Moving Poems re-launch and next steps
Our involuntary re-launch of Moving Poems after its destruction in late March has been a resounding success. We’ve been able to recover all posts and pages, and have manually restored missing images on the more recent posts. The combination of two formerly separate WordPress installations into one prompted a re-think of the site architecture and how best to arrange elements on the new front page, which has led us to think more deeply about what the site might be missing and how we can make it better. (More on that below.) And it has made a site-wide search much more powerful: type the name of a videopoet into the expandable search form in the header, and you’ll get not only all the posts from the video library where they were the filmmaker and/or poet, but also all mentions in news posts, anything they might’ve guest-authored, etc.
Some of the most important improvements are invisible: increased security measures of all kinds to try to prevent a re-occurrence of the malware attack that took the old site down. I’ve also updated the links page for the first time in five years, and will try to remember to do this annually from now on, because I do feel that we need to do a better job of supporting other important websites and organizations in the international poetry-film/videopoetry space. To that end, I’ve created a new page, How to make a poetry film or videopoem—currently included in a short menu in the footer—that so far does little but link to a another site:
U.K. poetry filmmaker Helen Dewbery at Poetry Film Live has created a terrific page on Making Poetry Films which we can’t top, so please go check that out. There’s a mix of practical suggestions and philosophical considerations that should appeal to newbies and seasoned filmmakers alike, supplemented with engaging video interviews and other material. And do consider signing up for one of her online courses.
We’ve been joined by a new contributor, Dr. Patricia Killelea, an associate professor of English at Northern Michigan University who regularly uses Moving Poems in the classroom, and have been brainstorming ways to make the site more useful to teachers and students. Poetry videos can be handy ways to expose students to poetry in general, something that the now-inactive organization Motionpoems recognized with its poetry curriculum. But while professionally made poetry films can be brilliant, and represent a significant percentage of our archives, we’re keen to encourage more poets, at whatever skill level, to learn to make videos themselves—something that will probably become a lot more common with the debut of video AI tools. I don’t know whether it helps or hurts the cause that Google has dubbed their own LLM ‘for zero-shot video generation’ VideoPoet! At the very least, it should mean a lot more web searches for videopoetry. How best to prepare?
We’d love to hear from other educators and students. If you use the site in the classroom, what has been most useful, and what additional features would you like to see? If you know of other sites or resources we should link to, please pass those suggestions along as well. Feel free to leave public comments on this post, or reach out in private using the contact form.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
