~ 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.
Visiting the Dunbrody Famine Ship by Elizabeth Rimmer
This is Alastair Cook’s 17th filmpoem, and bears the title of the collection of poetry whence the poem comes: Wherever We Live Now, by British poet Elizabeth Rimmer. Alastair writes,
This film came while I was concentrating on two other films, which will be part of my solo film, photography and glass show How the Land Lies in Edinburgh this spring.
This is also a farewell to Kodak, of sorts, as there’ll never really be a goodbye embrace- entirely made from Kodachrome Super8, wildly out of date. And a homage to my solace, Portobello.
Thanks to Erstlaub for the sound design, a drone star.
When at a Certain Party in NYC by Erin Belieu
Motionpoems’ latest animation. (See the comments to that post for a quote on the process by animator Amy Schmitt, as well as the poet’s reaction to the finished piece.) This is another of the films produced in collaboration with Best American Poetry 2011.
[meine heimat] by Ulrike Almut Sandig
The 2012 ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival has introduced a new contest, inviting filmmakers to
make a film of the poem [meine heimat] by Ulrike Almut Sandig. The directors of the three best films will be invited to come to Berlin to meet the poet and have the opportunity of presenting their films and talking about them.
This is Swoon‘s entry. Ulrike Almut Sandig’s webpage is here, and there’s a bio in English at the online journal No Man’s Land.
New Year Philosophy #5 by Inua Ellams
Art direction and animation by Jonathan Mckee for Smile for London. Inua Ellams is a word and graphic artist from Nigeria.
Flames by Billy Collins
A new film by Brandon Dziokonski blends animation with recycled footage from old Smokey the Bear public service anouncements.
Mile End Pugatorio by Martin Doyle
Poet Martin Doyle and filmmaker Guy Sherwin collaborated on this 1991 film-poem, produced (so the credits inform us) for the Arts Council of Great Britain and BBC 2’s The Late Show, and uploaded to YouTube for Luxonline, “the single most extensive publicly available resource devoted to British film and video artists.”
Delikatnie mnie odepchnąłeś całą… (You gently pushed all of me away…) by Bozena Urszula Malinowska
http://vimeo.com/35127990
You said…
—I do not want you
And you said
—leave
You said quietly
—through the fog
and so (it seemed) calmly
timidly
gently pushed all of me
away…
Another video by Marcin Konrad Malinowski for a poem by his deceased mother, part of his Dwa Nieba (“Two Heavens”) project:
It’s mostly inspired by the work of Bozena Urszula Malinowska, my mother, who left a substantial collection of poems. Whether or not it strengthens them, interpretation gives them new meaning because in poetry, we find ourselves. Videopoetry is a way to share these poems with the world, and also gives me the opportunity to respond to them.
(Rendered with the help of Google Translate)
I like the extreme minimalism in this one.
I Accelerate by Musa Okwonga
According to a bio at The Independent,
Musa Okwonga is a football writer, poet and musician of Ugandan descent. In 2008 his first football book, A Cultured Left Foot, was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. He is one half of The King’s Will, an electronica outfit that blends poetry, music, and animated videos.
Various “poetry in motion” projects on buses, trains and subways have been a staple of public poetry campaigns in cities around the world since at least the 1980s. Smile for London is taking this a step further by bringing poetry animation to the tube. The above animation by Amy Thornley and Louise Lawlor (Collective of two) is one example of what Underground riders will see, though I gather it will be shown without audio accompaniment. Let me paste in the text from the Smile for London website:
Our Mission is to bring the talent, creativity and culture of London to the digital screens on the Underground.
We LOVE London. That’s why we’re turning the cross track projection screens on the London Underground into a digital playground by exhibiting moving image by the best emerging and established artists around. Our mission is to unleash these creative minds to explore the medium of silent digital film with the aim of engaging, uplifting and inspiring commuters.
Following the great support and feedback from our pilot exhibition in 2011, we’re back to proudly present Word in Motion, our upcoming exhibition that blends the world of literature with the world of art.
A number of this year’s animations have been popping up on Vimeo. I’ll share some more of them here in the weeks to come.
Not Waving but Drowning by Stevie Smith
http://vimeo.com/35205909
Video and reading by Nic S. for her site Pizzicati of Hosanna. Though sometimes I don’t quite share Nic’s enthusiasm for outer-space imagery, I thought it really worked here.
