Posts By Dave Bonta
Unseen by Sjaan Flikweert
Director Helmie Stil calls this “A poetry film about the feeling of isolation, struggle and being unseen.” A woman holds, releases and inhabits her breath underwater until she begins to seem less substantial than her suit of bubbles. The often-eerie similarity between Dutch and English is exploited to full effect, as the words on the screen meet their whispered counterparts for an effect at once intimate and menacing, especially as violence is described but not shown, and the viewer struggles to interpret the actress’s struggle: Is she swimming or drowning?
The poem is by Dutch spoken-word artist Sjaan Flikweert, and a final line of text, which appears after the poem seems to be done, reads, “1 in every 5 women endures domestic violence.” Then the title appears, this time to translate not a spoken Dutch word but only a sharply indrawn breath. A stand-out videopoem.
Call for work: Given Words
Poetry filmmaker Charles Olsen is inviting international poetry filmmakers to help mark the 10th anniversary of a project he’s spearheaded called Given Words. As he explains in the CFW,
Given Words is a poetry competition run by me—artist, writer and poetry filmmaker Charles Olsen—for Aotearoa New Zealand’s National Poetry Day in August. Each year I present five words and poets (New Zealand citizens and residents, both adults and children) write poems including all five words. I have also been a judge of the Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival (2023) and the ekphrastic poetry film competition Frame to Frames: Your Eyes Follow (2022).
In the last three editions, the five words have been presented in ‘word videos’ made by students in Honduras, Spain, and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Here’s an example of a given words video from López de Arenas Secondary School, Marchena, Spain, used for the 2023 competition:
For the tenth edition of Given Words I would like to invite poetry filmmakers from around the word to collaborate by contributing very short—from 5- up to 20-second—’word films’, from which I will choose five to inspire the poets of the 10th edition of Given Words. My reason for asking established poetry filmmakers is I would like to use this platform to both demonstrate the possibilities of the audiovisual medium, and hopefully inspire experimentation, as well as young future poet-filmmakers.
In a way it is breaking down poetry film into its most basic element: how to convey a single word through moving image and sound. In selecting the five word films I will consider the poetic nature and originality of each piece, alongside the final combination of the five words.
What will you get out of this?
There are no prizes or laurels or festival screenings. If chosen, your word film will help to inspire around 250 poems by adults and children across Aotearoa New Zealand next National Poetry Day in August 2025. It is an opportunity to be part of this innovative project, and may also get you questioning the relationship between text, sound and image in your own work. You should also have fun!
I have run Given Words for nine years with prizes donated by New Zealand publishers, and a minimal seed fund towards judging fees. No fee is asked of participants, and many schools across Aotearoa New Zealand invite their students to take part. We will promote the results and the winner’s profiles on our social networks during the National Poetry Day celebrations.
Guidelines
- Make a film that presents one word in an original poetic way. The word must be present visually, or in audio, or both.
- Each film should be less than 20 seconds long.
- You can choose any word. We usually choose a mix of nouns, verbs and adjectives. Words in languages other than English will need to be accompanied by the English translation.
- You can submit as many word films as you like, although for the five words we will only choose one per filmmaker.
- You may submit clips of your previous work if it fits the guidelines.
- Please do not include credits or logos.
- Submission is free.
- By submitting you acknowledge that the work is yours, and that you have obtained permission(s) where required.
- Email your word film, preferably as .MOV or .MP4, to nzgivenwords@gmail.com by 28 February 2025.
- Include your full name, a brief bio (up to 80 words), links to your social media and website, and an English translation of the word where necessary.
- By submitting your work you allow us to crop and edit the work, and present the work online. We will include the credit of your work.
- Any questions can be addressed to Charles at nzgivenwords@gmail.com.
