~ July 2011 ~
On Edward Hopper’s Automat by H.K. Hummel
A poem from H.K. Hummel’s online chapbook Handmade Boats, read by Nic S., gets the Swoon Bildos treatment (with additional camera work by David Michaud and Jason Kempnich).
Making a film for a poem about a painting represents a unique challenge for videopoets, I think. How to reference the mood or spirit of the original visual inspiration without resorting to out-right (and probably hopeless) imitation? In his Dutch-language blog, Swoon described his approach as follows (according to Google Translate):
Departed from night lights gliding images of cars and urban night life as background, I tried to tell the story of what (who) you do not see in the picture.
Is she really alone? Who sees it? She knows that people look at her?
What can happen after all the poem. After the painting.
Abd el-Hadi Fights a Superpower by Taha Muhammad Ali
Filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce for the DVD anthology from Bloodaxe Books, In Person: 30 Poets, edited by Neil Astley. I was especially impressed by the way Ali’s translator, Peter Cole (So What: New and Selected Poems 1971-2005), translates something of his reading style into English in the second half of the video.
For a few more online poems by Taha Muhammad Ali in English, see his page at Poetry International Web.
homesteader by Nic S.
Another Moving Poems production for a poem by Nic S., read by the author, from her book Forever Will End On Thursday (text here). I blogged about the making of the video at Via Negativa the other day.
Nan by Eden Tautali
This is the winning poem from New Zealand’s National Schools Poetry Award for young writers (Year 12 and 13 students). The animation is by a commercial design agency, Neogine Design. I’m not always crazy about kinetic text animations; this is a good example of how to do it right, I think. And while I might’ve preferred a soundtrack, silence isn’t a bad choice, either, considering the subject of the poem.
Bad Daughter by Sarah Gorham
This is (I think) the title poem from the book by Sarah Gorham forthcoming from Four Way Books. Tucker Capps, the filmmaker, has a production company specializing in book trailers, and I was interested to see what he charges [PDF]. I’m guessing this one was in the $300-$700 range (“Text, stills, basic studio imagery, local B-roll, motion graphics, voiceover”), unless it qualifies as a full-scale animation, in which case it would’ve cost Four Way Books $2,000. In either case, good on them for going the extra mile to promote a book of poetry.
An armed man lurks in ambush by Howie Good
Swoon’s latest in his series of videos for poems by Howie Good is something a bit different: a short called “Not Again (Pripyat),” using footage of the abandoned city in the Chernobyl evacuation zone, with Howie’s text appropriated for a kind of surreal documentary. Let me quote the description on Vimeo for the credits and such:
The images in the film are footage from a film about Pripyat (credit to Golden Movies Productions,2009)
Images before the disaster at the nuclear plant, images of the evacuation of the town, images of the ghost town now. Hence the title of the film, Not Again.
Although the poem by Howie is about other things and places, I wanted the images from Pripyat [to] add another dimension to the story, the poem, the atmosphere of the whole film.
Words: Howie Good
Voice: Nic S. for Whale Sound
Concept, videotreats, editing and music: Swoon
“An armed man lurks in ambush” is the title poem of a full-length collection forthcoming from Despertanto (who also published Howie’s third book, Everything Reminds Me of Me, back in March). The text of the poem may be read on a site Swoon has set up for the texts used in all his videopoems to date, as well as in the Whale Sound audio chapbook, Threatening Weather, in which it originally appeared.
“The Poet of Baghdad”: Nabeel Yasin
There’s a real dearth of English-subtitled Arabic poetry recitation on the web; this goes a small way toward righting the balance. It’s interesting to see how poetry is chanted or sung in Arabic, rather than simply read (much less mumbled). Another thing that might be a little difficult for some of us to get our heads around is a poet becoming so popular that he could be branded an enemy of the state, and his works become a relying cry for people opposed to the established order. Such was the case with Nabeel Yasin, Iraq’s most celebrated poet (and last year, an unsuccessful candidate for prime minister), who has been compared to Bob Dylan in his impact on Iraqi society from the late 60s on.
“The Poet of Baghdad” was directed by Georgie Weedon for Al Jazeera, and has just been re-uploaded to YouTube as a single video. The blending of poetry recitation with reminiscence is very effective, I think, and the reflections on exile will probably resonate with emigrants, voluntary and involuntary, from many lands. Al Jazeera posted an interview with the director in early 2010.
“Heaven is so far of the Mind” by Emily Dickinson
A new Moving Poems production. This is from 1862, #413 in the R. W. Franklin edition, and while not one of Dickinson’s greatest poems, it does encapsulate, I think, one of her core beliefs, and is therefore a useful key to understanding her work as a whole. I couldn’t resist adding an ironic visual reference to one of her most famous poems.
Poems from the Iraq War by Brian Turner
This video includes six poems: “Here, Bullet,” “Hwy 1,” ”Eulogy,” “16 Iraqi Policemen,” “The Inventory from a Year Sleeping with Bullets” and “At Lowe’s Home Improvement Center,” taken from Brian Turner’s two books, Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise.
If I don’t post more poetry reading videos here, it’s because such videos are often poor quality (dark, out-of-focus, too quiet, etc.) and many poets don’t really know how to read their work. This video demonstrates how to do it right. In fact, the poems are so intense and so well read, I find I really don’t mind the utter minimalism of a single-camera close-up on the reader’s face. Neil Astley shot the video for Turner’s British publisher, Bloodaxe Books.
Brian Turner doesn’t appear to have a website, but here’s his Wikipedia page.
