Poet: Erica Goss

Buck Moon by Erica Goss

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This is Part VII in the 12 Moons collaborative videopoem series presented by Atticus Review — and it may be my favorite to date. As usual, the line-up is Erica Goss (text), Nic S. (voice), Kathy McTavish (music), and Swoon, A.K.A. Marc Neys (concept and direction). Neys calls the text

A lovely short poem that I wanted to give an extra playful and nostalgic layer by adding a bit of ‘family history’.
I went back to the outstanding collection of IICADOM (‘International Institute for the Conservation, Archiving and Distribution of Other People’s Memories’) to look for the right footage.

Kathy provided me with an impressive soundtrack with enough length to work with two distinctive parts in the visual storyline.
Part one; a bright and colourful look into the carefree world of children. Part two; a short view on the expectations, doubts, happiness and moments of fear that might precede that carefree world.

Read the rest of his process notes.

Strawberry Moon by Erica Goss

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My fingers find the grit
of your chin
like the seed-crowded
tips of strawberries
we stole and ate
in darkness…

This is the 6th installment in the 12 Moons videopoetry series presented by Atticus Review each month in 2014, featuring Erica Goss (text), Nic S. (voiceover), Kathy McTavish (music) and Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon (concept, music and direction). Neys shared some process notes on his blog:

A lush short poem that I wanted to give an extra dark layer by adding a bit of ‘danger’.
I went back to the public domain feature Dementia 13 for the footage.
A nightly rendez-vous with a lot of staring between the two characters.
Leaving the story open and full of questions…

I started to work with certain parts of that footage.
Once I had a basic montage, I awaited Nic’s reading to work on a soundscape with musical blocks provided by Kathy.

Flower Moon by Erica Goss

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Part 5 in the 12 Moons videopoem series from Atticus Review, and the first I think I’ve managed to post on the full moon. Credits are as usual: text by Erica Goss, recitation by Nic S., music by Kathy McTavish, and concept, music and direction by Marc Neys (Swoon). I thought I recognized some of the footage in this one, and a visit to Marc’s blog confirms it: I was present when he did the filming last August, during the first Filmpoem Festival in Dunbar, Scotland. Here’s what he says:

“Flower Moon,” where Erica Goss explores the privilege and burden of her name and all of its meanings.
A name afraid of loss.
A name the color of soil.
A name that sounds like
three small cars colliding.

These lines steered me in the direction of the footage used in this video.

I started to work with certain parts of that footage (shot last summer in Dunbar).
Once I had a basic montage, I awaited Nic’s reading to work on a soundscape with musical blocks provided by Kathy.

I said it before and I will say it again. Cooking’s fun and easy when you have great ingredients.

Planter’s Moon by Erica Goss

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With all the excitement on social media about last night’s eclipse, I thought I’d jump on the lunar bandwagon and share the 4th installment of 12 Moons, the collaborative videopoetry project from Erica Goss (text), Nic S. (voice), Kathy McTavish (music) and Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon (music, concept, camera, and direction) for Atticus Review. This one uses footage from The Plow that Broke the Plains, Pare Lorentz’ poetic documentary about the Dust Bowl, which, I suggested here last year, may be seen as a sort of epic filmpoem in its own right. Marc says in his process notes:

First time I read the poem (before there was a reading or a soundtrack) I thought of this fantastic documentary by Pare Lorentz.
I started to work with certain parts of the film (treated them, gave them a colour) and tried to put them in a split screen.
Once I had a basic montage, I awaited Nic’s reading to work on a soundscape with musical blocks provided by Kathy.

I said it before and I will say it again. Cooking’s fun and easy when you have great ingredients. All the pieces fitted perfectly and lifted each other to a higher plane. I only had to do a small re-edit of my basic montage once the soundtrack was made.

Worm Moon by Erica Goss

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This is Part III of 12 Moons, the collaborative videopoetry project from Erica Goss (text), Nic S. (voice), Kathy McTavish (music) and Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon (music, concept, camera, and direction) for Atticus Review:

12 Moons is an artwork combining poetry, voice, music and video. Twelve poems written by Erica Goss form the narrative. The poems move through a year of full moons, reflecting the hidden influence of the moon on one person’s life. Kathy McTavish’s original music adds complexity to Nic S.’s intense and compelling narration, framed by Swoon’s precise editing of sound and image, which creates a miniature universe for each poem within the context of the project.

Marc writes:

It’s a fun, yet slightly mysterious poem. I wanted simple footage, bright colours and ‘wormlike’ movement and I found some (shadows shot while hiking).
Just as with the first 2, I wanted the ending to turn away from the visual storyline.

Fun news about the project; Erica Goss and I will present the whole project (all 12) during an artist talk at the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin later this year.

Snow Moon by Erica Goss

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This is the second installment in the 12 Moons collaborative videopoem series produced by Swoon (Marc Neys), Kathy McTavish and Nic S. with texts by Erica Goss for publication in Atticus Review. Marc notes that

A large part of the images for this one came from Bea Mariano (from http://futuretransits.com/video/mistake-momentum-memory)

I really liked the concentration that oozed from these, so I asked if I could re-edit some parts of it for this videopoem. A big thanks to her.

Just as in Wolf Moon, I wanted the ending to take us somewhere completely different. I wanted water, overpowering, and loads of it.

I can’t express enough how much fun it is to work on videopoems with this kind of building blocks.

Read the rest (and visit Atticus Review for full bios of each participant).

Wolf Moon by Erica Goss

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As featured in Atticus Review, this is the first of the 12 Moons videopoetry series, a collaboration between California-based poet (and videopoetry columnist) Erica Goss; filmmaker Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon; composer/cellist Kathy McTavish; and poetry reader extraordinaire Nic S.. See Erica’s January column at Connotation Press for more on the project. She says, in part:

This artistic collaboration has been an exhilarating experience for me. Part of the fun was waiting to see what the others came up with. I knew I had to get the poems written and delivered, so I made writing them a top priority. As soon as one was finished, I sent it off, and waited to be delighted. Apart from emails, a few phone and Skype calls, we worked independently, each contributing our part.

Marc goes into a bit of detail about the making of this first film in the series at his blog:

I wanted to show only one image: a woman who has, one time, lost all but is still there and still very much a woman.
Let the viewer feel intrusive, like they’re watching a private ritual.
Kathy sent me several snippets of sounds and loops I could play with. Looking for a ominous soundscape to lay Nic’s reading in, I first created a track.

For the ending I wanted a contrast in sound and image.
I chose the view of someone walking on sharp and difficult stones without a clear path.

Darkroom by Erica Goss

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Erica Goss should be familiar to regular readers of Moving Poems for her monthly column about videopoetry, The Third Form, but she is also a very good poet in her own right, as this new collaboration with Swoon (Marc Neys) demonstrates. This was actually a tri-national collaboration, because the cinematography was by Alastair Cook, re-edited by Marc. For the text of the poem, as well as some process notes, see Marc’s blog.