Click through to watch more videos from the project and check out the winning poems that these videos have inspired. It’s interesting to see videopoetry being used to spark further poems. That’s kind of as it should be, I think. Let’s end with the 2024 Given Words video:
Hallucinations as Poetry: An Interview with Lina Ramona Vitkauskas
Lina Ramona Vitkauskas is a Lithuanian-Canadian-American video poet from Chicago living in Toronto. Her website is linaramona.com. We’ve featured her videopoems often over the years. I interviewed Lina via email about her new project, HALLUCINATIONS.
Large language models (LLMs) as deployed by OpenAI, Google, Meta, IBM, and other corporations are straining our energy infrastructure, putting technical writers out of work, and sparking lawsuits over perceived infringements on intellectual property rights. To many of us, this seems like a boondoggle pushed by techno-utopian fanatics obsessed with their end-time fantasy of a Singularity. For a poet to go up against it seems quixotic, to say the least. Why engage with AI at all?
This is a fascinating question. Short answer: we are beyond choosing to not engage. The internet and social media began this way. People dismissed both as fads or flat-out refused to participate, therefore dismissing any opportunity to have a voice in how either would play a part in our lives. We allowed big tech to dictate to — and sell us (literally selling us) — these technologies, thus, both ubiquitously seeped into the fabric of daily life. Because of this, we were unable to gain any footing in the narrative (too little, too late).
Big picture: AI would not exist without humans / human intelligence. Humans created, raised, and fed it on our collective knowledge and ignorance. It seems most rational to me that poets are the sole group to claim the narrative regarding this technology (as comedians have with politics, using satire, for example). What better group than those who wield language and thought, bending both to our will in a format / form that can never be fully defined? In my view, poets (as well as visual artists and filmmakers) are the voice of humans in this space, because we continue to defy expectations and perhaps most fully represent the expanse and uniqueness of creativity. While our collective experiences are similar, our subjective ones still remain authentic to each of us. LLMs can only regurgitate what is currently available to ingest. We haven’t reached singularity nor does AI currently have the capacity to read dreams, the human mind, or individual thoughts. Poets are the gatekeepers of reminding humanity of our humanity. We speak many languages that are untranslatable by binary logic. We speak and write the human condition, what is simultaneously innate, collective, and separate. This is also a great opportunity to reclaim our space in this domain, as mentioned earlier. As Nam Jun Paik once said, “I use technology to hate it properly.”
So tell us how you set about creating your own answer to an LLM. What did that process look like? Who or what was your inspiration?
Two inspirations: co-founder of the Oulipo, Raymond Queneau, wrote A Hundred Thousand Million Poems, which consisted of ten sonnets that were then “sliced-up” to offer the reader an infinite number of new poems — contingent upon how one arranged the lines; and experimental filmmaker, Nam June Paik, who famously “uses technology to hate it properly”. It is also slightly reminiscent of the Surrealist Compliment Generator.
HALLUCINATIONS is human mimicry — and rebuke — of AI “hallucinations” (irony abounds as hallucinations are an intrinsically human experience, and for AI, an LLM in recursion is ultimately unable to emulate humans). It is simultaneously a book, a collective digital project, and video poems. I invite collaborators to send poems with the intention of adding to the LLM (Lina Language Model), ultimately fostering poetic community and exemplifying that humans still reign in poetic originality.
It began with three poems which spun up into 48 variations. The new poems / versions shape-shift and take different forms, as they would after being repeatedly fed through an LLM. Binary number titles are used to help democratize the content, helping readers focus more on the poems (less on titles) helping to build a more collaborative, collective unconscious mindset.
Exact Method:
Using one prompt in an LLM to engage in a “hallucinatory” brainstorm, I began generating original, new poems. The poems are each labeled by a binary number / code and leverage literary devices such as repetition and juxtaposition.
Poems became extensions of one another, as they are “unplugged” and “replugged” in randomly to create new poems (reminiscent of neural networks, fibre optics, 20th c. switchboard cords, etc.)
