Nationality: Scotland

Better Days by Kevin Cadwallender

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I’ve been reading interviews collected around the U.S. during the Great Depression by the Federal Writer’s Project, and this poem perfectly captures my reaction to that heritage of hard times and lives cut short by poverty and dangerous work. This is Alastair Cook‘s 19th filmpoem, with a sound composition by Mark Walters.

Leper Window, St Mary the Virgin by Jane McKie

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http://vimeo.com/36201991

Alastair Cook’s 18th filmpoem incorporates a text by Scottish poet Jane McKie which “won the inaugural Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition in 2011 and was praised by the judges as ‘spare, musical and wonderfully imagined,'” Alastair tells us. Luca Nasciuti was the composer.

Visiting the Dunbrody Famine Ship by Elizabeth Rimmer

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http://vimeo.com/35878967

This is Alastair Cook’s 17th filmpoem, and bears the title of the collection of poetry whence the poem comes: Wherever We Live Now, by British poet Elizabeth Rimmer. Alastair writes,

This film came while I was concentrating on two other films, which will be part of my solo film, photography and glass show How the Land Lies in Edinburgh this spring.

This is also a farewell to Kodak, of sorts, as there’ll never really be a goodbye embrace- entirely made from Kodachrome Super8, wildly out of date. And a homage to my solace, Portobello.

Thanks to Erstlaub for the sound design, a drone star.

Slow Wave Through The City by Jacq Kelly

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http://vimeo.com/33335782

The latest filmpoem from Alastair Cook, who describes it on Vimeo as follows:

Slow Wave Through The City is a poem by Jacq Kelly, published by Colin Herd this year. It crossed my path digitally and I watched the film in my head as I read, my adopted city of Edinburgh speeding by.

Jacq lives in Edinburgh but dreams of moving to Sweden and becoming a viking. Until this happens, she spends her time writing poetry, fiction and trying to make a difference in politics as a campaigner.

Slow Wave Through the City was filmed in Edinburgh on 8mm film in Summer 2011 on a long walk with the poet; it was shot using Ektachrome Super8, processed in Kansas by Dwaynes.

By way of a coda, this is a first, a Scottish Filmpoem. Looking through all 15 films, this is the only one which has only Scots contributors for the film, narrative and music. This was not deliberate, but is fitting, since it’s devoted to Edinburgh.

Ground by Alastair Cook

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I’ve shared a lot of filmpoems here made by the Scottish artist and filmmaker Alastair Cook, but this one’s the work of someone else: Ginnetta Correli directed and edited this film using Alastair’s reading of some haiku he wrote for a multi-author linked verse sequence. He blogged about the film:

I don’t write terribly much (as you may have noted) and am perhaps unnecessarily precious about what I do write (see Abachan, for instance) and am pleased to see what such a wonderful, dark filmmaker can make of my words. Filmpoem is filmpoemed!

This was featured in VidPoFilm a few weeks ago.

Ground has an impenetrable quality. The film imagery, poem and reading approach each other without quite meeting. In that circle of visual and verbal imagery and the emotion of the voice of the reader, we witness a flame dancing without knowing who lit it, who blows on it, or why it goes out, if it does.

Something profound happens. But what? Is the poem notes on death and what resurrects us through life? Or the dream of a life?

Read the rest.

Foreign Lands by Robert Louis Stevenson

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Update: this video is no longer online.

This seemed like a fitting follow-up to yesterday’s Ruben Dario videopoem. Ilsa Misamore made the animation, with cut-paper sculptures by Helen Musselwhite.

To a Mouse by Robert Burns

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A gorgeous, grungy animation and great reading (by Bill Patterson) of the classic poem, created for the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum, Alloway, Scotland. Barnaby Hewlett directed. Produced by Spiral Productions.

Prodigal by Kona Macphee

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Alastair Cook‘s 11th filmpoem. His description at Vimeo is worth quoting in full:

Prodigal is a film of Kona Macphee‘s poem, which was born from Andrew Philip’s project for the second Hidden Door festival, held in Edinburgh in October 2010: I was asked to record a reading of the poem. As I read it, I felt its power and resolved to make a filmpoem. I commissioned a cello piece from Rebecca Rowe and we performed this live at the Poetry Association of Scotland‘s meeting on 9th March 2011, at the Scottish poetry Library. A new direction for these perhaps, the addition of live performance… but the work is as dark and mercurial as ever.

Abachan by Alastair Cook

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http://www.vimeo.com/18433883

I’ve featured a number of Alastair Cook‘s filmpoems for other poets’ work, but this is the first one he’s made for a poem of his own. It’s due to premiere at a Geopoetics conference on March 27th at John Ruskin’s house, Brentwood, in the Lake District.

Today also we bring you the full text of Alastair’s think-piece on the poetry-film genre, “The Filming of Poetry.” Please go read and add your own thoughts. This first appeared in paper form at Anon Seven last summer. Thanks to Alastair for letting me repost it.

MacAdam Takes to the Sea by Andrew Philip

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http://vimeo.com/15946060

A masterful filmpoem by Alastair Cook — be sure to expand it to full-screen size. Check out Andrew Philip’s website. In an accompanying note on Vimeo, Cook indicates that the film was commissioned for the Hidden Door festival in Edinburgh, where it premiered last month.