Poet: William Carlos Williams

Smell! by William Carlos Williams

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William Carlos Williams’ own recitation of his poem is included in the soundtrack of this animation by Isaac Holland. The video is part of the Poetry of Perception series commissioned by Harvard for its Fundamentals of Neuroscience course.

This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams

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http://vimeo.com/62503304

Nic S. blogged some process notes about the making of this video:

The reading had been up at Pizzicati of Hosanna for a while and is only 20 seconds long, so I knew I was looking for something very short in terms of video. There are still some wonderful Equiloud clips I haven’t used yet and it took me just a second of flipping through those to know that his gorgeous 28-second door-opening loop was exactly the kind of image/metaphor I was looking for, once I slowed the clip speed down by about half.

Written in My Dream by William Carlos Williams

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This kinetic text poetry animation by Nikolaus Lesnik uses a reading by Allen Ginsberg.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams

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http://www.vimeo.com/28799428

Making a videopoem for a poem that was written in response to a painting is always a challenge. Nic S. used footage of a California forest fire from 1914 in what strikes me as a fairly successful pairing.

In other Nic S.-related news, she has just launched a new venture that should be of interest to anyone making poetry videos — Pizzicati of Hosanna: dead poets’ poems read by Nic S. in English & other languages. According to a note in the sidebar, “These recordings may be used for any type of creative non-commercial project. No need to ask permission.” Poets recorded so far include Stevens, Baudelaire, Quasimodo and Neruda, all in the original languages.

Poem (As the cat) by William Carlos Williams

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Gotta love film students for keeping the medium irreverent. This is by Kurt Snyder. Here’s the text of the poem:

As the cat
climbed over
the top of

the jamcloset
first the right
forefoot

carefully
then the hind
stepped down
into the pit of
the empty
flowerpot

The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

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Poem by William Carlos Williams

Animation by Lee Luker, with music by Six Organs of Admittance

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Written and directed by Kira Rouse with art by Jeffrey Rouse and sound by Digital Scientist

Hard to say what WCW would’ve made of this one, but it’s an interesting testament to the ubiquity of his poem.