http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLNkl5UqY4g
Voice and editing by Nic S., using public-domain footage from the Hubble space telescope.
http://vimeo.com/35205909
Video and reading by Nic S. for her site Pizzicati of Hosanna. Though sometimes I don’t quite share Nic’s enthusiasm for outer-space imagery, I thought it really worked here.
http://vimeo.com/33484094
A recent video by Nic S. for a poem included in her online audio collection Pizzicati of Hosanna.
http://vimeo.com/29969928
Another text-only videopoem, but today with a soundtrack. I’m not crazy about the font-choice — for some reason, I have trouble seeing a Cummings poem in anything but a typewriter font — but otherwise this strikes me as a highly successful re-imagining of the text.
Nic S. blogged about “using text vs voice in videopoems” the other day, and it’s sparked an interesting discussion in the comments, with videopoetry pioneer Tom Konyves weighing in.
http://www.vimeo.com/28799428
Making a videopoem for a poem that was written in response to a painting is always a challenge. Nic S. used footage of a California forest fire from 1914 in what strikes me as a fairly successful pairing.
In other Nic S.-related news, she has just launched a new venture that should be of interest to anyone making poetry videos — Pizzicati of Hosanna: dead poets’ poems read by Nic S. in English & other languages. According to a note in the sidebar, “These recordings may be used for any type of creative non-commercial project. No need to ask permission.” Poets recorded so far include Stevens, Baudelaire, Quasimodo and Neruda, all in the original languages.
http://www.vimeo.com/28855678
This has to be one of my favorite found footage-poem match-ups ever. It’s one of Nic S.’s first solo efforts at videopoem-making (though she doesn’t appear to have blogged it). Here’s the text of the poem.
This comprises the first panel of Propolis, the videopoem triptych produced by Swoon Bildos, Whale Sound (Nic S.) and Cello Dreams (Kathy McTavish). According to the extremely interesting process notes for the project, Swoon took the lead in determining the artistic direction (inspired by Turner, Goya and Bacon, he says) and finding and getting permission for the footage to fit that vision, but his two collaborators took an active role in shaping it, in addition to providing the soundtrack, so I’ve listed all three of them together as filmmakers. I’m departing from tradition and putting up three posts today, because the three videos in the triptych belong together (but the poet-centric format here prevents me from putting them all in one post). Please visit the Propolis website for the full experience, which includes a special mashup of all three videos which I won’t share here, plus the aforementioned process notes and a paragraph on each of the contributors, including this one about Donna Vorreyer:
Donna Vorreyer spends her days convincing middle-schoolers that words matter. Her work has appeared in many journals including Weave, Cider Press Review, qaartsiluni, and Rhino. She is the author of the chapbooks, Womb/Seed/Fruit (Finishing Line Press) and Come Out, Virginia (Naked Mannekin Press) and a contributor to the blog Voice Alpha. You can visit her online at her blog Put Words Together; Make Meaning or her website www.donnavorreyer.com
The site also includes the text of the poem.
This comprises the second panel of Propolis, the videopoem triptych produced by Swoon Bildos, Whale Sound (Nic S.) and Cello Dreams (Kathy McTavish). Here’s the contributor’s note about David Tomaloff:
David Tomaloff (b. 1972) is a writer, photographer, musician, and all around bad influence. His work has appeared in fine publications such as Mud Luscious, >kill author, Thunderclap!, HOUSEFIRE, Prick of the Spindle, DOGZPLOT, elimae, and many more. He is the author of the chapbooks, A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF (NAP) Olifaunt (The Red Ceilings Press), EXIT STRATEGIES (Gold Wake Press) and MESCAL NON-PALINDROME CINEMA (Ten Pages Press). He resides in the form of ones and zeros here.
Visit the Propolis site for the text of the poem.
This comprises the third panel of Propolis, the videopoem triptych produced by Swoon Bildos, Whale Sound (Nic S.) and Cello Dreams (Kathy McTavish). Here’s their contributor’s note about Lisa Cihlar:
Lisa J. Cihlar‘s poems have been published in The Pedestal Magazine, Green Mountains Review, In Posse Review, Bluestem, and The Prose-Poem Project. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in rural Southern Wisconsin.
Visit Propolis to read the text of the poem.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX746yXs96A
With all the videopoems that have been made with her readings or for her poems, it was probably inevitable that sooner or later Nic S. would have to try making one of her own. This is her maiden effort — and the first Hardy poem in the Moving Poems archive. She used some wonderfully creepy footage of cockroaches from the Prelinger Archives. She her blog post for more about her process.