Posts By Dave Bonta
The Crowning of Jesters by David Tomaloff
This appeared when Moving Poems was on hiatus this past summer, but I got to see it on the big screen at the Filmpoem Festival in August, where it was shown as an example of filmmaker-poet collaboration where the images preceded and inspired the poetic text. It’s part of a growing body of collaborations between Swoon (Marc Neys) and the American poet David Tomaloff (see his Moving Poems archive page for more). Neys blogged some rather extensive process notes in the form of a conversation with Tomaloff:
[Swoon]: Images will come from this video: http://archive.org/details/Mommartz_3_Glaser_1968
I’m doing a re-edit of that archive material and Maybe I want to add excerpts from ‘Das Kapital’ by Marx as titles. One thing missing: a poem that reflects greed, money – power, crisis, banks, the whole bubble of money driven economics that led to the different crises we had,…
Nothing literally…hints, atmosphere… Are you up for it? Let me know what you think…”
– TIME –[David]: “…As for the new prompt, I can definitely give it a shot. I’ll see if I can conjure up a draft within the next couple of days. Is that ok?”
– TIME –S: “Yes, sure. Take your time…I’m happy you want to go for it…”
– TIME –D: “So, this is a draft. It’s a little more upfront than some of the other stuff I’ve written for you, I think. That said, it’s still pretty surreal. I want to still tweak it a bit, read it aloud a few times, etc”
– TIME –S: “Yes! Yes. Fantastic title. Love the quotes.
Good imaging. The last line ‘Currency is a plot of land to which the wingless birds have marched us—on which we are sold the means to dig ourselves a more efficient kind of grave’ is spot on…
So yes, you’re definitely on to something. Tweak as you like and see fit.”
Giacometti’s Pears by Donna Vorreyer
I couldn’t resist making a video for one of Donna Vorreyer‘s poems at The Poetry Storehouse myself. “Giacometti’s Pears” was originally published in Weave magazine. I blogged about my process a bit at Via Negativa last week.
Two Elizabeth Bishop filmpoems and the art of Heather Haley
The latest installments from our two favorite monthly columnists don’t disappoint. In his “Swoon’s View” column at Awkword Paper Cut, Marc Neys considers “Two Cinematic Approaches to the poetry of Elizabeth Bishop”: “First Death in Nova Scotia” by John Scott, and “Where are the Dolls” by Cassandra Nicolaou.
The editing is thoughtful and draws the viewer inside the story (I love the jump cuts between the introvert close-ups of the woman and the loud and intimidating girls). Nicolaou did an amazing job in translating the poem to this day and age with respect and love for the original words, accenting the power of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry. And when it’s over, I want to see it again.
And in her “Third Form” column at Connotation Press, Erica Goss mixes interview with analysis for an in-depth portrait of Heather Haley, organizer of the long-running Visible Verse Festival in Vancouver and a talented filmmaker in her own right.
Heather Haley’s videos take risks. They deal with domestic violence, eating disorders, prostitution, and other serious issues that affect society. “I don’t set out to deliver a message. I don’t like being preached at and I don’t want to preach. My work comes from my experience, but it’s also universal. I don’t theorize,” Heather told me. “There’s not enough time for that.”
The Royal Oak by Benedict Newbery
An award-winning watercolor animation by Sandra Salter, with additional animation by Meg Bisineer, for a poem by Benedict Newbery (read here by Tony Fish). For additional credits, see Vimeo, which includes this description:
A local pub, despite it’s refit continues to be a bolt-hole, refuge and home to its regulars. An animated poetry film.
Channel 4 commissioned Sandra Salter and Benedict Newbery to make a film for its first Random Acts Season. The film was broadcast on Channel 4 in October 2012. The animation is based on the poem The Royal Oak which was published in Magma, and this film sees a further evolution of Newbery and Salter’s poetry film style using watercolour and transitions.
The Royal Oak won the Best Animation Audience Choice Award at the Purbeck Shorts competition at the Purbeck Film Festival held on 18 October 2013. It was described by the Festival as ‘a beautifully observed, watercolour, animated poem.’
The film was also exhibited in the 2013 Ludlow Open Rural Contemporary Art Showcase, and chosen as the opening film for the Filmpoem Festival in Dunbar, Scotland, in August 2013.
Trauermantel by Luisa A. Igloria
Along with Mortal Ghazal and Oir, this forms the third in what has turned out to be a triptych of Luisa A. Igloria videopoems, says its maker Swoon (Marc Neys).
People who have been following my works a bit, know I have a thing with artworks in a triptych.
When Luisa approached me to make a video for one of the poems in her book ‘The Saints of Streets‘, I was not thinking triptych.
