Poet: Trace DePass
Word: Collected Poetry (Makayla Posley, Trace DePass, Nkosi Nkululeko and Esther Aloba)
Directed by Jamil McGinnis and Pat Heywood, Word: Collected Poetry is an exemplary poetry-film anthology that conveys a real sense of the unique character of a vital, passionate community of poets. Jamil and Pat call it
A collection of spoken word poems brought to life, adapted from the work of four poets living in New York City.
FEATURING:
“Untitled” by Makayla Posley (0:09)
“band-aids & other temporary healings” by Trace DePass (4:01)
“From the Inside” by Nkosi Nkululeko (7:23)
“Rule #1” by Esther Aloba (11:09)
It was produced in association with Urban Word NYC, and grew out of an earlier project for Motionpoems (Things I Carry Into the World, featuring Cynthia Manick), as they explained in an email:
Essentially, the film is a work of collected poems brought to life. The featured poems’ authors are young poets from New York City. We wanted the film to feel as if someone had wandered into a bookstore and began flipping through a book of poems. […] It’s essentially an extension of the Motionpoem we did (but produced independently of them).
We partnered with a nonprofit called Urban Word NYC, who introduced us to the poets. We wanted to dive into the same themes and ideas that their poetry does, so naturally, collaborating closely with the poets was an essential part of the process. We didn’t want to assume anything about their experiences, but rather create a visual space to explore them further. We raised these questions about the school-to-prison pipeline, the problematic side of creative expression, and queerness, amongst others because they did. They gave us that space.
The film premiered online in Booooooom, which noted that “The film’s production was entirely crowdfunded through Kickstarter, raising over $15,000 through nearly 200 donations in 30 days.” Jamil and Pat told them that
Adapting poetry to film was a lot closer to putting together a thematic puzzle than it is building any kind of narrative. All sorts of space for us as filmmakers opened up to explore their language. Juxtaposing images, observing, asking questions rather than giving answers. We wanted a film that was challenging and abstract, but at the same time, presented moments of meditation.
Click through for photos from the shooting of the film as well as for the full, extensive credits.
Things I Carry Into the World by Cynthia Manick
This unusual and ambitious poetry film, created for the seventh season of Motionpoems by directors Jamil McGinnis and Pat Heywood, includes words from five different NYC poets, as Heywood explained in an email (links added):
The film is an adaptation of the poem ‘Things I Carry Into the World’ by Cynthia Manick. It’s an abstract meditation on the body, the feminine, the everyday realities of being young and black, and the fragility between the manmade and the natural. We worked with an incredible nonprofit, Urban Word NYC, who teamed us up with four poets: Esther Aloba, Nkosi Nkululeko, Makayla Posely, and Trace DePass, the scenes featuring them are actually adaptations of their own poems, heard briefly in the opening scene. We ended up with moments from four separate films, crafted under the umbrella of Cynthia Manick’s original poem. We found adapting poetry into film to be creatively liberating. Sort of like putting together a thematic puzzle; juxtaposing images, observing, asking questions, and finding moments of meditation to digest the poem’s text. We had our theater premiere at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis on October 27 and our online premiere on NOWNESS on November 6.
The poems excerpted at the beginning are “untitled” by Makayla Posely, “Rule #1” by Esther Aloba, “band-aids & other temporary healings” by Trace DePass, and “From the Inside” by Nkosi Nkululeko. See Vimeo for the complete credits.
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