~ Interviews ~
Interview with Tom Konyves at Connotation Press
In her latest “Third Form” column at Connotation Press, Erica Goss interviews videopoetry pioneer Tom Konyves. Goss’s usual pattern of paraphrasing and quoting from a conversation conducted by telephone gave way here to a more standard question-and-answer format, and the interview delves into aspects of Konyves’ background which were new to me. Here’s how Goss herself summarized it:
In this interview, Tom discusses, among other things, making his first videopoem on ½” reel-to-reel videotape, the medium of video being “unrecognized” by Herman Berlandt, Director of the San Francisco Poetry Film Workshop, what text-image relationships have in common with male-female relationships, and falling in love with language as a child.
I particularly liked the story of how Konyves came to make his first videopoem. But I think the most quotable bit is from the end of the interview:
Text-image relationships are no different from male-female relationships. Sometimes they get along, sometimes they don’t. They get along when they are totally aware of the other’s “potential” as well as their own. For each has the potential to be effective in different ways. They don’t try to overpower the other or usurp each other’s roles in the structure of the work. A particular image provides the only possible context in which the words are intended to be experienced. When they “complete” each other, the work is “pure poetry”. And once you’ve realized that, you will always associate the images with the text of the work. They have become soulmates. How many “video poems” have this attribute? Watch one, then close your eyes and listen to the words. Can you picture the scene? Throughout?
Do go read the whole interview.
Juan Felipe Herrera’s winding path to poetry + Five Directions to My House
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Following last week’s announcement that Juan Felipe Herrera would be the next U.S. Poet Laureate, PBS NewsHour sent their arts correspondent to Fresno and produced this pair of videos.
Juan Felipe Herrera is the author of more than 20 books of poetry, novels for young adults and collections for children, most recently “Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes.” He is the son of migrant workers from Mexico, and today he becomes the first Latino to serve as poet laureate of the United States. Jeffrey Brown travels to the poet’s home in California’s San Joaquin Valley.
In the Air by Kate Sweeney
A unique poetry film: a hand-drawn animation of poets’ hands from interview snippets that can also be seen as a remix videopoem. Kate Sweeney explains in the Vimeo description:
Created from short elliptical sequences taken from archived interviews with four Bloodaxe poets. I wanted to isolate the gestures used when explaining the poetic, the abstract thoughts they couldn’t express in words alone. Gesture is communication that is also a kind of drawing in the air.
C.K Williams, in his interview with Ahren Warner, muses that “In a sense the final version of any work of art pretends to be an improvisation; even a painting. First the painter puts down the ground on the canvas or the wood then he puts down another layer of something then he begins to put the blocks in and then the last layer, little brush strokes, that look like improvisation”. The archive offers a window through to all those described layers. It tracks the process of producing a poem, a book and in a way, a poet. Inspired by my research in the archive, the animation includes the smudges, rips, mistakes and corrections, of the paper it was drawn on, revealing and incorporating the process into the final version.
Jutta Pryor and Marie Craven featured at Connotation Press
Interviews with Australian poetry-film makers Jutta Pryor and Marie Craven are the focus of Erica Goss’ column “The Third Form” at Connotation Press this month. I’ve long been an admirer of both, so it was interesting to learn about their routes into online collaboration and filmmaking. “Poetry is an inspirational starting point that lends itself to creative interpretation and collaboration by bringing together writers, filmmakers, remixers, sound artists and actors to create poetry film,” says Pryor. And Craven notes that poetry film is “like collage, or quilting. You enjoy the surprise, and never know what you’ll find. I don’t plan things out too much, but let the process dictate the final product.” Go read.
Poet-filmmaker Rachel Eliza Griffiths interviewed at Connotation Press
The March issue of Connotation Press is out today, and with it a new Third Form column by Erica Goss. This time, she interviews a poet and multimedia artist I’ve been especially curious about, having featured several of her films at Moving Poems: Rachel Eliza Griffiths. A couple of snippets:
“Students have a more visual life nowadays. In my creative writing classes, I often have students respond to photos on their iPhones. One day they might examine their own work, and on other days they respond in writing to the photos of other students. It’s very interesting to see what they come up with.” Students write self-portrait poems using, for example, five photos as a gallery. Rachel Eliza asks them, “How does shadow work in a poem? Is it similar to shadow in a photo?”
