Nationality: Belgium
Faites vos jeux by Marleen de Crée
Update 7/19/12: Swoon informs me that there’s a volume of Marleen de Crée poetry translated into English by Annmarie Sauer due out later this year. And note that Swoon’s two earlier subtitled films for de Crée poems have been re-done with Sauer’s translations.
Marleen de Crée is one of Belgium’s most prominent living poets, with 15 poetry collections and a number of major prizes to her name. Swoon, of course, is without a doubt the most active maker of videopoems in Belgium; this is his third video for a de Crée poem, all three available in two versions: with subtitles and without. The recitation here is by Katrijn Clemer, and the English translation is by Annmarie Sauer.
Most of the footage comes from a 1942 home movie in the Prelinger archive of ephemeral films. I love seeing videopoets make use of this kind of material.
Aan Het Water / On the Water by Bernard Dewulf
http://vimeo.com/43475356
Two films commissioned by the Felix Poetry Festival for a poem by Antwerp’s City Poet, Bernard Dewulf. The filmmakers, Alastair Cook and Swoon Bildos (Marc Neys), are of course no strangers to Moving Poems. See Swoon’s write-up on the festival at the discussion blog.
Nuchter zijn we langdradig / Dreary when Sober by Delphine Lecompte
Delphine Lecompte is a British expat writer living in Belgium a Belgian poet with a fondness for inventive bios (see comments). She’s responsible for both the translation and the reading here. Concept, camera, editing and sound are all the work of Swoon, who blogged:
De video werd een oefening in ‘langdradigheid’ versus ‘spanning’…een video waarin zo weinig mogelijk gebeurt tegen een klankband waarin kinderen akelig vrolijk zijn…of zoiets…
Which Google Translate renders as:
The video was an exercise in ‘wordiness’ versus ‘power’ … a video in which as little as possible is done to a soundtrack [in] which children [are] eerily cheerful … or something …
Remains of a Man / Rest van een mens by Peter Wullen
http://vimeo.com/41097136
Another Swoon film for a poem by his compatriot Peter Wullen. This one incorporates CCTV footage courtesy of ITN News. He also made a version in the original Dutch:
http://vimeo.com/41639292
According to a note on Vimeo, this was screened at ‘In de Luwte’ (Roosdaal, Belgium) from 18-20 May 2012 (kalmkunstfestival.be).
Cioran by Peter Wullen
Peter Wullen; voice: Bart Stouten; concept, camera, editing, music: Swoon. Of all the many videopoems Swoon has put together, this may well be my favorite so far.
Putain by Peter Wullen
(English version)
(Dutch version)
Kris J. Yves Verdonck used “stopmotion, pixilation and edited images of Eadward Muybridge,” and notes that the “English version is slightly different from the Dutch one.”
De droom van de trappen (Staircase Dream) by Michaël Vandebril
http://vimeo.com/31862171
This poem was part of BOEST back in autumn 2009,
a dynamic poetry project with nine poets: Antoine Boute, Andy Fierens, Jess De Gruyter, Els Moors, Mauro Pawlowski, Xavier Roelens, Michael Vandebril, Christophe Vekeman and Stijn Vranken … a poet show on the road from Antwerp to The Hague, with the sound of gluemaster Carlo Andriani and visuals of Jess De Gruyter. Director: Charles and Max Temmerman Clemminck … a book, an anthology of new work by nine poets … [and] a vinyl record.
(auto-translation from the Dutch by Google)
The same website also includes a bio of Vandebril:
Michael Vandebril (1972): Lawyer by training. Debuted in 1998 as a poet in the poetry & straight jazz tradition of the beat poets. In 2000, he founded the collective Le Tigre Unick with literary events which he organized in Antwerp and Amsterdam. At the end of 2002 he was appointed coordinator of Antwerp Book City, and Antwerp earned the title of UNESCO World Book Captital 2004. BOEST marked the end of a year-long break from writing poetry.
(translation prarphrased from Google)
Brian Doyle did the English translation in the video. The reading is by the author. Swoon Bildos handled everything else: concept, camera, editing, and music. I thought the shots of dancers and pigeons startling into flight made an effective pairing with the text, intermixed as they were with blurred shots of ascending motion.
Of Wel (or shall it) by Marleen de Crée
Update July 2012: Now with a new translation by Annmarie Sauer.
The second of the two Marleen de Crée poems translated and voiced by Arlekeno Anselmo for a film by Swoon (see yesterday’s post for background on the poet).
Nog Niet / Not Yet by Marleen de Crée
Update, July 2012: Now with a new translation by Annmarie Sauer and credit for voice and concept to Katrijn Clemer.
This is the first of two new videopoems I’ll be sharing for work by a prominent Belgian poet. Marleen de Crée has published 15 poetry collections to date, garnering various prizes (the Maurice Gilliam Award, the August Beernaert Prize of the Royal Academy of Dutch Language and Literature, and the prize of the Flemish Poetry Day). She’s also a visual artist who works in various media, and has had many individual and group exhibitions in Belgium and the Netherlands from 1964 to the present.
This information came via email from Swoon, the filmmaker here in collaboration with Arlekeno Anselmo, whom he credits with “Voice, idea & face” — and, critically, the translation. Those who know Dutch and prefer it without subtitles can watch the original version on Vimeo. As Swoon explained in his email: “For her last book ‘Het is niet de lava’ (It’s not the lava) I made 2 videopoems with a dutchspeaking voice. For a video-festival (FAFF 2011) I made 2 versions with subtitles (I don’t know if our translations do the poem any justice, but the festival prefered subtitles, so…)”
