~ March 2014 ~
Spiders by Kristine Ong Muslim
https://vimeo.com/88535455
Nic S.’s trademark focus on audiopoetry (as well her growing mastery of video remix) are really on display here as she experiments with a whispered delivery of a poem by Kristine Ong Muslim.
This is one of the latest videopoems based on material at The Poetry Storehouse, which continues to attract high-quality submissions of poetry from around the world. I strongly encourage filmmakers at all levels of expertise to make it their first stop when looking for texts to adapt to film/video.
Un representación de ella (A representation of her) by Alberto Masa
This is Ella, a film by Javier Reta with cinematography by Iñaki Vargas, art by Yasmina Tous, and sound and music by Bernardo Fernández Pedreira. There’s also a version without English subtitles.
Spanish poet Alberto Masa blogs at Erosionados. The poem appears in his collection. Roberto Alcázar, supongo from Eolas Ediciones.
How to lift him by Ed Madden
Here’s a Sunday bonus video, a poetic un-sermon after my own heart from one of our finest Southern poets. Ed Madden’s TEDx talk seamlessly incorporates three poems from his 2013 collection My Father’s House: “How to lift him,” “Knowledge,” and “Thirst.” The book’s publisher, Ron Mohring, describes this talk as “Frank, open, painful, specific, direct, moving, and perhaps above all, generous.” I was especially moved by Madden’s quietly radical questioning of the power of communication to change those around us, and his refusal to grasp at easy, glib truths.
The video is also available at the TEDx site.
Glaoch/Call by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
A film adaptation by Peter Madden of a piece originally titled “Skype,” by the bilingual Irish poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa. Madden first released an English version, about which he noted: “This is basically a performance based video, Doireann simply reads the poem on skype.” Then he made Glaoch (embedded above): “Shot to the same beat as its English version ‘Call’ it varies only very slightly, echoing the changes that occur in translation.”
Both films were part of a recent feature of Doireann Ní Ghríofa’s poetry in Numéro Cinq, which includes her statement about this poem:
Glaoch/Call is a consideration of modern life and love. I am intrigued by the multiple paradoxes of contemporary life — we are more connected than ever through technology, and yet there often remains a fundamental disconnect between us, an emotional distance, a fundamental interpersonal detachment. This poem arose from dissonance between these opposing constructs, and our collaboration in film seeks to further explore this matter.
I know I don’t post nearly as many performance videos here as I could. Sometimes that’s because the poetry is too didactic (a common failing especially of spoken-word poetry, in my view), but more often than not because the filming simply isn’t imaginative enough. But this film, short as it is, proves that a talented filmmaker can transform a performance video into something wonderful — and perhaps transcend the genre altogether. This could just as easily be classed as a videopoem/filmpoem that happens to feature the poet.
Then of course there’s the pleasure of watching and hearing a poem read in another language while reading a good translation in subtitles. That’s one of the things that most interests me about poetry video in general: the way it can be used to bring the music of poetry in other languages across, at the same time helping poets who write in languages with relatively small numbers of speakers to reach a global audience.
Snow Moon by Erica Goss
This is the second installment in the 12 Moons collaborative videopoem series produced by Swoon (Marc Neys), Kathy McTavish and Nic S. with texts by Erica Goss for publication in Atticus Review. Marc notes that
A large part of the images for this one came from Bea Mariano (from http://futuretransits.com/video/mistake-momentum-memory)
I really liked the concentration that oozed from these, so I asked if I could re-edit some parts of it for this videopoem. A big thanks to her.
Just as in Wolf Moon, I wanted the ending to take us somewhere completely different. I wanted water, overpowering, and loads of it.
I can’t express enough how much fun it is to work on videopoems with this kind of building blocks.
Read the rest (and visit Atticus Review for full bios of each participant).
Dolor by Theodore Roethke
This video combines four of my favorite things: Theodore Roethke’s poetry, stop-motion animation, machine-generated poetry reading, and legos. It’s by Manami Okada, who described it briefly on Vimeo:
Stop motion video using spray-painted Legos. A factory setting used to demonstrate the conformity portrayed in Roethke’s poem “Dolor.” Taken with Sony Nex-3
To flee from memory… by Emily Dickinson
To Flee From Memory is “A short film about being lost set to a poem by Emily Dickinson,” according to the director, Irish filmmaker Simon Eustace. Click through to Vimeo for a full list of credits. The voiceover is a bit quiet, so let me paste in the text of the poem:
To flee from memory
Had we the Wings
Many would fly
Inured to slower things
Birds with surprise
Would scan the cowering Van
Of men escaping
From the mind of man
Two calls for submissions: Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival and Art Visuals & Poetry Festival
A new poetry film festival is slated for Worcester, Massachusetts, USA: the Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival, sponsored by Doublebunny Press. The screening is in September, submissions are open until June 1, and — unusually for a poetry film festival — there’s a $25 submissions fee, and six winners will get cash prizes: “Best Overall Picture will win $200, and there will be $100 prizes in categories for Best Animation, Best Music in a Video, Phone Shot, Under 1 Minute, and Valentine.”
