Posts By Dave Bonta
Ottery Dragons by Marc Woodward
“This is the dark grieving of the year.”
A film by Danny Cooke with poem and narration by Marc Woodward. The YouTube description reads: “Heat, sweat, danger and ritual. A glimpse into an ancient Devon tradition.” I found an article about that tradition on Atlas Obscura:
In England, the tradition of lighting up bonfires and setting off fireworks on Guy Fawkes Day dates back over 400 years. In the East Devon village of Ottery St. Mary, on November 5th—also known as Bonfire Night—hundreds of people crowd the narrow streets for some particularly perilous revelry.
When Bonfire Night falls in Ottery, runners grab blazing barrels of tar, hoist them on their shoulders, and race them through the village streets. It’s no joke here—the flames are real, and chaos seems to be in charge. But they’ve been at it for hundreds of years, and only village veterans are given the honor of running the barrels.
The custom of using tar barrels to kick off Bonfire Night isn’t unique to Ottery. Other towns and villages light them up too, but typically roll them through the streets. It’s not clear exactly when, but at some point (villagers say it was at least a couple hundred years ago) someone thought rolling barrels of flaming tar was kind of a bore, and carrying them on your back was the way to go. It’s been an Ottery tradition, far outliving health and safety regulations, ever since.
This was the second of two poetry films made with the same footage. Cooke posted a call for poems last year, apparently. But I don’t think the poem he chose as winner is as interesting as this one. I’m glad he decided to make a remix with the runner-up.
New Covid restrictions force ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival online
The world’s most prestigious poetry film festival has been forced to scrap plans for a live festival. The Berlin-based ZEBRA festival had persisted in planning a full live programme for November 19-22, assuming no doubt that Germany’s robust pandemic response would continue to permit such a gathering. But alas, German cinemas have been ordered to shut down starting today. So four days ago, the ZEBRA twitter account announced that they were going online, and promised more information soon. At the time of posting, no further information has been forthcoming.
Moving a large, complex festival to the web is of course not a trivial undertaking. I must say, I’ve been enormously impressed with how the folks at Weimar have handled it, after having to abandon plans for a live festival on their very first year. The online Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia has an outstanding user interface with great visual design elements, and from a technical standpoint they’re using tools available to anyone with even a fairly minimal budget. The screenings use password-protected, embedded Vimeo showcases, and the live talks and discussions are handled with Zoom + YouTube Live. Payment is collected through Eventbrite. It’s all run through a basic, self-hosted WordPress installation using the free Underscores theme generator.
I’m sure ZEBRA has an outstanding technical and design team and doesn’t need any advice, but I think Thuringia is a model for festivals planning anything before at least the middle of next summer. And I’m rather hoping that even after the pandemic is over, traditional, meat-space festivals will continue to have an equally strong cyberspace component. It’s a bit of extra hassle, sure, but it does render any festival truly international, allowing many more people to attend (and more tickets to be sold). And with climate change destroying the planet, we all need to stop jetting around the world unless we absolutely have to.
Viniste a visitarme en sueños (You came to visit me in dreams) by Ernesto Cardenal
Spanish director Eduardo Yagüe adapts a short poem by Nicaragua’s great poet-priest Ernesto Cardenal. Jean Morris provided an English translation for the subtitles.
One of the things I’ve noticed this week whilst looking at narrative-style films adapting lyric poetry is that there are (at least) two ways that the directors of such films can regard a poem: as a point of departure, or as the actual (if elusive) destination. But thinking about it further, I’m not sure these are mutually exclusive perspectives. After all — to extend the analogy — the true goal of a journey often turns out in retrospect to have been quite different from the supposed destination, which as it existed in the imagination of the traveler setting forth was indeed a mere jumping-off point. I think Eduardo’s films illustrate this paradox as well as any.
Be that as it may, no survey of narrative-style poetry filmmaking, however brief, would be complete without one of his films, which always feel so deep — as if they’ve emerged from an engagement with the text as intimate and sustained as that of any translator.