Italicized commentary throughout the poems echo the type of feedback language that some LLMs now ask of users — very similar to reviews or surveys online (i.e. “how did we do?”) I use these spaces to inhabit the voice of the LLM, attempting to emulate a “mechanical grief” (perhaps the desperate lament of machines longing to be human?)
What did you make of Google’s decision to name their LLM for video generation VideoPoet? It’s as if they’ve read the manifesto on your project’s website, and decided that, as you put it, “hallucinations are poetry”!
We can hardly call what they are showcasing on their capability reels poetry (PIXAR raccoons swimming and going to the Eiffel Tower, cute teddy bears playing drums, weird bear-owl hybrids on a branch roaring, or pastel paint blobs exploding, etc.)
For my video poems, I source archived and public domain footage (as well as free download stock) but I create my own pieces / footage from those foundations. I use filters, editing tools, even my own collage pieces (print and digital) to mix it up.
I think it is another great example of how technology can flatten creativity, but I’m sure it will progress beyond cartoon animals doing “funny” human stuff in a few years. I’m still hoping this type of banality goes away and they actually start using AI to help people and the environment (healthcare, climate change).
Has this project affected the way you approach or compose videopoetry, or poetry in general? I’m wondering whether, for example, it’s changed how you view authorship, or the relationship between the writer and the work…
I approach all of my video poetry projects differently, so this was actually borne out of conversations being had at my current day job (workplace) about protocols to integrate AI into our workflows.
I immediately became fascinated by the idea of hallucinations and recursion by reading more about it here: https://xn--wgiaa.ws/6-gunnar-de-winter-recursions-curse-when-ai-eats-ai-content
Humans can properly hallucinate, meaning there is even some value in when we cerebrally hit a wall. Friction is good for creativity. When a machine hits a wall, it becomes redundant (dual meaning). Or it can destroy everything. I guess one could argue that humans could do the same, but we also have decision-making ability and free will.
Poetically I think recursion is interesting if only for what creative iterations are generated.
The exercise of doing this particular project hasn’t changed the way that I would compose or create video poems, no. I think we are at an interesting inflection point in general, however: do we symbiotically incorporate this technology into everything we do, or, are we more selective as humans as to how we can help us?
I still think that there is much to be discussed publicly around the ethics and repercussions of using AI / LLMs in creative spaces. I personally think creatives should be vigilant and wary. Verify then trust. Play but don’t publish. It can help, but not fully take on creator roles. It’s a tool, not an entity.
The five videopoems you’ve shared online from the project so far certainly flow into one another, drawing on a common vocabulary of sounds and images, almost like stanzas in a larger poem. Is that how you think of them? I gather you’re working toward an anthology or collection. What form(s) do you anticipate that will take?
There are currently 48 poems in a limited edition chapbook (contact Gagnè Contemporary to purchase), all of them iterations of 1-3 original poems spun from one LLM prompt: “write a long form essay about how AI and creativity coexist”.
The next phase of this larger, collaborative project is up to you, the people, my fellow humans. Become part of the HALLUCINATION project by submitting your own poems to the Lina Language Model at hallucinations.me.
Folks in the Toronto area can check out a gallery showing of HALLUCINATIONS as part of a new show called Post Future Era at the Gagné Contemporary Gallery at 401 Richmond. The show features Vitkauskas, Kunel Gaur, and Justin Neeley. Otherwise, check out the videopoems on Vimeo.
Θρήνος/Lament by Miltos Sachtouris
A 2018 film animated and directed by Afroditi Bitzouni with music and sound design by Kyriakos Charalampides and Giuliano Anzani, featuring the voice of the Greek poet Miltos Sachtouris (1919-2005) and an English translation by Danai Daska in subtitles. Here’s Bitzouni’s description:
Θρήνος (Lament) is a short animated film based on the poem, that was crafted by Miltos Sachtouris and was included in the collection ΣΦΡΑΓΙΔΑ ή Η ΟΓΔΟΗ ΣΕΛΗΝΗ.