[…]
Rachel Eliza’s current project is P.O.P (Poets on Poetry), a project with 100 contemporary poets who read and comment on poetry, their own and others’. “I wanted videos that showed poets in a better light, quality-wise, than what you often see in archival videos on YouTube, for example. I’m happy that teachers use some of the videos as part of their lesson plans.” P.O.P includes poets such as Cornelius Eady, Tina Chang, Michael Dickman, Marilyn Nelson and Terrance Hayes.
The interview includes commentary on some embedded films. I was especially struck by Griffiths’ description of how she came to make Incident, her contribution to the #BlackPoetsSpeakOut movement. And I was excited to hear that she plans a triptych of new videos in support of her upcoming collection of poems. Check it out.
Poetry filmmakers Sina Seiler and Eduardo Yagüe featured in The Third Form
This month in her Third Form column at Connotation Press, poetry-film critic Erica Goss profiles and interviews two filmmakers who should be familiar to regular readers of Moving Poems: German documentary filmmaker Sina Seiler and the Spanish freelance director and poet Eduardo Yagüe. I learned a lot about both directors. For example,
Sina served as an intern at the 2008 Zebra Poetry Film Festival, and was involved in the pre-screening process (no small feat, as Zebra receives close to one thousand submissions). She remembers how it felt to watch so many poetry films: “It was so great that something like this existed. I immediately had the idea to make my own poetry film.” “Elephant” is the result, based on a poem Sina wrote. She added, “I have been writing poems since I was young, but I didn’t publish them – they were just for me. Nothing commercial.”
And this about Yagüe:
Eduardo’s influences include the German choreographer Pina Bausch, the British performance group DV8 Physical Theatre, and the work of Samuel Beckett. Themes of emotional and sexual tension are evident in Eduardo’s work, which his many talented actor friends aptly express.
“I know a lot of actors,” he said. “I am lucky that they want to be in my films. I love actors and poetry, so that’s what I want to do: mix the things that I love. And most actors are comfortable with poetry. We study poetry; it helps us learn to speak properly. Much of the spoken part of theater is poetry: Shakespeare, for example.”
Do read the rest (and watch the films). What each filmmaker has to say about their process is especially interesting.
Poet Benedict Newbery on collaborating with animator Sandra Salter
A still from “The Royal Oak”
A fascinating interview with UK poet Benedict Newbery has just been posted in the Berlin-based arts magazine Chased. I was especially interested to learn how closely he works with his collaborator Sandra Salter in the making of their widely screened poetry films — it’s far from the passive role that many poets take in these kinds of partnerships. Bettina Henningsen is the interviewer.
Chased: You produced some wonderful and very successful poetry animations together with Sandra Salter – “Cul de Sac” and “The Royal Oak”, which were part of the film programme at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin. Is making poetry films something you always wanted to do?
B. N.: I fell into poetry film quite by happy accident and had never thought of making one until I was contacted by Sandra in early 2008. We’d met very briefly a couple of years before through a mutual friend. She saw a call for submissions for the 2008 ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin, remembered she’d met someone who’d just started writing poetry (me)and emailed me. Did I want to make a film of one of my poems? Of course! I replied.
I enjoy film and am interested in how film works. I did a short introductory course on animation a few years ago and would like to make some films on my own. But working full time and writing when I can doesn’t leave an awful lot of room for developing that side of things. I’m happy to let Sandra take care of that side of things for now!Chased: How did the co-operation of the two of you work exactly?