Lights Out by Edward Thomas
This is Home to the Hangers, a 2017 film adaptation of Edward Thomas’ “Lights Out” by A D Cooper, newly released for free online after a highly successful tour of the festival circuit. “A traumatised soldier runs away from the World War 1 trenches and finds healing in his old haunts,” reads the description. I asked Cooper how it came to be made, and she told me,
The film was created on the theme of ‘anniversary’ for the Directors UK Alexa Challenge. Since the makers of the Alexa camera (ARRI) were celebrating their centenary, I looked for another centenary from 1917 as my entry into the competition, and found Edward Thomas’ death. It was more practical than the Russian Revolution or the French Army mutiny. It’s been interesting to find that people make entirely different interpretations of the film – all of them valid.
See its project page on the Hurcheon Films website for a full list of honors and awards. They include the reaction of Edward Thomas’ great granddaughter, Julia Maxted of the Edward Thomas Fellowship:
It is strikingly beautiful and Alex Bartram portrays and reads him wonderfully. A refreshingly hopeful reading of ‘Lights Out’ too, and I loved the attention to the small, intimate parts of his life and landscape together with the spaciousness of the vistas – both very much part of his symbolic topographies.
This is a wonderful example of an unarguably appropriate use of narrative filmmaking in a lyric poetry film. Although “Lights Out” doesn’t mention war, Thomas’ brief but amazingly productive writing career, cut short by his death on the battlefield, is notable for the intensity of his vision and the way in which his nature poetry transcends the merely pastoral. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better introduction to his life and work, in the classroom or out of it, than Home to the Hangers.
My English Victorian Dating Troubles by Analicia Sotelo
This Motionpoems film by Maeyen Bassey expands Analicia Sotelo‘s poem into a sci-fi fable about beauty standards and high-tech body modification in a society where racism and sexism are as strong as ever. Narrative-style poetry films always risk sacrificing the poem to the director’s vision, but this feels like a logical outgrowth of the text. Sotelo wrote about what she was trying to do with the poem, and the collection in which it appears—Virgin—in a post for the Poetry Society of America:
As I was writing the collection that became Virgin, I became obsessed with how female identity is represented in Victorian England. Particularly, how female “innocence” is seen through the eyes of male figures—and how that has or has not changed in the last few centuries. Even Dorothea from Eliot’s Middlemarch entered the poem, bringing her moralistic intelligence and misguided taste in men. In these lines, the male gaze is an orbiting problem—it keeps returning. At the same time, I was thinking about what it means to be a Latinx woman with an English Literature degree – about the volume and weight of the Western canon. In the poem, I conflate timelines and histories, wondering if the power dynamics of gender and culture are all-consuming energies that influence us even in the smallest of moments.
Even as I write this, English rhetoric is present in these sentences. It reminds me of how high school and undergraduate students who do not identify as English often use the word “therefore” to transition the paragraphs of their essays. As a Mexican-American student, it never felt natural to use the word “therefore,” but I’m sure I used it in those first essays, hoping it would bolster the arguments I didn’t yet know how to make. How do we succeed in the language of a conqueror? How do we make the best and finest of arguments? And how do we find our voice in that conflict? Therefore, this poem. A poem for any person who doesn’t identify as this or that, but exists in the in-between, and must be heard.
A Better Place is Hard to Find: two poems by Aaron Fagan
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We’re always keen to showcase book trailers that take the form of videopoems. Here are two very different but equally compelling, brief animations by multidisciplinary artist Camilla Ha for poems in Aaron Fagan’s new collection, A Better Place Is Hard to Find (The Song Cave, 2020): “The Good Light” and “Quietus.”
Aaron Fagan has been an active proponent of videopoetry for as long as I’ve been publishing Moving Poems—nearly 12 years now—sometimes collaborating with filmmakers, sometimes making videos himself. So it’s no surprise that he would have not one, but two films for his first full-length poetry collection since 2010.
The Wild Iris by Louise Glück
This is Iris, a translation of Louise Glück‘s famous poem into sign language (I presume Dutch Sign Language) by the deaf Dutch poet Wim Emmerik. It was recorded in 2014, the year before Emmerik’s death, by Ellen Nauta, edited by Max Vonk, and uploaded to Vimeo by Onno Crasborn, a linguist specializing in sign language at Radbound Univeristy in the Netherlands.
I chose this video for today in honor of Glück being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which I’m very happy about—her work has been a huge influence on me as a poet and a reader. Of all the films of her poems on Vimeo at the moment, this unpretentious, performer-focused video with a green screen struck me as by far the most compelling, even for someone like me with no knowledge of sign language whatsoever.