This short animated piece aspires to narrate a transition from the present world to a better one. The story line includes incidents that are strongly related to war and lead to the end of the present; recreating a future imaginary world. That way, we emphasize on the diachronic character of the poem.
The visual part is composed of an illustrated sequence inspired by the poem and crafted with textures from books and old images. Words are translated into characters and abstract environments floating into blank or vivid colors, reflecting the poem’s rhythm and creating a storyline. The various materials are connected through motion events that separate the poem in two main sections; the section referring to the present and the one referring to the future.
The sound is composed using recordings of flute, foley and analog synthesizers that were later digitally processed. Through this method we attempt to provide a backbone to the poet’s narration, amplifying the textural motion of the video.
Aiming to combine the existed material with alternative and contemporary mediums, we invite the audience to preserve and experience the poem through multiple senses.
Θρήνος/Lament (click through and scroll down for the text of the poem in Greek and English)
We’ve shared two of Bitzouni’s other animations over the years, but missed some good ones. Catch up on them all on Vimeo.
Extract from ‘Hellseason’ (‘Une Saison en Enfer’ by Arthur Rimbaud as a custom Broforce level) by Jon Stone
British writer, editor and researcher Jon Stone has just uploaded this experiment, created as part of his research for Dual Wield: The Interplay of Poetry and Video Games (De Gruyter, 2022: Volume 3 in the series Video Games and the Humanities), noting in the description that “I wanted to see if I could rewrite the opening of this long Rimbaud poem as a playable action sequence. In the end, I decided it wasn’t working — but it makes for a fun video.” He has a new essay in The Conversation going into more detail about the project: “Can a poem be adapted into a video game? Here’s what I learned from trying.”
Perhaps the most longstanding case of existing poetry being used as the basis for a game is Hyakunin Isshu Karuta, a competitive Japanese card game in which players match the different parts of poems from the Hyakunin Isshu haiku anthology. The actions of the players here embody the principle of “two worlds in one breath”, which some have argued is central to haiku.
But with the plethora of digital game-making tools now available to poets, as well as the enduring literary penchant for modernising classical texts – see Alice Oswald’s Memorial (2011), or Simon Armitage’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2000) – it’s likely that we’ll begin to see more efforts to convert classical poems into video games.
One example is Dante’s Inferno (2010) by Visceral Games. This third-person adventure re-imagines Dante’s circles of hell as battle arenas, honouring some of the poem’s more memorable imagery, such as “the infernal hurricane that never rests”. Inevitably, though, in the case of violent action games, it’s the narrative arc of the story which is the focus.
On the more experimental end, Gotta Eat the Plums! with William Carlos Williams by Calum Rodger remakes Williams’ poem This Is Just To Say (1934) as a miniature role playing game for the Game Boy. The original poem can be interpreted as concerned with the everyday perversity of human desires, about which we are simultaneously apologetic and boastful (plums, like all juicy fruit, being symbolically linked to forbidden knowledge and sex).
But Rodger adds subtle commentary to this symbolism. He gives the player the option to refrain from eating the plums three times, using up their willpower gauge until they are eventually compelled to consume them.
In a Minute There is Time (2023) by Aster Fialla, meanwhile, is a short text-based game using T.S. Eliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) as its springboard. It plays specifically on the theme of time, forcing the player down various avenues using a countdown timer. This puts them physically in the position of Prufrock, who is haunted and vexed by the inevitability of death.
Read the rest. Discussing the Rimbaud video, he says:
This attempt uses a flaming tropical jungle, replete with machine guns and exploding barrels, as a metaphysical representation of Rimbaud’s psychological turmoil, with the player battling toward self-understanding. It ran aground, however, due to the difficulty of following the poem alongside the colourful action sequences.
Video game adaptations of poems are not impossible. They do, however, need to leave space for readers to engage with the specific effects of language.