B. N.: Our first film Cul de sac was a pretty rushed job and we were both improvising quite a bit. Sandra works with watercolours and sent me a few images to start with. So I got a feel for the sort of thing she was looking to develop. After a couple of meetings it was obvious we were running out of time so we agreed that I’d storyboard the film — something I’d never done before but which I really enjoyed. From the storyboards, Sandra painted sequences of animation, each one very small — 5 x 4cm. She then scanned the images, reassembled them, placed them in sequences and then added my voice recording and Paul Murphy’s music. The animation process was done very quickly — there was no registration of images etc. But it worked! And we were shortlisted for the ZEBRA competition that year.
The Royal Oak was a bit more stop-start over a few years. We had met a few times to discuss storyboards and the general direction of the film but with no funding it was proving difficult with jobs and family commitments. Then Channel 4 got in touch with Sandra and asked her to make a pitch for its Random Acts series. The pitch was successful and suddenly we had the funding we needed. By this time we lived quite a distance from each other so we weren’t able to meet up so easily. But we’d email and chat on the phone. And in the end Sandra produced a fantastic film!
Chased: Is the film version of a poem an extension of the poem to you, or an addition?
B. N.: When I drew storyboards for both poems, I was illustrating the narrative flow as I’d realised it in the writing of the poems. I think left to my own devices in the first couple of films, less-interesting films would have emerged. Perhaps just a visual addition.
This was the key with collaborating with someone like Sandra. She’s a very talented film maker. And she also gets what it is that I’m talking about in the poetry. Through her animations she extends the poem into something new, substantive, with its own interpretation of the narrative. She has the skill and ability to take it somewhere else, and surprise me with her take on what is important — or how a particular aspect of the work needs to be given salience. Even though she followed the storyboards for Cul de sac she still brought in her own ideas that lifted the words elsewhere. And in animating The Royal Oak, she worked away from the original storyboards — to brilliant effect.
I think perhaps an OK or average film of a poem adds to the poem, if it’s lucky. A good film will extend it.
Chased: What is your next project?
B. N.: Sandra and I are looking to make our third film together — hopefully in 2015. We already know which poem we’re going to use — exploring the darker, seedier side of the English seaside town. It will see a continuation of Sandra’s style of watercolour transitions.
Do read the rest.
Burning House by Jovan Mays and Theo Wilson
Amid racial tensions in communities such as Ferguson, Missouri, and following the unwarranted deaths of young black men like Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, two slam poets confront what it means to be black men in America and in their communities. Theo Wilson, once a victim of police brutality, delves into his internal struggle of dealing with the past encounter, remembering how powerless he felt in the face of his oppressor, and his ensuing resolve to change the rules of the game. Beneath the smoldering anger and aftermath of police violence is a growing disquietude toward the future of race relations. Jovan Mays, the poet laureate of Aurora, Colorado, uses his spoken word to express the turmoil of emotions and experiences inherently attached to growing up a black boy in America.
(Vimeo description)
https://vimeo.com/108012373
These two related poetry films are by Mary I. Stevens, an associate producer of digital video at CNBC. They deserve to be seen widely in the wake of yet another grotesque miscarriage of justice in the racist police state that the United States has become. Those of us who have the luxury of merely wallowing in outrage and not fearing for our lives (yet), simply because we happen to have been born with white skin, need to hear the testimony of the victims of police violence and humiliation, and ask ourselves whether our anxious calls for peaceful protest aren’t motivated more out of a desire to sweep unpleasant realities under the rug rather than to actually confront the glaring inequities in our society.
Jovan Mays and Theo E. J. Wilson, A.K.A. Lucifury, are members of the Slam Nuba team, who won the National Poetry Slam in 2011. The first film, an artful blend of interview and poetry, contains a few excerpts from the performance of “Burning House” featured in the second film, but devotes much more space to a poem recited by Mays, “To the Black Boys.” The song “Look Down Lord,” included in both films, is performed by Dee Galloway.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: Mike Galsworthy and Corinne Weidmann
Short collaborations can be either a godsend or a total bust. I myself have teamed up with Nicelle Davis on several projects. It is as if we can read each other’s minds. The best part of it all is that we don’t get in each other’s way. She writes and I illustrate. Being a professional illustrator and dealing with clients can be frustrating and mind-numbing at times. So when a collaboration falls into place, it’s well worth all the crazy clients one has to deal with.