I can’t find an authoritative link for the text of the original, so let me just paste it in:
The Wild Iris
At the end of my suffering
there was a door.Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.
Upcoming poetry film and videopoetry festivals
For festivals, this is a best-of-times, worst-of-times situation. Pandemic restrictions mean fewer options for live events, but going online has the potential to build big new audiences from around the world. Here are some press releases that have recently come our way from the International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia, the Midwest Video Poetry Festival, and ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival. I’ll also paste in some info about the Winter Warmer online festival from Cork.
International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia starts ticket sales
Three weeks of watching about 150 poetry films, plus workshops, lectures, interviews, live streams, and an international award ceremony—all this awaits poetry film fans and online visitors of the new festival
This year, the Weimar Poetry Film Prize, which has been awarded since 2016, will be presented for the first time as part of its own festival. Initially meant to take place in May/June, the International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia will begin online from October 22-25, due to a pandemic. While this may be a pity for die-hard festival-goers, it offers the new festival the opportunity to present itself to a worldwide short film scene at its premiere.
The festival begins on October 22 with a special focus on Africa, which can be watched via live stream. This emphasis is intended to contribute to improving the visibility and perception of African poetry film. The countries Mozambique and South Africa will be featured especially.
There are also exciting special programs to watch: The “Women in Resistance” program illustrates how much video poetry is part of global poetic activism. A retrospective is dedicated to the Canadian video pioneer Tom Konyves and his films. Furthermore, international and German-language short films and the Weimar Winners of the years 2016-2019 will be screened. Under the title “The Art of Videohaiku”, the festival invites participants to create poetry films in small format themselves and to interpret the haiku audiovisually. The Dutch filmmaker Helmie Stil introduces her video poetry in a lecture she gave at the Bauhaus University during the summer semester. The latest Thuringian poetry film productions will also be shown.
On Saturday, October 24, the 5th Weimar Poetry Film Prize will be awarded at the Lichthaus cinema. The international jury consists of photographer and lecturer Kathrin Tillmanns, literary scholar and author Jan-Volker Röhnert and filmmaker Helmie Stil. The award ceremony will be broadcast from 6-9 pm (CET). This year the audience can vote for their favorite online. The Official Selection will be published on October 1st.
The four main festival days will end on Sunday, October 25, with a matinee at the MonAmi cinema. The film KENT OZANI, which accompanies the poet José A. Oliver during his stay in Istanbul, will be screened. José A. Oliver will be in attendance and take part in a discussion.
The festival website www.poetryfilmtage.de is now online! Ticket sales have started! Get your ticket here.
The code to the protected festival area on the website costs 10 Euros and is valid for three weeks from October 22nd until November 12th. The live streams can be found on the festival website and will stay accessible afterward.
ONLINE: Midwest Video Poetry Festival
via Isthmus
The first ever Midwest Video Poetry Festival (MVPF) will take place in Madison, Wisconsin on November 19 & 20.
Celebrating the amazing breadth of expression when one of humanity’s oldest art forms is interpreted through the lens of one of its newest, the MVPF features the best of this cutting-edge art form from around the Midwest and around the world. Presented by Madison’s Arts + Literature Laboratory, screenings will take place from 7-8:30pm each day via live-stream at https://www.youtube.com/c/ArtLitLab/videos
The submissions range from 30 seconds to under 10 minutes long. They have all been created within the last three years, many of them within the last few months, promising a fresh, contemporary point of view. “Poetry is not dead,” says Festival founder and executive director Rita Mae Reese. “It is one of the most enduring forms of expression, doing now what it always has, making meaning of the events and circumstances of our lives, accompanying us through turmoil, expressing our joy and holding our grief. It is now, especially, during times of upheaval and strife, that poets’ voices are most needed; these are the voices that will carry us through.”
“It feels so important to do this now,” agrees Genia Daniels, who has been overseeing the curation team and selection process. “Fielding over 1,600 submissions from artists, poets, and filmmakers in 91 countries around the world has given us an amazing field to work with. It’s a phenomenal array of voices, genres, styles and expressions. We are so excited to share this with people in Madison and beyond.”
