~ Video Library ~
“And did those feet in ancient time” by William Blake
Continuing the theme of videopoems that riff on television conventions, here’s a poetry promo from the BBC disguised as a sporting news story from the BBC. The poem is referred to as “Jerusalem,” but it’s actually from the Preface to Milton. A popular hymn adaptation by Hubert Parry a century after Blake wrote it is reponsible for the new title, according to the Wikipedia.
The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, travelled to the area that is now England and visited Glastonbury. The legend is linked to an idea in the Book of Revelation (3:12 and 21:2) describing a Second Coming, wherein Jesus establishes a new Jerusalem. The Christian church in general, and the English Church in particular, used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace.
That’s one of those metaphors that would seem to have outlived its relevance, except perhaps in the writing of the late Mahmoud Darwish.
Some Last Questions by W. S. Merwin
Another section from the production Men Think They Are Better Than Grass by the San Francisco-based Deborah Slater Dance Theatre, based on poems by W. S. Merwin. The two featured dancers here are Travis Rowland and Breton Tyner Bryan. The inclusion of sound effects from the TV quiz show Jeopardy is brilliant, I thought.
Last Thursday, Merwin was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate.
Stealing by Carol Ann Duffy
Update: this video is no longer online.
Directed by Gerard Docherty. Aside from the sloppy spelling, this is a fine video and seemed worth sharing. Duffy is, of course, the current Poet Laureate of Great Britain. I assume this video was made without her permission, and thus represents a kind of stealing itself — and/or an homage and act of generosity, depending on your view of intellectual property rights.
I’m going back to posting five videos a week here, at least until I can shrink the current queue of draft posts. So much good stuff coming out these days!
Look Through a Complex Eye and See 1000 of Everything by Zachary Schomburg
Layne Braunstein directed, designed and animated this film for Born Magazine, where the original Flash version still lives (along with the text). Thanks to producer Fake Love for uploading it to Vimeo.
Zachary Schomburg’s website appears to be out of commission, but he does have a blog, as well as a Vimeo account — turns out he makes videopoems himself, too. (Look for examples here in the coming weeks.) The poem is from his second book, Scary, No Scary.
Oblogo Concerto by Atukwei Okai
Ghanaian poetry videos are a little thin on the ground, but I found three in the International Poetry Festival of Medellín’s massive video archive (African poets section), and was fascinated by Okai’s dramatic style and use of extreme alliteration. Atukwei Okai “was the first to try to take African poetry back to one of its primal origins, in percussion, by deliberately violating the syntax and lexicon of English, creating his own rhythms through startling phonetic innovations,” according to the Nigerian scholar of African Studies Femi Osofisan. In typical Medellín video style, we are shown the audience’s reactions — or lack thereof — as the poet recites.
For more on the festival, see the Guardian Weekly article, “Medellín’s poems of peace.” I would love to see the same kind of media coverage given to this festival as to the World Cup, at least on Univision. But I imagine it would have to be turned into a poetry slam-style competition for that to happen, and that would probably clash with the festival’s peace agenda.
“I reason, Earth is short” by Emily Dickinson
Another animation by Francesca Talenti. You can watch dozens, maybe hundreds of Emily Dickinson videos on YouTube and not find anything so free of cliché as this.
I reason, Earth is short—
And Anguish—absolute—
And many hurt,
But, what of that?I reason, we could die—
The best Vitality
Cannot excel Decay,
But, what of that?I reason, that in Heaven—
Somehow, it will be even—
Some new Equation, given—
But, what of that?
Listen and Before the Flood by W. S. Merwin
This is one section of a production by the San Francisco-based Deborah Slater Dance Theatre called Men Think They Are Better Than Grass, based on poems by W. S. Merwin. (I’ll post other excerpts in the coming weeks.) Here’s the description from Vimeo:
This section features the entire company followed by a duet featuring Kerry Mehling and Kelly Kemp. The poems are LISTEN read by Arwen Anderson and BEFORE THE FLOOD read by Peter Coyote, both written by W.S. Merwin. The music is by Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi, video by Elaine Buckholtz, lights by Allen Willner, set by Mikiko Uesugi and costumes by Laura Hazlett.
Adrift by Juliet Wilson
It’s not often I get to see a new videopoem for the work of a poet whose blog I’ve been reading for years. This is a poem from Juliet Wilson’s debut collection, Unthinkable Skies, from the Scottish Calder Wood Press. The film is by the indefatigible Alastair Cook, who adds that this is the “the first of a series of films with Juliet, which will be premiered at my upcoming solo show at the Drill Hall in Leith on 29th July this year: outoftheblue.org.uk“
Puritan Black by Kate Ruse
According to J. P. Dougan’s description on Vimeo, this is one of a series of poems entitled “Poetry of Colours” by English writer Kate Ruse. “It is concerned with the use of campeachy wood in the production of black during the 18th Century.”
