~ May 2022 ~
Because Goddess is Never Enough by Rosie Garland
Because Goddess is Never Enough draws its inspiration from the life of Austrian-born dancer, choreographer, actor and painter, Tilly Losch (1903-1975). The film is a collaboration between film-maker Jane Glennie and writer/performer Rosie Garland, both award-winning artists in the UK. The subject is the representation of women artists in history, especially the ways their stories have been footnoted in relation to famous men. One of the film’s lines about Tilly’s place in history: “blink and you’ll miss her”.
From the web page for the film:
Tilly Losch was an Austrian dancer who worked with prominent, and cutting-edge, choreographers and artists in the UK and the US, from the West End to Hollywood. She was also a choreographer in her own right, who later turned to painting.
Through moving images and poetry Glennie and Garland investigate the elusive and fragmentary nature of Tilly’s life, evoking the spirit of the 1920s–40s when she was at the peak of her fame.
The film is about self-worth, the authentic self, and the credibility of creative women – Losch was someone who was at times exploited yet determined to maintain a path of her own making despite the obstacles that were very much present in her era… highlighting how far women have come in 90 years, and yet how far they still have to go to get recognition and true independence.
Jane Glennie’s film-making most often involves rapid animation of still images, creating a highly dynamic sense of cinematic motion. At ten minutes duration, this is her most ambitious film to date, involving thousands of her own photographs, meticulously layered with contrasting rhythms that underscore voice and text.
Rosie Garland’s expressive narration of her own poem is highly effective. Her voice alternates with that of Alison Glennie, equally as effective in the first-person sections that evoke Tilly speaking for herself. The overall soundtrack is mainly just the two voices accompanied by textural sound effects. This minimal approach proves an excellent stylistic choice.
All the different elements of the film combine organically and assuredly, suggesting a great collaboration between the artists involved. Because Goddess is Never Enough is a unique evocation of one woman’s creative life and by extension the lives of so many creative women throughout time.
Tattoo by Wallace Stevens
Belgian composer and artist Marc Neys (A.K.A. Swoon) is back making videopoems after a lengthy hiatus, with a new website for all his output. For a sense of just how prolific he used to be, and how central his lyrical, idiosyncratic approach to filmmaking has been to the development of contemporary poetry film, this recent adaptation of a Wallace Stevens poem appears to be the 159th video of his we’ve shared at Moving Poems. Here are the credits:
film, voice & music: Marc Neys
Footage: Jan Eerala
translation: Peter Nijmeijer
Ramblings by Gabriel Rosenstock
Irish poet Gabriel Rosenstock has been collaborating with filmmakers for years, often on adaptations of his Gaelic haiku. This film finds him working with Kashmiri artist Masood Hussain on a brief anthology of four free-verse videopoems, “The Poet as Untouchable,” “Broken Bangle,” “The Dismantling of the Taj Mahal” and “White Flags.”
Ramblings is a suite of short video-poems by bilingual poet Gabriel Rosenstock (Ireland), an Indophile who has been dazzled by his contact with the literary and spiritual legacy of India, her people and landscapes, but is not blind to the darker side of India, such as the caste system, Hindutva, the violence and injustices, and so on. In previous short films with his artistic collaborator, artist and auteur Masood Hussain with whom he created the book Walk with Gandhi, he has focussed on the shabby treatment of dissident poet Varavara Rao. Ramblings ends with an anarchist poem which contains a key to universal peace.
Call for work: Filmetry – a Festival of Poetry and Film
Now entering its 4th year, FILMETRY is a festival in Michigan, USA. The organisers are inviting filmmakers to create a film of their choice from a collection of 32 poems on the theme of ‘Home’ from Michigan State University Short Edition Press into a film of five minutes or less. The poems to choose from (and full rules and details) are available via their website https://filmetry.org/
Submissions of films are open between 21st May and 27th August for the festival happening on 30th September. Submissions can be made via FilmFreeway.
Poetry film event: Translating / City in Belfast, N.I. on 18th June 2022
Belfast Book Festival in Northern Ireland opens on 10th June and runs until 19th June 2022. Delighted to say that they are including a feature-length curation of poetry films ‘Translating / City’ on 18th June.