The MVPF is a production of the Madison Arts and Literature Laboratory, a community-driven contemporary non-profit arts organization that supports the visual, literary, musical and performing arts, presents over 200 free or low-cost events per year, and offers year-round arts education for all ages. ALL nurtures innovation and the artistic growth of contemporary visual, literary, and performing artists; connects artists, resources and community; and fuels a passion for arts and literature.
The Midwest Video Poetry Fest is made possible in part by a grant from Dane Arts with additional funds from the Endres Mfg. Company Foundation, The Evjue Foundations Inc., charitable arm of The Capital Times, the W. Jerome Frautschi Foundation, and the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation.
Off On Poetic Ramblings – ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival with the country focus on Canada and Québec
From 19 to 22 November the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is presenting in the Kino in der KulturBrauerei and the Haus für Poesie the international competition for the Best Poetry Film as well as a programme of films and poetry with the country focus on Canada and Québec.
Around 2,000 films have been submitted this year from more than 100 countries. From these, the Programme Committee, whose members are Heinz Hermanns (interfilm Berlin), Cia Rinne (poet), Heiko Strunk (lyrikline.org), Eloisa Suárez (Goethe-Institut) and Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel (ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival), has nominated 34 films for the Competition. A jury of experts in the fields of film, poetry and media will then announce the winning films at an awards ceremony on 22 November. The Best Poetry Film for Children will be awarded the ZEBRINO Audience Prize.
As well as the Competition, there will be 20 accompanying programmes of films featuring 250 animations, feature films, experimental films and documentaries providing an insight into the diversity of the poetry film scene. Besides Canada and Québec, thematic focus areas include Human Rights and Eco Poetry. What is more, ZEBRA will show the best film versions of this year’s festival poem, “LETHE”, by Botswanan Spoken Word artist TJ Dema. To round off the programme, there will be readings by poets from Germany, Canada and Québec as well as a programme of workshops and films for children and young people.
Programme and advance ticket sales online from mid-October at haus-fuer-poesie.org
The ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival has been running since 2002. At the time it was the first international platform for short films based on poems – poetry films – and is still the biggest of its kind. It offers poets, film makers and festival organisers from all over the world a platform for creative exchange, getting ideas and meeting a wide audience. Featuring a Competition, programmes of films, readings by poets, retrospectives, workshops, colloquia and programme for children, it presents in various different sections the diverse genre of the poetry film.
THU 19 Nov – SUN 22 Nov 2020
ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival
Kino in der KulturBrauerei Schönhauser Allee 36, 10435 Berlin
Haus für Poesie Knaackstraße 97, 10435 Berlin
Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film competition winners at Winter Warmer festival
via the Ó Bhéal blog
A multilingual poetry festival held in Cork City each November since 2013, Ó Bhéal is proud to present its annual Winter Warmer weekend.
One of the highlights of Cork’s literary calendar, this unique event hosts 23+ renowned poets and performers from Ireland and 7-8 other countries.
The event also features films from the Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film competition along with poetry collaborations with dance, theatre or other art forms, poetry accompanied by music and a closed-mic set for local poets.
In 2018 the festival expanded to four days thanks to our ECIC (European Community of Inclusive Cultures) partnership with festivals from four European countries: Festival dos Eidos (Galicia, Spain), Festival Literário da Madeira (Portugal), Salerno Letteratura Festival (Italy) and LitFest.eu Festival de Voulmentin (France). The 2019 festival took place over three days.
Ó Bhéal’s 8th Winter Warmer (and 1st online) festival presents 36 poets live from fifteen countries, from Thurs 26th – Sun 29th November. The festival will feature poetry workshops, music from Tionscadal na nAmhrán Ealaíne Gaeilge (the Irish Language Art Song Project) devised by Dáirine Ní Mheadhra and John Hess, the shortlist screening and prize-giving for Ó Bhéal’s International Poetry-Film Competition, a Many Tongues of Cork session and a closed-mic set for new voices – poets who have featured regularly in Ó Bhéal’s online open-mic sessions during 2020.
We are thrilled to announce that this year’s stellar line-up includes Imtiaz Dharker, Jacob Polley, Sinéad Morrissey, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Nuar Alsadir, Robert Sullivan, Dunya Mikhail, David Wheatley, Mary Jean Chan, Ranjit Hoskote, Julie Morrissy, Musawenkosi Khanyile, Natalya O’Flaherty, Susan Musgrave and William Wall.