Two other unique features of this contest and festival: they want only what I would call videopoetry or filmpoetry — no footage of the poet herself reading her work, and they’re looking for author-made films, requiring the poet to be “directly involved in the process of making the video.” Also, judging is blind, so the film can’t contain any credits. All in all, this is definitely one of the most unique poetry film festival call-outs I’ve seen. Check it out.
Another poetry film festival is scheduled for November in Vienna, Austria. The Art Visuals & Poetry Festival has been going on for several years now, and its website is a good source for information on various film festivals and poetry film-related activities, especially for those who read German. The 2014 festival includes an international competition using a recording of a poem by Georg Trakl as well as a competition for Austrian filmmakers. The deadline is September 30.
The Austria-specific contest is for what they call a textfilm. In contrast to the Rabbit Heart folks, they cast a pretty wide net:
Whether abstract, classic, animation, narrative or cinematographic : the genre of poetry film is colorful and varied. There are also many definitions. The Scottish photographer and filmmaker Alistair Cook defined the poetry film recently with the following words: “A poetry film is… a single entwined entity, a melting, a cleaving together of words, sound and vision. It is an attempt to take a poem and present it through a medium that will create a new artwork, separate from the original poem.” In contrast to the Anglo-American world, we accept all kinds of literary art works, that meet the predicate literary. It can be abstract sound poem or poetic prose or naughty poetry slam. Therefore we sometimes use the word “textfilm” as a synonym for the word “poetry film”.
Anyway, do read their call for entries.
Don’t forget that the main Moving Poems links page includes, as its last category, a nearly complete list of international poetry film festivals. For recent festival news and call-outs, browse the “festivals and other screening events” topic here at the forum.
Introducing Silicon Valley to the world of videopoetry
In her “Third Form” column in Connotation Press this month, Erica Goss reports on her experience introducing an audience of book-lovers to videopoetry. A number of towns and cities around the United States now have community book clubs. Silicon Valley Reads is one such program, and their theme for 2014 is “Books & Technology: Friends or Foes?” So Goss, as Poet Laureate of Los Gatos as well as videopoetry critic and connoisseur, gave a presentation one evening last month called “Off the Page.”
I selected nine video poems that I felt represented the art form well, but kept in mind the fact that most, if not all of the audience had never seen anything like this before. I wanted videos that were accessible, not too challenging, visually stunning, and that showed a variety of approaches: animation, archival film, and documentary-style, to name a few.
Goss also created a kinestatic video using a crowd-sourced collage poem with 100 lines contributed by local residents describing the changes in the Santa Clara Valley/Silicon Valley landscape. She showed that first, followed by the nine videos:
Some were newer and some were old favorites. The album is on Vimeo. In selecting these videos, I wanted them to flow from familiar film style (The Barking Horse) through archival film (Need) to animation (The Trees) and end on a high note (Danatum Passu). I added brief commentary to each video.
Many of the audience members wanted more information about making their own video poems, and wondered if there was a class they could take. This made me think that there might be a need for instruction outside of video poetry festivals. (Anyone want to help me design a video poetry course?)
It was gratifying to hear how well this program was received. There is of course no such thing as a typical audience, and residents of Silicon Valley might be especially atypical in some respects, but I think one of the great promises of videopoetry and animated poetry has always been this perceived potential to reach literate audiences who are not necessarily hardcore fans of contemporary poetry. That seems to have have happened in at least one American community last month. Check it out.
New at Awkword Paper Cut: videopoetry contest and a feature on Melissa Diem
Belgian videopoet Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, is behind two features this month at the online magazine Awkword Paper Cut. His monthly column “Swoon’s View” focuses on two films by Irish poet and filmmaker Melissa Diem (also a favorite here at Moving Poems), balancing his critiques with Diem’s own notes about the making of each. It’s always interesting to hear someone who has achieved mastery both as a poet and as a filmmaker describe their creative process. Here, for example, is Diem discussing the second of the two films:
The poem, Appraisal, came about by exploring ideas of alienation and personal identity in relation to others through testing the physical and social world we find ourselves in and by testing the limits within the self. And of course these worlds in turn test us, sometimes relentlessly. It was this aspect of the poem that I wanted to explore in the poetry film. The initial idea came about organically when I was doing a quick frame rate test and Cayley (the little girl in the film) happened to be dancing about the room. We were only half paying attention to each. When I played back the footage I was moved by her expressions, the concentration playing across her face at certain times, her earnestness and innocence as she focused on positioning her small limbs in certain movements. It was that innocence against the great expansiveness of life rushing towards us, with its many tests, that I wanted to capture.
Also this month at Awkword Paper Cut, submissions are open for a unique writing contest: they’re looking for “500 words or less of prose, poetry, or flash fiction to match the video by award winning filmmaker Marc Neys (aka Swoon).”
The submission that best suits the video by Swoon will be selected by a panel of seven judges to be recorded, added to the video and showcased on Awkword Paper Cut including airplay on our Podcast! In addition, the winning submission will also receive membership to The Film Movement’s Film of the Month Club – Offering some of the finest independent filmmaking available! ALSO…Top selection along with runner ups will be featured on the Awkword Paper Cut Podcast!
Here’s the video:
Who wouldn’t want a chance to collaborate on a new videopoem (or videoessay, etc.) with Swoon? Submit by March 31. Details here and complete guidelines here.