The programme says:
“Join us for a feature-length curation of filmpoems – and film and video excerpts – that foreground poetry. Join poet Kathleen McCracken (previous winner of Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing) for a screening which will teases out processes that shape these novel verbal-visual collaborations with a particular focus on two thematic nodes of this year’s festival: translation, and the inherent sociality of our cities. Curation by Natasha Cuddington and Shannon Kuta Kelly.”
Event webpage: https://belfastbookfestival.com/whats-on/filmpoem-translating–city–
To Touch & Taste a Comet by Caroline Reid
Caroline Reid‘s marvelous poetry and performance combines with film-making by Patrick Zoerner in this videopoem, To Touch & Taste a Comet. The poem can be read on the page at Cordite Poetry Review. It is the first in a collection of Caroline’s prose and poetry titled Siarad (a Welsh word meaning to talk, to speak). From a review of the book by Alison Clifton in Stylus Lit:
Reid’s poems and short stories are allegorical in their impact: seemingly mundane events are elevated to the symbolic and the sacred… While Reid’s striking similes and surprising metaphors are a true joy, her observations about the human condition are also brilliant – in turns poignant and pointed… To find novelty in the commonplace, seek the exceptional in the banal, and write thought-provoking observations without resorting to cliché – these are remarkable skills.
Last month we shared another of Caroline’s outstanding collaborative videopoems, murder girl gets wired.
The Clapping Tree by Matt Dennison
Australian filmmaker Jutta Pryor‘s atmospheric, pitch-perfect response to a text by American poet Matt Dennison, with whom she regularly collaborates. Actress Rebecca Page serves as a stand-in for the female narrator of the poem—presented as text-on-screen up until the final, spoken line. Click through to Vimeo for the full text. Here’s the description:
The Clapping Tree is a poetry film tribute to mark International Women’s Day, celebrating the strength, vulnerability and spirit of a woman surviving the rigors of life in a remote, male dominated, pioneering settlement. A film collaboration between poet Matt Dennison (Columbus, Mississippi, US), sound artist Mario Lino Stancati (Italy) and filmmaker Jutta Pryor (Melbourne, Australia). Filmed at the Tyrconnell Historic Goldmine in outback north Queensland, where several original buildings and machines remain testament to a goldrush that took place 120 years ago.
Dennison has also made films with Marc Neys (aka Swoon), Marie Craven, and Michael Dickes. We’ve shared a few of them here.
I’ve noticed that current academic discourse in the U.S. has cooled toward prosopopoeia, in reaction to all-too-common instances of poets from traditional oppressor groups presuming to speak in the voices of the oppressed without a whole lot of awareness or cultural sensitivity. But I think it’s an over-reaction to completely proscribe this kind of writing, because even when the imaginative effort falls short it’s still essential for everyone to try to put themselves in others’ shoes, or why live in a society at all? I don’t want to speak for Matt, whom I don’t know, but speaking for myself as a cis-het white male who has written a lot of poems in the voices of women over the years, and has also been known to write from the point-of-view of trees: the openness and vulnerability involved is perhaps an end in itself. To then entrust one’s words to others—women artists, in this case—represents a logical next step toward some kind of genuine synthesis of compassion and understanding. The potential rewards of such an imaginative project may be gauged by the high aesthetic and emotional quality of this film. If the ending doesn’t make you mutter “Holy shit!” I don’t know what to tell you.
Poetry Film Festival: in Weimar and online 20th – 31st May
Opening on 20th May is the International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia held in Weimar, Germany.
The in-person event runs until 22nd May, while online lasts until the end of the month. Tickets available through Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.de/e/international-poetry-film-festival-of-thuringia-tickets-333442003007
For full details of the programme please see their website: https://poetryfilmtage.de/
Requiem for a spoken word by Marc Zegans
In Requiem for a spoken word, a short poem by Marc Zegans comes into play with experimental computer animation by Jim Hall. Both artists approach their work with a jazzy, improvisational openness that makes for a quirky videopoem about a single word.
A number of Marc’s collaborations with different film-makers have been shared before here at Moving Poems, as well as an interview with him by Dave Bonta.
This video came to my attention while scrolling the list of finalists at the 2021 Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition in Ireland. It is also published on the website of +Institute for Experimental Arts in Athens, which runs the video poetry festival there each year.
