Poet: Margaret Atwood

Variations on the Word Sleep by Margaret Atwood

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A short film from the teen-aged South African director Nathan Nadler-Nir that tells its own story, contrapuntal to Atwood’s poem in the soundtrack (read by Adrian Galley).

Siren Song by Margaret Atwood

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A new videopoem by Belgian artist and composer Swoon. According to the notes at his blog, he first composed the music and found film images to match, then decided to add the poem:

I took some time working on a piece of music (first hunted, frightened. Melancholic other) with matching images.
Memories of what never was. The attraction between man and woman. A farewell. The impossibility of things undone.
A rabbit.

Somehow the words of Atwood gave the necessary lightness (counterweight) and they added an extra layer.

(Thus, at any rate, Google Translate.) Who knew a pet rabbit could be capable of such gravitas?