The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “In a Tub”
In a Tub
Poem by Amy Hempel
Directed by Ryan MacDonald
In a Tub is simple yet captivating. The poem offers a solution to our fast-paced world. Found footage of a family vacation is interlaced with Ryan MacDonald’s images. What appeals to me is the use of that crackling noise that one hears on an old LP that has been played over and over since childhood. The imagery is old and fragile, which is visually appealing. The footage is compromised, scratchy, damaged and blurry, and the saturation is high. This gives the work an abstract quality that so many other poetry videos miss.
Amy’s reading of the poem is a bit robotic, but I find her pacing a luxury. I am impressed with the fact that she is alone and searches for places where one can be comfortable, even if it’s interrupted by the goings-on of the surroundings. We can still observe our lives as if we were in a film, or in this case a video. And In a Tub is all about observation and its relationship with water and silence, which at times can be very soothing and is probably the most important aspect, hence the title.
The poem was commissioned for the Juniper Literary Festival, 2012.
Hat-tip: “Poem as Screenplay: Six Video Collaborations“
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Brooklyn native Cheryl Gross is an illustrator, painter, writer and motion graphic artist living and working in the New York/New Jersey area. She is a professor at Pratt Institute.
Cheryl’s work has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, publications, and graces the walls of many corporate and museum collections including: Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, New York Times, Riverside Museum, Riverside, Ca., The Museum of The City of New York, Mississippi Museum of Art, Laforet Harajuku Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Artist-In-Residency, Kunstlerhaus, Saarbruken, Germany. Finalist Elizabeth Hulings Foundation, 2014, Artist-In-Residency Program, Dilsberg, Germany, 2015, four-time recipient Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation Residency, Jersey City, 2018-2020, Art Fair 14c 2021-2023, Competition Winner, 2015 Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Festival, Cork, Ireland.
“The work, metaphorically travels through two different forms of representation: abstract and realism, thereby creating a narrative that embraces a socio-political point of view. My narrative follows my childhood fantasies, which focuses on lifestyles that are usually viewed as male dominated.”
Hi Cheryl, thanks very much for posting my video of Amy’s work. It’s actually not her reading, it is a robot, but I’m glad it’s difficult to tell!