Recently I came across another collaboration, between Mike Galsworthy and Corinne Weidmann. Actually, Mike found me through Vimeo and whatever publicity was going around. I read and viewed On a White Horse and found it intriguing. I asked him who the illustrator was, since the works fit so well together. It would be interesting if they could incorporate actual animation into this particular project. I think it would make a stunning video poem. But let’s face it, as it stands now it’s pretty beautiful. Here is what Mike has to say.
Mike Galsworthy: Inspiration for the poem: I had been reading old English ballads – those centuries-old magical poems that had been passed down as oral traditions with no known authors. I was cooking up one of my own about a rider riding through a dark forest grabbing at leaves when I suddenly thought of this as a metaphor for industry relentlessly destroying the environment and creating an apocalyptic world. The rest wrote itself very quickly. The rhythm mirrors the horse rhythm and the repetition is deliberately modeled on the dark poetry of Poe, whose work I love for its fluid lyricism.
I had always wanted to tackle climate change and environmental destruction, but addressing it directly left me bored and cold. This angle gave me a route to explore the morality and drivers of selfish destructive behaviour and delusions of safety within a different world. A modern caution in an old-world format.
The collaboration: I was contacted out of the blue by a Swiss artist living in Canada (Corinne Weidmann). She said she loved the poem and because it was so vivid in her mind, she’d love to do an illustration of it. I said “yes, of course”, of course! She was actually due to come to London to live, so we met up lots of times to discuss how we both visualised it. The overlap in mental imagery was strong, but we also both had little touches in our minds that came together well (she had the idea of the horse passing people/workers through its system and out its rear end, and the rider in stove-pipe hat and industrial revolution attire; I had the mental image of the “burning famine” people with hollowed-out stomachs with fire in their place, etc). Anyway, I took her ’round some poetry gigs over the months that she was working on it and the piece was developing. It was designed to be one poster based on Swiss folk art style, with the story told in overlapping/interlinked images. I suggested to her that when it was ready, I could turn it into a YouTube video. I thought we could scan it in, then take the story section-by-section as I narrated.
When it was done, that’s exactly what I did. Corinne sent me high-res scans and I just got busy digitally editing with the tools I had… Microsoft Paint and Windows Movie Maker. I had to make some visual edits so that I could get the 16:9 pictures clean (free of overlaps from different parts of the image). And there were also some bits missing for the sake of the narrative (rain, lightning and poisoned rivers running overland) so Corinne did some new, separate pics for those.
With the sound recording, I did it all myself, ripping horse hooves and spooky sounds off YouTube then mixing and looping them to suit.
Corinne Weidmann: The first time I came across Mike Galsworthy’s poem On a White Horse was on YouTube. I was not particularly interested in poetry at that time, but I liked how visual this poem was. Mike raised a topic that was not new, but the way he did it was slightly different to what I’d heard before.
I simply wanted to illustrate it – just for fun. There was no intention of publishing it, nor anything else, but I thought that at least I would let the author know. He liked the idea and a collaboration turned out of it. I guess it also helped that I moved to London from Switzerland at the time.
The majority of my artworks and illustrations are done manually. It is the process of trying new techniques and experiments that I love the most. I count myself very lucky that my clients are usually well up for that.
For On a White Horse I chose to work with scraperboard and a knife.
I wanted it to become an old folk tale, or even a myth. A legend that everyone has at the back of their minds – omnipresent, but only frightening in the dark.
The style is based on traditional Swiss paper cut. Folk art is humble and honest. It tells stories about the daily lives, beliefs and worries of mostly farmers – those whose lives directly depend on nature and who are already affected by the impact of climate change.
The whole artwork is cut into a big piece of black scraperboard. The idea to make a video out of it emerged much later on. I didn’t intend to go into moving poetry, but I have a curious mind and hardly ever say no to a new direction.
