~ Animation ~
Θρήνος/Lament by Miltos Sachtouris
A 2018 film animated and directed by Afroditi Bitzouni with music and sound design by Kyriakos Charalampides and Giuliano Anzani, featuring the voice of the Greek poet Miltos Sachtouris (1919-2005) and an English translation by Danai Daska in subtitles. Here’s Bitzouni’s description:
Θρήνος (Lament) is a short animated film based on the poem, that was crafted by Miltos Sachtouris and was included in the collection ΣΦΡΑΓΙΔΑ ή Η ΟΓΔΟΗ ΣΕΛΗΝΗ.
This short animated piece aspires to narrate a transition from the present world to a better one. The story line includes incidents that are strongly related to war and lead to the end of the present; recreating a future imaginary world. That way, we emphasize on the diachronic character of the poem.
The visual part is composed of an illustrated sequence inspired by the poem and crafted with textures from books and old images. Words are translated into characters and abstract environments floating into blank or vivid colors, reflecting the poem’s rhythm and creating a storyline. The various materials are connected through motion events that separate the poem in two main sections; the section referring to the present and the one referring to the future.
The sound is composed using recordings of flute, foley and analog synthesizers that were later digitally processed. Through this method we attempt to provide a backbone to the poet’s narration, amplifying the textural motion of the video.
Aiming to combine the existed material with alternative and contemporary mediums, we invite the audience to preserve and experience the poem through multiple senses.
Θρήνος/Lament (click through and scroll down for the text of the poem in Greek and English)
We’ve shared two of Bitzouni’s other animations over the years, but missed some good ones. Catch up on them all on Vimeo.
Water for Canaries by Doyali Islam
the last singing descendants of a burning world
the first heirs of a new
So often, the poems most effective at making a political statement are not overtly political at all. Here’s a 2019 animation by Suzie Hanna, an Emerita Professor of Animation at Norwich University of the Arts whose “current personal focus in research and practice is poetry animation made in collaboration,” according to her website. I found a good micro-review on the Palestine Cinema website:
How can we witness a world in which the moon and the drone hang in the same sky? What can the evolution of dinosaur into bird tell us about human survival? In “water for canaries”, award-winning Toronto poet Doyali Islam contemplates an Associated Press photograph taken during a ceasefire within the July 2014 bombing of Beit Hanoun. Islam’s poem acts as solemn witness but also achieves a moment of lift-off in which Palestinians reveal their extraordinary courage, resilience, and mercy. UK animator Suzie Hanna has collaborated to create a short poetry film using hand-cut stencils and paint to emphasize the chaotic atmosphere and to celebrate the fragility of life amid destruction. doyali-islam.com & suziehanna.com
The poem “water for canaries” is from Doyali Islam’s 2019 poetry book, heft, published by McClelland & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada.
Here’s the link to heft. Doyali Islam’s website seems to be offline, but here’s a good bio. “Water for Canaries” wasn’t the only poem from heft to get adapted into a poetry film; “Letter” had three different adaptations for the online Visible Poetry Project in 2019, including one by Moving Poems’ own Jane Glennie: see here. And we’ve shared a number of Suzie Hanna’s animations over the years.
I haven’t told my garden yet by Emily Dickinson
A new upload from South African visual artist and animator Diek Grobler, “Animated on a Alexandre Noyer pinscreen. Music by Anne Vanschothorst,” according to the Vimeo description. Here’s the text.
As a lover of both Emily Dickinson and forests, the imagery really spoke to me. With the closing image in particular, Grobler seems perfectly attuned to the poet’s “Hint … within the Riddle,” and maintains a light touch throughout, avoiding the pitfall of over-interpretation that ruins so many poetry animations for me.
Symphony Jane by Rosemary Norman
A love song to the Eurasian blackbird, the American robin’s more musical cousin, this recent film from long-time videopoetry collaborators Stuart Pound and Rosemary Norman shows the power of a simple concept beautifully realized:
A poem arrives on the screen letter by letter. The image is all text with the story in the soundtrack, a blackbird’s song.
Last year, Pound and Norman came out with a print book showcasing their collaborations, Words & Pictures, available from Aspect Ratio (2 Lothair Road, London W5 4TA) for £8.50, which garnered a good review in London Grip:
Many readers will have seen and enjoyed Rosemary Norman’s poems in magazines and also observed that her bio note mentions her collaborations with video artist Stuart Pound in the making of poetry videos. These videos have been shown at festivals and other film events (including some at the BFI); but the majority of Norman’s readers will probably not have had a chance to attend one of these screenings. Fortunately it is now possible to experience a selection of Norman & Pound’s work in the comfort of one’s own home. A new book Words & Pictures contains 18 of Norman’s poems together with a number of stills from the corresponding videos and, more importantly, an internet link / QR code giving access to an on-line archive where the videos can be seen in full. This offers a simple but satisfying multi-media experience where one can enjoy the words on the page alongside (or as a curtain-raiser to) a visual and auditory interpretation.