Yet Luisa sent me several recordings and as it happens I liked her poems (and her readings for that matter) a lot. So in the end I made three videopoems […] and because of her voice and her style these do belong together. To me anyway.
The trauermantel is the same species of butterfly known as mourning cloak in North American and Camberwell beauty in the U.K. Swoon writes,
I wanted light, colours and an abstract spirit-like feel for this one.
Only at the end of the video (after the poem) I come up with a concrete image.
These images are also my first attempt to create something of an animated sequence. The image of the butterfly was made by Katrijn Clemer using the outlines of a real Trauermantel and one of the faces of the video for Oir.
Meek by Harry Martinson
A poem by the 20th-century Swedish poet Harry Martinson, one of three recently animated by Ana Perez Lopez, who writes:
Olofström is nature: tall trees, infinite lakes and the echoing voice of Harry Martinson. But Olofström grew with a factory, a building where everything from pots, bullets and cars can be made.
After spending a month as an art resident in Nabbeboda Skola I tried to combine this three elements in one project. I interview Johnny Carlson and wondered around the town. I stuck my nose into Harry Martinson’s poems and left pen be taken by his imagination.
I illustrated three of his poems and brought them to life with animation. I hope you enjoy these bits of Olofström through the penetrating voice of Johnny Carlson.
First glimpse at collaborative “12 Moons” videopoetry project
I first heard about 12 Moons back in August. That’s the videopoetry collaboration between Erica Goss (writer), Nic S. (reader), Kathy McTavish (musician) and Swoon (filmmaker) slated to result in monthly films throughout 2014, appearing at Atticus Review. Now they’ve released a trailer:
https://vimeo.com/79471054
If this is any any indication, the series should be very watchable indeed. See also Swoon’s blog post introducing the trailer, which contains a thumbnail account of how the idea for this “videopoetry calendar” developed.
New Motionpoems project: “Arrivals & Departures at Saint Paul’s Union Depot”
Motionpoems and public artist Todd Boss present “Arrivals & Departures at St Paul’s Union Depot,” a colossal 3D poetry film installation that will magically transform the facade of one of St Paul’s most impressive landmark buildings.
The plan is to:
- select a handful of original poems by Minnesotans (theme: “Arrivals & Departures”) from a statewide call for poems (see GUIDELINES below),
- commission Minnesota film teams to turn finalist poems into short films to fit digitally mapped 3D templates of the building,
- project the films onto the screen-filled facade of St Paul’s historic Union Depot at 5-minute intervals like trains, with accompanying audio from lawn-area speakers, during the St Paul Art Crawl, October 2-4, 2014.
The artistic vision for this project is to celebrate Union Depot’s renaissance as a rail hub with an act of locally sourced meaning-making that will reclaim the space in the hearts and minds of all who experience it.
They need a lot more backers, though, so please consider making a contribution to the Kickstarter campaign.
It’ll be huge. Five poems. Five films, departing every 5 minutes like trains, looping till late-night during the Saint Paul Art Crawl, when thousands of art-lovers already flock to Lowertown.
I’m a passionate evangelist for poetry, and I believe that our public spaces could be more “poetic.” This project is not about me or my poet friends. It’s about inviting everyone to write a poem, and sharing those poems (in film!) with the community.
Iluzjonista / Illusionist by Slawomir Elsner
A poem by the Polish artist Slawomir Elsner turned into a film by choreographer, dancer and filmmaker Jagoda Bobrowska, who notes that it was a
Film made for a competition “Nakrec wiersz” (shoot a poem)
Idea, directing, montage, music: Jagoda Bobrowska
Dance: Elena Sgarbi and Svelin Velchev
Sweet Tea by Eric Blanchard
https://vimeo.com/79032004
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Another pair of video remixes for a poem in The Poetry Storehouse. This time, the poem is by Eric Blanchard, and what’s especially interesting is that they employ the very same soundtrack, with a reading by Nic S. and a soundscape composed by Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon. The first video is by Nic and the second is by Swoon, and as you’ll see, they take very different approaches. Nic uses images and animation by Donna Kuhn, while Marc worked with four still photos, as he describes in a blog post:
I started from 4 pictures: that I took in my series ‘Dust of time‘; pictures of wood, rotten, wet,… Colours golden brown (like tea).
First I merged those pictures together, creating a short 10 second film showing those merged pictures. What followed was a stream of re-editing and layering of those 10 seconds… Until there was nothing recognisable left. Only a constant moving stream of psychedelic forms…
These two videopoems are an excellent demonstration of the fun to be had working with material at The Poetry Storehouse. Keep ’em coming, folks.
