New videopoetry-related links: “Swoon’s View” at Awkword Paper Cut and more
I had heard that Swoon (AKA Marc Neys), the fantastically productive Belgian filmmaker and musician, was the new videopoetry editor at Awkword Paper Cut. What I didn’t realize was that he’d be writing a monthly column on videopoetry for the magazine. “Swoon’s View” debuts with a feature on Matt Mullins, in which Marc introduces each of two videos with his own comments, and then follows up with some process notes by the author/filmmaker. The design is very readable, with bios both for the featured filmmaker and for Marc, and ample links. The header itself links off-site to the new Swoon website, which is a little unexpected but shows the kind of generosity I’ve begun to associate with this young journal.
If this month’s column is any indication, “Swoon’s View” should become as essential a resource for fans of videopoetry/filmpoetry/cinepoetry as Erica Goss’s column in Connotation Press. This month, Erica looks at videopoems that do double-duty as book trailers, a subject of particular interest to me as I’m in the midst of producing a series of videos in support of a new chapbook of my own. It’s one way in which poetry publishers are beginning to think outside the print box, as poet and rabbi Rachel Barenblat explained this week in a guest post at The Best American Poetry blog, “Collaboration and remix.” She quotes Nic S. to good effect:
There is so much that technology has brought to the poetry equation – not just by connecting people & poetry and poets & artists who weren’t connected to each other before, but by changing both the face and the delivery of poetry itself. Poems locked up in hard-copy print editions only available for sale are struggling in new and more serious ways, while poems delivered in multiple creative ways online have new leases on life and are reaching an ever-widening audience.
I know I don’t always get around to publishing videopoetry news notes here, but if you’re active on Twitter, you can follow us @moving_poems, where I’ve taken to sharing or re-tweeting these very sorts of things on a fairly regular basis.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
It makes me very happy to be part of the increasing awareness and appreciation for video poetry. This art form is boundless, fascinating and yes, addicting. It pops up all over the world, and people who range from teens to grandmothers make and watch video poems. It can be a collaboration or it can be the solo effort of one person. All approaches produce cutting-edge art. May it ever be so!
I agree whole heartedly with Erica. Video poetry is a species unto itself in that while it embodies (usually) the core elements of narrative, image, and sound, there also seems to be other dimensions exposed that are the unique result of how the artist combines the core elements. Of course this happens in full length films as well, but with the video poem the emotion…all of it…seems to hit me deeper on the canvas of a handful of minutes. Thank You, Dave
Go, everyone involved in video poetry and in liberating poems from for-sale print cages!