Darkness by Ben Morgan
This delightful new animation by Suzie Hanna recreates the world of illuminated manuscripts to bring to life a text by poet and scholar Ben Morgan. Like many viewers, I’m sure, my main reference point for that sort of thing was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I had no trouble adjusting to this more serious and cerebral use of Medieval imagery and motifs. In fact, I found it—dare I say?—quite illuminating.
Made for an installation ‘Invertlight’ in St Peter Hungate Church Norwich in 2024, this animation of Ben Morgan’s poem imagines an encounter between Julian of Norwich, a 14th century Anchoress locked away in her cell, and her son who visits to challenge her decision to give up on the natural world. It is not known if she had children but she entered the ‘living death’ after child bearing age, and may well have been a mother before her voluntary incarceration. Julian wrote ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ the first surviving book to be written by a woman in the English language. ‘Invertlight’ is a Research project at Norwich University of the Arts that focuses on creating Art for buildings that have been changed from religious to secular use.
For more on the poet, see One Hand Clapping:
Ben Morgan is a poet and academic based in Oxford, UK. His first poetry pamphlet, Medea in Corinth: Poems, Prayers, Letters, and a Curse, was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2018. It retold the famous myth through poetic letters, spells, prayers, sonnets and songs, as well as theatrical interludes. He has also published poems in Oxford Poetry and at The Sunday Tribune and The High Window. He has taught Shakespeare studies and early modern literature at a number of colleges in Oxford and is completing a monograph on Shakespeare and human rights for Princeton University Press.
The Lines by Andrew Motion
Suzie Hanna just uploaded to Vimeo this 2001 animation she co-directed with Hayley Winter. Live images and straight recordings interact with artifice at all levels, borrowing elements from glitch art and concrete text experiments. The former UK poet laureate Andrew Motion supplied the poem and reading, and Sebastian Castagna composed the soundtrack.
The Lines, a poetry animation, was selected for numerous festivals including Manchester Poetry Festival and Hamburg Animation Festival, it was part of a programme curated by the British Council ‘Shooting Rhymes and Cutting Verses’ which was shown all over the world to promote UK Culture. The Gene used it as visuals for a concert tour and it was shown in cinemas as part of the Sonimation project which was instigated by Suzie Hanna in collaboration with Sonic Arts Network and Digital Arts Network in 2001.
We’ve shared Hanna’s work often here. The bio on her website is worth quoting in full:
Suzie Hanna is Emerita Professor of Animation at Norwich University of the Arts. She was Chair of NAHEMI, the National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image from 2016-2019, and remains an honorary member of the executive. She is an animator who collaborates with other academics and artists, and whose research interests include animation, poetry, puppetry and sound design. She has made numerous short films all of which have been selected for international festival screenings, TV broadcast or exhibited in curated shows. She contributes to journals, books and conferences, and has led several innovative projects including animated online international student collaborations and digital exhibitions of art and poetry on Europe’s largest public HiDef screen. She works as a production consultant and as an international academic examiner, was a member of the AHRC Peer Review College from 2009-2014, and is a longstanding member of ASIFA. She plays the violin and the musical saw.
If You Feel Terrible by Rebecca Wadlinger
With a pitch-black sense of humour, If You Feel Terrible is the first poem from the book Terror, Terrible, Terrific by US poet Rebecca Wadlinger. A bio:
Rebecca Wadlinger was born in Pennsylvania, where she attended the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, and her doctorate in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Her poetry has appeared in publications like The Best New Poets anthology, Tin House, Ploughshares, and Mid-American Review, among others. (source)
This film of the poem is directed, illustrated, and animated by Nick Stokes.
I found the film in Judy Elfferich‘s outstanding Poetry in Motion section of the Dutch website ooteoote, where she has been publishing videopoetry since 2015.
Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye
Naomi Shihab Nye reads her own deep and beautiful poem Kindness in this excellent animated film by Ana Pérez López, a Spanish illustrator living in London. Sound and Music is by Chris Heagle. The piece is from a series of poetry films produced by the On Being Project. Others from the series have previously been featured here at Moving Poems.
Singularity by Marissa Davis
Singularity is a wonderful animated film from UK artist Lottie Kingslake and US poet Marissa Davis. Featuring a marvelous spoken and musical voice performance by the multi-talented Toshi Reagon, the film is a touching ode to life’s interconnections.
Produced by the On Being Project, it was also a part of Maria Popova‘s project The Universe in Verse.
The poem can be read towards the bottom of this page at Popova’s website The Marginalian.
Sonnet 66 by Luke Kennard
Sonnet 66 is an animated film by Jamie MacDonald from a poem by Luke Kennard, commissioned by UK publishing and performance project Penned in the Margins.
The film was made to coincide with the launch of Kennard’s poetry collection Notes on the Sonnets, which went on to win the 2021 Forward Prize. A description of the collection:
Notes on the Sonnets… recasts Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets as a series of anarchic prose poems set in the same joyless house party.
The writing in Sonnet 66 is witty and elusive, and the film animation is cleverly simple. The whole is amusing and compelling in its short duration.
Two other films by Jamie MacDonald have previously featured here at Moving Poems.
