~ November 2009 ~
Sea Things: poetry from the coasts of Australia
I just discovered this delightful documentary.
Free Range Multimedia followed the last leg of the 2 month coastal poetry odyssey that was Sea Things. The brainchild of Sydney poetry organisation, The Red Room Company, the project sent two duffle bags along the west and east coasts of Australia to gather poetry of the sea by those who live on and around it.
For more information, see the Sea Things section of the Red Room Company website.
Silent Years by Lois-Ann Yamanaka
“Adapted from selected poems by renowned Hawaii author Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Silent Years tells a universal story using the unique dialect of Hawaiian Pidgin English,” according to the description by Kinetic Films. James Sereno directs.
In a brief interview with the Honolulu Advertiser, Yamanaka described her reaction to the film, in the production of which she had no active role:
Q. How does “Silent Years” compare with other dramatic presentations of your work? Is there a particular performance medium that is most sympathetic to your artistic aims and concerns?
A. In a word, stunning. Its images were unrelenting. Also, the use of an adult narrator made it all the more painful as a device of point of view because it implies that the girl has not fully “recovered” from the pain of her experience.
It’s always been a bit uncomfortable for me to see my work on stage at Kumu (Kahua Theatre), and now it’s uncomfortable to see my work on the screen because whereas the characters only existed in my mind before, they take on human interpretations with the actors. It’s odd. I’m sitting in a dark theater and I feel like God must feel, or the Olym-pian gods as they watch the lives and stories of those they created unfold before them.
Q. “Silent Years” is drawn from two of your early poems. What’s it like for you to experience these poems again at this stage in your writing life? Did you feel any impulse to refine or revise?
A. It never fails to evoke the same feelings in me that were evoked in the creation of the poems when I read them again or when I see them performed. I feel a knot at the pit of myself. I experience it all over again.
I feel no impulse to refine or revise. They no longer seem wholly mine. These works exist in the world and are in constant revision and refinement when someone reads them and makes them their own.
Q. What are your impressions of the individual elements of the film? The direction and cinematography? The individual actors? The narration?
A. With regard to the individual elements of the film, I was amazed at the locations they used that were very evocative and almost accurate to the text.
The face of Julie Nagata was amazing. I think she captured the essence of the girl.
What I thought was genius was the use of the adult narrator Janice Terukina, whose voice bled in and out with the performers on the film.
Wil (Kahele) as the uncle was frightening. What I didn’t expect was the subtlety of Matt’s (Miller) character’s hesitation and reluctance at certain parts of the film. In those small moments, he gave a humanity to an inhumane character.
The soundtrack is incredibly haunting and powerful.
The Hospital by Mathias Svalina
A poem by Mathias Svalina, envideoed by Nathan Young.
The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab Nye
Here’s a video slideshow adaptation that someone just uploaded to Vimeo, by Matthew Craft with the University of Baltimore’s Integrated Design MFA program.
Urgentemente (Urgently) by Eugénio de Andrade
A poem by Portugal’s greatest living poet, Eugénio de Andrade. This was uploaded by Bloqs de Lletres, so I’m assuming the video is by Josep Porcar, as their others are.
Here’s an English translation by Alexis Levitin:
URGENTLY
It’s urgent — love.
It’s urgent — a boat upon the sea.It’s urgent to destroy certain words,
hate, solitude, and cruelty,
some moanings,
many swords.It’s urgent to invent a joyfulness,
multiply kisses and cornfields,
discover roses and rivers
and glistening mornings — it’s urgent.Silence and an impure light fall upon
our shoulders till they ache.
It’s urgent — love, it’s urgent
to endure.(from Forbidden Words)
Accordionist by George Szirtes
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8115726312814139043&ei=9q4BS-2vAsfdlQfe5rCLBA
A poem by George Szirtes, translated into film by the London-based video production company Atticus Finch for a British television series called Poems on the Underground (not to be confused with the long-standing project of the same name that places poems “in tube carriages across London”).
The Language is Pronounced “Dead” by Christian Peet
Christian Peet refers to his Big American Trip videos as postcards, but they’re videopoetry as far as I’m concerned. The info at YouTube seems worth quoting in full:
Performed by Kim Gek Lin Short, directed and edited by James Short, based on the book BIG AMERICAN TRIP by Christian Peet. A diverse group of activists, actors, artists, musicians, writers, and otherwise lovely & concerned individuals from all over the US have collaborated with the author to create a polyvocal series of video readings / interpretations based on the book. Assuming the form of postcards authored by an “alien” of unknown nationality, ethnicity, and gender, addressing a variety of people and organizations (political figures, multinational corporations, people in public toilets, et al), BIG AMERICAN TRIP is a startling document of fear and loneliness in the 21st century U.S. Whether deconstructing road signs, a failed relationship, or the state of contemporary poetry, the voice(s) behind these texts is/are at once familiar and strange, determined to be free, and desperate to communicate with anyone who has ever felt at odds with the Language of a Nation.
Every Now is Everything by Rich Ferguson
The poem and music are both by Los Angeles spoken word performer Rich Ferguson. This is one of the more inspired riffs on the “I’m from…” meme I’ve heard, and the directing, by Eric Smith and Ersellia Ferron, is very good. (Thanks to Khadija Anderson for the tip.)
The “I’m from…” meme, by the way, appears to have originated in a poetry workshop manual by George Ella Lyon called Where I’m From, Where Poems Come From, published in 1999 — here’s the title poem that served as a template. It was turned into a blog meme in 2005 by Fred First at the place blog Fragments from Floyd (post no longer online).
Black Hole by Chris Woods
A piece by English poet Chris Woods, interpreted by Liam Dunlop for Comma Press’s “poem films.” It’s a little hard to understand on first listen, but you can read it at the Vimeo page.
Anne Sexton at home
I’m not sure of the original provenance of the footage, but these videos appear to have been taped from Spanish TV. According to the text at the beginning, the movie was made on March 10, 1966. Sexton reads “Menstruation at 40” in the first and “Wanting to Die” in the second, and talks about poetry reading styles, why music is better than poetry, and why death is harder to write about than sex.
Here’s another YouTube video incorporating rare footage of the poet:
