzzing with anger
Is not far way but is familiar.
We seem to be forgotten by our fellows
This makes us vulnerable and ready for a vision,
creatures who work on heavenly made to measure goods
In this face appear slumberers, drinkers,
Cast of the same die through poetic simplicity.
As the elm trees lining the canals are of an equal age.
We know, go shopping, go away and multiply.
And a grammar, overshadowed by clouds,
fed by rage, averse to empiricism,
Waves its cobra heads, the threat of poetry is in the air.