My creative universe is called Iuna, named after a black Amazonian bird – Tinta simply means ink. Iuna Tinta is a bridge between illustration and art, with a pinch of typography thrown in.
The work is inspired by ancient mysticism, indigenous art and sinister fairytales. Professionally I often work for board sports companies such as Quiksilver and Roxy Snowboarding. Apart from that I exhibit and indulge in many personal projects. One is collaboration with a group of scientists and artists, based in Brisbane, Australia. Our aim is to convert conservation science messages into art, make them more accessible and to raise awareness concerning this combination.
The goals I have as an illustrator/artist is to continue doing what I am doing right now. To be able to let this visual universe expand naturally and in a way that feels right.
Mike and I were thinking of doing more projects together, but so far these are merely loose ideas. We do have very matching minds, which is rare – but at the same time we also have busy lives.
“Embrace the happy accidents”: an interview with filmmaker Lori H. Ersolmaz
This is the 20th in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse — a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” This time we talk with Lori H. Ersolmaz.
1. Would you briefly describe the remix work you have done based on poems from The Poetry Storehouse?
LHE: My first remix was with Claudia Serea’s poem, The Moon and I was first drawn to it because of the subject, but I also fell in love with Nic S.’s voice. Narration is an art, and the smooth, soulful, sometimes sensual quality of Sebastian’s voice touched me immediately.
I am in the process of finding my own film poetry voice. I’ve been making short documentary films for almost ten years, but I get great satisfaction from creating remixes. I love filming and collecting footage which now finds a home in my remixes. With each new piece I reach for an abstract expression using image and sound. The first remixes I produced were more literal than I wanted and I prefer playing with the material—molding and shaping it. I have always loved print collage and I’m trying to experiment similarly with video. I tend to embrace the happy accidents I sometimes make and interrogate them in multiple ways. Jim Murdoch’s poem As Is, again with Nic S.’s narration, allowed me the freedom to express and insert some film accidents. The Poetry Storehouse 2014 Anniversary Contest also gave me the freedom to follow my instincts. It will be exciting to see what poem gets paired with it, as it was a different process than the other remixes I’ve done, which begin with the poetry.
2. How is The Poetry Storehouse different from or similar to other resources you have used for your remix work?
LHE: Other remix resources I’ve had experience with are Freesound, Flickr Creative Commons and the Internet Archive. I find my experimental work is more successful when paired with a narrative, and poetry helps to inspire me to produce an experience based on the words I encounter on the page. I try to transform imagery, sound and audio effects with a strong narrative voice to hopefully create an altered meaning. Without a license to use the poetry the filmmaker has more production work to do, so Poetry Storehouse alleviates time and energy on what sometimes can be a lengthy process.
Poetry Storehouse’s model is fantastic because it’s free of any license to use the material and is an inclusive community of people who love poetry and want to see the audience for it expand. It’s a progressive idea to make poetry more accessible by marrying audio-visual techniques with narration to create a multimedia experience. We are a visual society and the synchronicity of the mediums can create a successful partnership. But I can also see how it could be gut-wrenching for the poets and I try to stay sensitive to their work.
3. What specific elements do you look for when you browse offerings at The Storehouse (or, what is your advice to poets submitting to The Storehouse)?
LHE: I look for poems that resonate with me and I can potentially make a social commentary. Instead of going on a rant about a problem, for instance; trying to find a workman who can fix things in my 1920’s house, I was actually able to articulate my own experiences through a James Reiss poem, A Day in Ohio. Michael Dickes’ gritty voice had the perfect tone to deliver the narration and I merged my own footage with what I found on Internet Archive to say exactly how I felt about the matter, and although it may be a bit more of a literal depiction, I made my commentary nonetheless.
4. Talk about how the remixing process comes together for you — for example, does your inspiration start with a poem, or with specific footage, for which you then seek a poem? How does sound play into the picture for you?