Experimenting further, I found the video game genres which admit the presence of poetry most readily are those which require careful calibration and thoughtful probing from the player. For example, puzzle games, story-rich role playing games, games of exploration and visual novels. Where the two mediums can be integrated, there is great potential for a doubling up of their powers – video games’ ability to draw us into alternative worlds and poetry’s propensity to speak lasting truths.
Water for Canaries by Doyali Islam
the last singing descendants of a burning world
the first heirs of a new
So often, the poems most effective at making a political statement are not overtly political at all. Here’s a 2019 animation by Suzie Hanna, an Emerita Professor of Animation at Norwich University of the Arts whose “current personal focus in research and practice is poetry animation made in collaboration,” according to her website. I found a good micro-review on the Palestine Cinema website:
How can we witness a world in which the moon and the drone hang in the same sky? What can the evolution of dinosaur into bird tell us about human survival? In “water for canaries”, award-winning Toronto poet Doyali Islam contemplates an Associated Press photograph taken during a ceasefire within the July 2014 bombing of Beit Hanoun. Islam’s poem acts as solemn witness but also achieves a moment of lift-off in which Palestinians reveal their extraordinary courage, resilience, and mercy. UK animator Suzie Hanna has collaborated to create a short poetry film using hand-cut stencils and paint to emphasize the chaotic atmosphere and to celebrate the fragility of life amid destruction. doyali-islam.com & suziehanna.com
The poem “water for canaries” is from Doyali Islam’s 2019 poetry book, heft, published by McClelland & Stewart, a division of Penguin Random House Canada.
Here’s the link to heft. Doyali Islam’s website seems to be offline, but here’s a good bio. “Water for Canaries” wasn’t the only poem from heft to get adapted into a poetry film; “Letter” had three different adaptations for the online Visible Poetry Project in 2019, including one by Moving Poems’ own Jane Glennie: see here. And we’ve shared a number of Suzie Hanna’s animations over the years.
Call for Work: REELpoetry Festival 2025
REELpoetry/HoustonTX 2025 is open for submissions. The organizers say that “By popular demand, we’re extending the submission time to six months.” The festival will take place “online March 31- April 4; in person APRIL 5-6; with online workshops April 7-11.” They also note some other changes:
NEW! What could be better than videopoetry to engage coming generations of tech savvy youth. We’re delighted to support poets and filmmakers 18 and under at the festival with a new FREE “Young Creatives” program. If you’re a parent or a teacher, please encourage your kids to submit to this free program. See Rules & Terms for details specific to this program.
NEW IN 2025! We’re thinking about categories differently, and curious to see how one category where the poet and filmmaker are the same person and another where the poet and filmmaker are different plays out. Five notable international curators and presenters who have participated in our past festivals will be judging the submissions. They can’t wait to see your work!
Visit FilmFreeway for all the details.
Janet Lees on collaboration in poetry film
Visit Liberated Words for a lengthy, fascinating essay by award-winning videopoet Janet Lees: “Joint forces: collaborating in poetry film.” Here’s a taste:
My Instagram tag is ‘everything is poetry’. Writing this piece, I’ve been thinking of changing it to ‘everything is collaboration’. I love what the poet Matthew Rohrer says about poetry: ‘I’ve come to believe that the writing of all poems is a form of collaboration’. He talks about collage poetry, ekphrasis and ‘collaborations with the voices that I heard on the brink of dreaming’. He asserts, ‘There is no creation out of nothing on this Earth. There’s only making new things in collaboration with other things.’
I’ve sometimes said that I stumbled into making poetry films and then stumbled into collaboration. Recently I’ve come to realise that this is not true (top fact: the Estonian word for making poetry is lluletama, which also means to lie). As a child I drew, painted and wrote poetry and stories as a matter of course. From the moment I was given my first camera, my beloved Grandad’s box Brownie, at the age of 11, I took a lot of photographs too. I listened to music endlessly as a teenager – not all of it great, but most enduringly Kate Bush, David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and other similarly poetic songwriters. So there was some early cross-fertilisation going on between the three key elements of a poetry film: words, visuals and sound/music.
