Filmmaker: James Short

The Language is Pronounced “Dead” by Christian Peet

Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

Christian Peet refers to his Big American Trip videos as postcards, but they’re videopoetry as far as I’m concerned. The info at YouTube seems worth quoting in full:

Performed by Kim Gek Lin Short, directed and edited by James Short, based on the book BIG AMERICAN TRIP by Christian Peet. A diverse group of activists, actors, artists, musicians, writers, and otherwise lovely & concerned individuals from all over the US have collaborated with the author to create a polyvocal series of video readings / interpretations based on the book. Assuming the form of postcards authored by an “alien” of unknown nationality, ethnicity, and gender, addressing a variety of people and organizations (political figures, multinational corporations, people in public toilets, et al), BIG AMERICAN TRIP is a startling document of fear and loneliness in the 21st century U.S. Whether deconstructing road signs, a failed relationship, or the state of contemporary poetry, the voice(s) behind these texts is/are at once familiar and strange, determined to be free, and desperate to communicate with anyone who has ever felt at odds with the Language of a Nation.