~ Videopoems ~

Videopoetry, filmpoetry, cinepoetry, poetry-film… the label doesn’t matter. What matters is that text and images enter into dialogue, creating a new, poetic whole.

War Rug by Francesco Levato

On 8 March, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Francesco Levato is one of the most ambitious filmmakers in the American cinepoetry tradition. Here’s his description of War Rug at Vimeo:

The film is based on a work of documentary poetics in the form of a book length poem. Multiple interwoven narratives explore life within zones of conflict as viewed through the lens of current warfare. The narratives range from passages inspired by journal entries, firsthand accounts, and news reports to poetic constructs collaged from military doctrine, Freedom of Information Act released government documents (like CIA interrogation manuals, and detainee autopsy reports), and numerous other sources. The film collages and juxtaposes archival source material with U.S. Military footage in an exploration of alternative narrative interpretations of the source text.

A Game of Sevens by Robert Peake

On 7 March, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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A film-poem by Robert Peake and Valerie Kampmeier — their fourth. For the text, see Robert’s blog.

Motionpoems at the AWP book fair

On 6 March, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation, conferences, interviews

A brief interview with Todd Boss, poet and co-founder of Motionpoems — the most ambitious poetry animation project in the U.S. to date, on a par with Comma Press’ film division in the U.K.

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Oedipus by Nathan Filer

On 6 March, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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This light-verse film, starring the poet and directed by U.K. filmmaker RONG, won the Best Poetry Film prize at the 3rd ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in 2006.

To Learn From Each Thing by John Siddique

On 4 March, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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http://vimeo.com/28658512

This is “Vine Moon” from John Siddique‘s Thirteen Moons series, directed and supervised by Walter Santucci. For this one, Raul Torres and Britt Wallstrom are credited with the animation and concept.

Better Days by Kevin Cadwallender

On 2 March, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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I’ve been reading interviews collected around the U.S. during the Great Depression by the Federal Writer’s Project, and this poem perfectly captures my reaction to that heritage of hard times and lives cut short by poverty and dangerous work. This is Alastair Cook‘s 19th filmpoem, with a sound composition by Mark Walters.

Monarchs by Carlin M. Wragg

On 1 March, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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This is a section from a longer poem, “Found Letters: Jack and Matilda.” The video is not the final product, but a documentation video of a sculpture, as Carlin M. Wragg explains in her description at Vimeo:

As part of my thesis for ITP, I’d like to create a system of expressive techniques that bring poems off the page in a way that is not quite theater, not quite art installation, and not quite public reading, but which incorporate elements of all of these. With this in mind, I’m collaborating with Kevin Bleich to identify and customize adaptive technologies that bring visual, aural, and environmental experiences together with poetry. As we iterate through a sequence of video sculptures that interpret elements of my novel-in-verse, Found Letters: Jack & Matilda, we are documenting our discoveries on a Tumblr called the Creative Tech Toolkit (creativetechtoolkit.tumblr.com). We hope this shared body of knowledge will serve as the technical foundation for our individual thesis projects.

For our first piece, Kevin and I extended the work we did in April and May of 2011 when we used a Kinect sensor, projection mapping, sound and video to animate a collection of fictional letters through readers’ interactions with an antique rolltop desk. This time we wanted to work on a smaller scale, so we projected video into a Kosta Boda snowball candleholder designed by Ann Warff. We hoped the candleholder’s rippled glass would diffuse the video imagery into the kind of flickering light one might find on a table set for a romantic dinner, as it is in the poem at the core of this piece.

(ITP, by the way, is the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University.)

Advert for Clinic 5 Psych Ward Poetry Circle (All Welcome) by Mikey Fatboy Delgado

On 29 February, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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http://youtu.be/7NRW-sAZx78

London writer and long-time blogger Mikey Fatboy Delgado has just begun to make videopoems. This is, I think, his second.

Bells of Atlantis by Anaïs Nin

On 28 February, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Videopoems
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I just discovered that someone had uploaded a copy of this landmark film from 1952. Anaïs Nin’s husband Ian Hugo directed, with text from Nin’s novella House of Incest recited by the author over an electronic score by Louise and Bebe Barron. While the text may not be poetry per se, the form and style of the film anticipates modern filmpoetry/videopoetry by decades.

The Best Cigarette by Billy Collins

On 27 February, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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One of the 11 Billy Collins animations produced by New York TV station JWT in 2007. This one was directed by Will Hyde with animation by David Vaio.

Vocation by Sandra Beasley

On 24 February, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Video and poem by Sandra Beasley, using a text from I Was the Jukebox.

Baggage Claim by Regis McKenna

On 23 February, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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This jazzy “video poem of New York City” by Jarrett Robertson, with music by Gaeland McKenna, has racked up more than 19,000 views on YouTube and close to 14,000 views on Dailymotion. I’m guessing that the Regis McKenna credited with the text is not the same as the Silicon Valley marketing expert.