~ Video Library ~

Matters by Hannah Stephenson

On 22 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Videopoems
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Starting back in March, blogger-poet Hannah Stephenson has been cutting back on her previous pattern of a new poem every weekday to share a multimedia presentation on Fridays (which is actually, I’m sure, more work — I don’t mean to imply she’s been slacking!). Last Friday, she posted this video, which incorporates the text of a previously blogged poem.

“Wild nights…” by Emily Dickinson

On 21 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Thanks to CreatureCast for licensing this wonderful undersea footage under a Creative Commons license, permitting this repurposing. I blogged about the making of it at Via Negativa. Due to the format of the original film, I was forced to learn how to make a widescreen (16:9) video, which turned out not be difficult at all (thought the standardized dimensions of videos here at Moving Poems give it an extra-wide top and bottom border).

For a very different audio interpretation of the poem, listen to videopoet Brenda Clews‘ reading on the Woodrat Podcast, Episode 31: Emily Dickinson at 180. Brenda’s reading starts just past the four-minute mark.

What Remains by Gareth Sion Jenkins

On 20 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Jason Lam directs. Other credits (since they aren’t given in the film) include performers Tara Robertson and Stuart Warren, and composer and sound designer Adam Synnott — this according to the description for another version of the film on Vimeo.

What Remains explores the uneasy zone between pleasure and pain; love and possession; connection and abandonment. We open up and another infiltrates virus-like, gets beneath our skin, modifies our form, redirects our blood stream.

Gareth Sion Jenkins is an Australian poet — see the bio at Mascara Literary Review.

Tom Kessler, Stockton Island, 1887 by Kenneth Pobo

On 16 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Book trailers, Videopoems
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A videopoem made to double as a video trailer for the winner of qarrtsiluni magazine’s 2011 chapbook contest: Ice and Gaywings, by Kenneth Pobo, forthcoming from Phoenicia Publishing in Montreal. See our post about the video at the magazine for more. (I was responsible for commissioning this film from Swoon in my capacity as qarrtsiluni co-Managing Editor, and helped shape the content a little, but the main ideas and final decisions were Swoon’s.)

Qué se ama cuando se ama (What do we love when we love) by Gonzalo Rojas

On 15 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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http://vimeo.com/1871573

“A tribute to the poet and to love,” says Cristián Tàpies, the maker of this widely screened photomotion film. English subtitles are the work of Pedro Donoso. Gonzalo Rojas was a major Chilean poet who lived much of his life in exile, and died this past April.

Our Father by Veronica Keszthelyi

On 14 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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http://vimeo.com/4539639

Veronica Keszthelyi says in the description at Vimeo:

A seemingly normal young woman goes to a church in search of peace.

First film ever, shot an a Canon handycam on location in Gaithersburg, MD, USA.

Starring Rachel Simko
Music by James Clarke
Produced, directed, shot and edited by moi.

Actually was accepted and screened at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in 2008.
Yea, I’m still in shock.

Reprieve by Luisa A. Igloria

On 13 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Luisa Igloria has been writing daily poems for my blog, Via Negativa since last November, but I didn’t get around to envideoing any of her poems until her 50th birthday last week — shameful, I know! Luisa is the author of Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, University of Notre Dame Press), Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005) and eight other books, and grew up in Baguio City, the Philippines. I blogged about the making of the video here, and Luisa’s poem first appeared on the blog in text form here.

read these roads by Kai Lossgott

On 12 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation, Author-made videopoems
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A very interesting approach to stop-frame animation by South African videopoet Kai Lossgott, who also organized, directed and curated the City Breath Festival of Video Poetry and Performance last year, and is currently searching for experimental films about climate change for a new exhibition called Letters from the Sky. (See the Moving Poems forum for more details on the latter.)

Kai’s notes about this film at Vimeo are worth quoting in full:

The evaporating water puddle images in this stop frame animation hint at the living systemic relationship between Table Mountain’s hydrology systems, the City of Cape Town’s water system and the biological systems of the human body. This is a video poem of unfulfilled desire for the lost personal bond with the natural world. The soundtrack of the video is taken from Adderley Street in the Cape Town CBD, above the underground storm water drain where the now forgotten Varsterivier, among others, (3 million cubic tons of untapped fresh spring water) runs into the sea daily. Fresh water is one of South Africa’s scarcest resources.

The Sights and Sounds of Arctic Birds by Helen Vitoria

On 9 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A film called Flight, showcasing the collaborative efforts of Swoon (video editing, production, etc.), Nic S. of Whale Sound (voice), and Kathy McTavish of Cello Dreams (music). This was the dry run for their new collaborative videopoem project announced in a call for submissions last week (which was soon answered).

Pennsylvania poet Helen Vitoria is the editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal. The text of “The Sights and Sounds of Arctic Birds” is available as a PDF from Gold Mark Press.

The video features footage of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial by Ira Mowen. Swoon states in the description at Vimeo that it is “dedicated to Vladek & Anja Spiegelman, the main characters in Maus by Art Spiegelman.”

Challenge Me Vista by R.W. Perkins

On 8 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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http://vimeo.com/13102380

This is the first in a projected series of poetry videos by R.W. Perkins, a Fort Collins, Colorado-based video producer. The YouTube version of the video has garnered an impressive 10,595 views since it was uploaded a little over a year ago. I especially enjoyed the light-hearted tone and the great soundtrack.

The Wall by Brenda Clews

On 7 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Video, words, voice and music are all by Brenda Clews, who notes in the YouTube description:

I meditate regularly and often do yoga sets. Especially I do this when I am working through issues. During one of my sessions last week the metaphor of the wall arose, and while resting after the yoga set I picked up my iPhone and began speaking, intending to write a prose poem from my voice notes. I left the recording as is, and added the background of sounds and instruments. My speaking of the words is not a performance but an embodiment of the meaning. Then I began to work with recent footage of a lightning storm I had shot. Initially, when looking at the rushes, I was perturbed that I hadn’t removed the mesh screen. Yet the footage is perfect for this video. The subconscious is all of a processing, mobile, energy of constantly equilibrating unity, and what we are voicing here is what we are filming there. Our lives are always moving beyond their boundaries as we push into deeper processes of who we are, alone and together.

Brenda also blogged a few process notes at Rubies in Crystal, where she went into more detail about the soundtrack:

The sound track is a midi file of the text that I generated at http://www.p22.com/musicfont/ and yes, I used copters, and gunshot, and a pad4choir from the music text generator (I did have to copy the sound files from the site one by one and mix them later) and ethereal sunrise, smooth clav, whirly, and nature sounds from GarageBand, plus the original track of thunder and lightning, so it is meant to be a bit, well a bit of a war zone. It works, but it’s not for relaxation, obviously!

The Last Brave Ship by Dale Favier

On 6 September, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Portland, Oregon-based poet Dale Favier has been blogging at mole since 2003. His first collection of poems, Opening the World, is due out this month just out from Pindrop Press, and I recently had the pleasure of reading it in manuscript. A subsequent sighting of a mole in the yard resulted in this video. (See Via Negativa for a more detailed description of the process.)