~ Video Library ~
Peacock and Fish by Hafez
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUhaF1JI5r8
(English-dubbed excerpt)
This is Tongue of the Hidden, directed by David Alexander Anderson with calligraphy, translation and narration by Jila Peacock and animation by Florian Guibert, assisted by Jerome Dernoncourt. See the film’s webpage for complete credits, stills, storyboard, and more.
The poet Hafez, also known as the Teller of Secrets, used the language of human love and the metaphors of wine and drunkenness to describe his desire for the Divine and intoxication with the mysteries of the Universe. […]
Hand-drawn Farsi (Persian/Iranian) calligraphy is imported into the computer and forms the basis of constructed landscapes, and animals that move within landscapes. Software was Studio Max, Maya, XSI and After Effects.
According to a page on Jila Peacock’s website, “The film was premiered at the National Film Theatre in October 2007 as part of the London Film Festival and as part on Animate TV on C4 in December 2007.” See also the section of her site on her handmade artist’s book Ten Poems From Hafez.
Rush Hour by Thylias Moss
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdoZbbZfnFs
Moss writes,
A video poam that explores the simultaneous and related journeys of workers from two social strata whose need of each other does not include the exchange of essential aspects of identity.
She also uploaded another version, “Rush Hour (too).”
Ode for Ironing (Oda para planchar) by Pablo Neruda
This is a film called Saccharine, directed by Raivan Hall with camera work by Josh Hittleman.
The poem is not from Neruda’s Odas Elementales, but the later Plenos Poderos from 1962. Here’s the Spanish and here’s an English translation by Jodey Bateman. The film uses the translation by Alastair Reid, which carries a less literal title: “In Praise of Ironing.”
As with any popular poet, there are a ton of Neruda videos on YouTube, but most of them are, um, not so good. So it’s a real pleasure to see a professionally made film with a Neruda poem in the soundtrack.
Confused Rain by Nam June Paik
nam june paik’s confused rain (1967) was the chaotic distribution of the letters C-O-N-F-U-S-E on a sheet of paper.
clint enns’ confused rain (2008) is a posthumous collaboration with nam june paik that expands paik’s work into a computer program that produces an animation of the letters C-O-N-F-U-S-E falling like rain drops.
this was written in visual basic.
For more on the Korean-American artist Nam June Paik, see the Wikipedia, which says he was “considered to be the first video artist.” For more on Clint Enns, see his Vimeo page.
Coney Island by Andrew Marotta
Interesting Beat-like, collaborative approach to videopoem-making by poet Andrew Marotta and filmmaker Brandon Knopp, who captured all the material for both the poem and the film in one day, according to Brandon’s note:
Working together on a project created during a day spent at Coney Island. Filmed and written in one outing.
Same Place Different View by Anna Dickie
I’m glad to see This Collection continuing to broker and upload innovative films for its Edinburgh-centered poetry project. Oliver Benton and Stefanie Tan did the camera work and editing respectively, and “thiscollection.org was proud to collaborate with Rocio Jungenfeld to adapt Poet Anna Dickie’s work ‘Same Place Different View’ into a bricolage installation on the shores of Aberlady.”
Anna Dickie is a Scottish artist and poet now blogging at it’sabouttime. You can read the poem at thiscollection.org.
The Men Who Don’t Fit In by Robert Service
Poem by Robert Service, recited by Christopher Herwig, 1-2 lines a day while hiking and rafting across Iceland with Alastair Humphreys from North to South in July 2010.
Mr. Herwig is also the filmmaker here, I think. Some very good editing and of a course a brilliant idea, even if one does get a little tired of looking at him by the end of it. Their journey across Iceland was truly epic, judging from Alastair’s report:
The plan was simple: we were trekking inland from Iceland’s north coast up into the central highlands. We would cross the Hofsjokull ice cap to gain access to the headwaters of Iceland’s longest river. There we would inflate the packrafts we were carrying and attempt to paddle down two separate rivers, eventually reaching the southern coast of Iceland, the ocean, and the end of our expedition.
We were carrying everything we needed. There would be no villages or resupplies on our route. We carried food for 25 days. We had camping equipment, and ropes and crampons for the glacier crossing. There was a fair weight of camera equipment, batteries and solar panel chargers. And we also were carrying all the gear you need for paddling glacial whitewater rivers. The weight of the packs crushed our knees and spine and gouged our shoulders and hips. We feared that we had bitten off more than we could chew.
The Body Show: How to Boil an Egg by Nora Robertson
UPDATE (3 August 2015): I’ve found and swapped in the complete film.
*
This is actually a trailer for a short film by Jason Bahling called The Body Show, due out in November. The whole film is essentially a videopoem for “How to Boil an Egg,” which is from Nora Robertson’s unpublished collection Body-Making Cookery — or so I gather from Jason’s notes at Vimeo and a recent post at Nora’s blog:
About five years ago I appeared in a line-up at Borders downtown and read from my then-new collection Body-Making Cookery which is still in progress (cue internal groan). The collection is all recipe poems and explores the associations food has for us, that food is almost never just a way to keep our bodies going, that it reminds us of other things like family, personal biography, history, body image, desire, mythology, religion. When we eat, it’s my belief that we don’t just take the food into our bodies, but all of these associations into the body of our self. I was experimenting with a persona, the housewife, which later morphed into cooking show host gone awry as explored in the short film The Body Show, a collaboration with video artist Jason Bahling to be released in November 2010.
My Friend, The Parking Lot Attendant by Charles Bukowski
English film student Tom Ralph notes,
The piece is meant to be shown on two screens facing each other, one for each character in the film. This gives the impression of a conversation in which the audience can place themselves where they please. For the purpose of viewing now, both characters appear on one film. Filmed on a Kodak Zi6 and edited on Final Cut Pro. Thanks to Dennis Thompson and Roy Winspear.
On Writing Hat Poems by Marvin Kimbrough
An animation by Francesca Talenti. I wasn’t able to locate a website for the poet.
UPDATE (9/7/10): After posting this, I got a note from Austin-based poet Scott Wiggerman on Facebook saying that Dr. Marvin Kimbrough had been active in the Austin poetry scene and was “a very warm, wonderful person,” though now she was in the hospital with terminal cancer. Yesterday, he sent a follow-up note saying she’d died that morning. Rest in peace, Dr. Kimbrough.