LHE: I always start with my mood and a poem that seems to fit it, or what’s happening at the moment. I’m constantly shooting new material because I also use my smart phone everyplace I go. I’ve always been a believer that creativity isn’t about the tool—it’s about an idea. If I see something, I stop and shoot immediately. Recently, I shot footage of two fish tanks at a local hospital when I was there for routine tests. At the same time we were bombarded by news reports about the outbreak of the Ebola virus. When I read Tara Skurtu’s poem Some Days Begin Like This, again it just jumped off the page for me. I immediately felt I could place it up against the fish tank imagery because the concept emulated my feeling about being in a fishbowl. I emotionally sensed the poem, having myself been in the hospital feeling somewhat anxious about the potential results. So far it’s my favorite piece, along with As Is. I was so happy to hear Tara Skurtu say that she “loved the remix.” I feel a responsibility to honor the poet and it’s terrific to get feedback, either way because I can learn more about the process and the audience’s reception.
I’ve always felt sound is extremely important, but I save it to the end. I play with multiple tracks laid over each other and create whatever intuitively feels right to me. I think my love of imagery sometimes overtakes the time I spend on the audio component.
5. Most Storehouse remixers are video-makers who combine a poem with video footage and a soundtrack, but all in very different styles. What have you learned from seeing how other remixers work?
LHE: I’m new to this genre and am humbled by the great work of the poets and filmmakers. So far I’ve tended to produce more abstract work, but I’ve seen smart Storehouse films that showcase people and I’d like to include more people/figures into future remixes. Since I interview people so much for documentary work, I tend to move in a different direction for the remixes. Poetry Storehouse and Moving Poems are my go-to places for my personal educational awareness and to see new film poems, both on their websites and Facebook. There is just so much material to review and the articles, films and discussion are highly inspiring. I initially came to enjoy the genre three years ago after seeing a screening of several Nathaniel Dorsky films, which are without sound. I find the genre to be spiritual, lyrical and utterly sublime. I watch and make poetry films to stimulate creativity and to partake in a spiritual, “Zen-like” journey.
6. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience (or anything related)?
LHE: I would like to encourage poets and others to provide narration for poetry remixes. I dislike my voice, so I prefer to not to record my own narrative. The Storehouse is a wonderful asset and I’m thrilled to be part of a community of talented and serious artists and poets. I was welcomed with open arms from the very beginning and since I started remixing, Nic S., Dave Bonta and the Storehouse poets have been very encouraging and supportive. Poetry Storehouse is a true gift to me, and I look forward to many more collaborations in the future, as well as finding ways to give back to the community.
Martina Pfeiler on poetry film
Martina Pfeiler is a German scholar of literature and American studies specializing in, among other things, the history of poetry and technology. She’s the author of the book Poetry Goes Intermedia: US-amerikanische Lyrik des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts aus kultur- und medienwissenschaftlicher Perspektive. We spoke in the garden of the Pfefferbett Hostel in Berlin on October 19, 2014, during the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival.
Reference is made to the following films:
- Manhatta by Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler (1920)
- Do serca Twego / To Thy Heart by Ewa Borysewicz (2013) (the “Polish poetry film” Dr. Pfeiler discussed starting at 7:27)
- Ballad of the Skeletons by Gus Van Sant and Allen Ginsberg (1997)
- The Death of William Burroughs by Antonello Faretta with John Giorno (2005)
The conversation was wide-ranging (and I’ve edited out more than half of it—please excuse all the jump cuts), covering such topics as how poetry film fits into the larger context of poets’ use of technology, how poetry films may be used in the classroom to introduce students to poetry as a whole, and how the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival has changed (or not changed) over the years. My favorite thing that Dr. Pfeiler said was this:
I could see myself going to something like an international poetry museum, where you have different rooms where you can explore a poetry film, or poetry films, either theme-based or throughout the last century, and interact with it again—just me and the film. So that experience: like an installation, where you take time, you sit in your little installation box, it’s all black, maybe some other, four or five people are sitting on the floor but you don’t necessarily know where they sit.
Yes! I love watching videos in art museums. Someone needs to do this. Surely there’s a billionaire out there looking to put his or her name on a new, unique museum?
