“I reason, Earth is short” by Emily Dickinson
Another animation by Francesca Talenti. You can watch dozens, maybe hundreds of Emily Dickinson videos on YouTube and not find anything so free of cliché as this.
I reason, Earth is short—
And Anguish—absolute—
And many hurt,
But, what of that?I reason, we could die—
The best Vitality
Cannot excel Decay,
But, what of that?I reason, that in Heaven—
Somehow, it will be even—
Some new Equation, given—
But, what of that?
Listen and Before the Flood by W. S. Merwin
This is one section of a production by the San Francisco-based Deborah Slater Dance Theatre called Men Think They Are Better Than Grass, based on poems by W. S. Merwin. (I’ll post other excerpts in the coming weeks.) Here’s the description from Vimeo:
This section features the entire company followed by a duet featuring Kerry Mehling and Kelly Kemp. The poems are LISTEN read by Arwen Anderson and BEFORE THE FLOOD read by Peter Coyote, both written by W.S. Merwin. The music is by Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi, video by Elaine Buckholtz, lights by Allen Willner, set by Mikiko Uesugi and costumes by Laura Hazlett.
Adrift by Juliet Wilson
It’s not often I get to see a new videopoem for the work of a poet whose blog I’ve been reading for years. This is a poem from Juliet Wilson’s debut collection, Unthinkable Skies, from the Scottish Calder Wood Press. The film is by the indefatigible Alastair Cook, who adds that this is the “the first of a series of films with Juliet, which will be premiered at my upcoming solo show at the Drill Hall in Leith on 29th July this year: outoftheblue.org.uk“
Puritan Black by Kate Ruse
According to J. P. Dougan’s description on Vimeo, this is one of a series of poems entitled “Poetry of Colours” by English writer Kate Ruse. “It is concerned with the use of campeachy wood in the production of black during the 18th Century.”
A Poem for A, by Harold Pinter
I like the silent-movie style of interrupting the action with text. I wonder why more videopoems don’t adopt this style?
This is the work of independent filmmaker Justin Anderson, and is dedicated to Roksanda Ilincic. The Vimeo page contains complete credits as well as the following artist’s statement:
This film takes its structure from a short love poem by Harold Pinter written in 1974 about Lady Antonia Fraser his then lover and subsequent wife. She is and was the ‘Light of his Life’. In making this film I was trying evoke some of the feeling of the mid-seventies YSL, a beautiful girl with a rich dark skin wearing a dress that seems to emit light, she is hit by cracks of sunlight. This a very formal film about colour, form and minimal movement. Roksanda Ilincic is designer I greatly admire; her work is very sculptural, feminine and has a real filmic quality.
Paraguas (Umbrella) by Alfredo Boni de la Vega
A jazzy illustration by Barcelona-based L’esstudi of a haiku by Mexican writer Alfredo Boni de la Vega (1914-1965). I like the video better than the poem itself, which strikes me as being too metaphor-laden to qualify as a real haiku:
Flower of sadness
that opens when tears start falling
from the sky.
Sometimes a Man, by Rainer Maria Rilke
The joint reading by Zach and Larry Grossberg is especially charming here, but the animation by Francesca Talenti is nice, too. The translation is by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy.
Ballad of the Skeletons by Allen Ginsberg
This is basically a glorified music video from 1997, directed by Gus Van Sant — but with music by Philip Glass and Paul McCartney, and spoken word by none other than Allen Ginsberg. I got a charge out of seeing him dressed as Uncle Sam, though by the end of the video I was beginning to tire of the poet-as-prophet schtick.
Incidentally, Howl, the movie, directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, is set for release in September. That should breathe some new life into the Ginsberg cult.
Hotel by Guillaume Apollinaire
The filmmaker is Ahmet Tigli, about whom I was able to discover nothing in English. I’m not sure who authored the translation, but here’s the original:
Hôtel
Ma chambre a la forme d’une cage,
Le soleil passe son bras par la fenêtre.
Mais moi qui veux fumer pour faire des mirages
J’allume au feu du jour ma cigarette.
Je ne veux pas travailler — je veux fumer.
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