~ 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.

How Smokes the Smolder by Todd Boss

On 4 August, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker: ,

A Todd Boss poem directed and edited by Greg Mattern with sculptures by Angie Hagen. Uploaded to Vimeo by the cameraman, Jeff Saunders, who notes that the footage was originally filmed for something else and repurposed by Mattern.

Night Vision by Eleanor Rees

On 2 August, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

This is a collaboration between the poet, Eleanor Rees, and the filmmaker, Glenn-emlyn Richards. It was featured as part of the Comma Film/ Version Film Festival 2009 and the Sadho Poetry Film Festival 2009-2010 in New Delhi.

This is evidently the opening poem in Rees’ debut collection from Salt Publishing, Andraste’s Hair, which garnered an endorsement from Carol Ann Duffy: “Eleanor Rees’s first full-length collection introduces an ambitious, experimental voice, vibrantly charged with the energy of city life.” From the publisher’s page, here’s a sound bite from the author and her city, Liverpool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HMA-q8ePkA

Landlocked in the Port of Leith by Samuel Jackson

On 29 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
Poet: | Nationality: , | Filmmaker:

A collaboration between Scottish poet Samuel Jackson and filmmaker Ali Hayes, produced for the This Collection project of videopoems set in Edinburgh, which now has a cool new website. You can read the poem here.

The Edge by Josephine Jacobsen

On 28 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Dance, Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

D.C. performance artist Mary-Averett Seelye interprets the poem by the late Josephine Jacobsen. Vin Grabill, the videographer, notes:

Mary-Averett has presented poetry for many years by performing choreographed movements of her body while she speaks a particular poem. In collaboration with Julie Simon, I produced a 30-minute program, “Poetry Moves”, that presents performances by Mary-Averett Seelye of Jacobsen’s poetry, along with interview sequences of Mary-Averett and Josephine. As Mary-Averett is interpreting Josephine’s poetry, I am interpreting Mary-Averett’s performances by utilizing the video medium in various ways to extend what Mary-Averett is doing.

My goal with this project, as well as with other collaborative projects in which I’ve engaged with performing artists, is to present the performance in a way that would not be possible live on stage in front of an audience. In 1998, “Poetry Moves” received a CINE Golden Eagle Award. I’ve continued to work with Mary-Averett since completing “Poetry Moves”, and in 2008, I completed production of a 3-DVD set surveying 40 years of Mary-Averett’s performance work with poetry.

Visiting the Cargo Vessel (Bezoek aan het Vrachtschip), Strophe 3 by Ed Leeflang

On 27 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Animation
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

This strophe of the series from Revolver media is animated by Bart van Brussel. Here’s the translation included in the notes at Vimeo:

Descending inside, passing the layers
of the engine room, greasy, funereal
generators, often replaced
the steps on the iron stair are loose,
No more powerful sense of futility
than in a useless jungle of chaotic wires
unsalvageable organism, a body hanging on,
clinically dead, mummified in its scaffolding
handles and pawls to be pulled and set by creatures with knowledge
gauges for pressure, meter needles measuring longing
still someone’s longing, on board or on the shore,
Someone for whom the ship will moor when the evening falls
Where we are. We can do nothing,
as nothing obeys, we can only walk around
in the hollow echoing hold.
Flaking ladders take us to the bottom,
a cathedral of rust, an echoing grave of kings

To get a better feeling for the poet, be sure to visit the Ed Leeflang section of Poetry International Web. It might also be interesting to compare this poem with Adrienne Rich’s iconic “Diving into the Wreck.”

Visiting the Cargo Vessel (Bezoek aan het Vrachtschip), Strophe 2 by Ed Leeflang

On 26 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

One of a series of nine animations, by seven different animators, of a piece by Dutch poet Ed Leeflang (1929-2008). Six of the nine have been uploaded to Vimeo by the Revolver media production company, which also produces ads for clients such as Heineken, Bacardi and Philips. Two sections of “Visiting the Cargo Vessel” on Vimeo include an English translation in the notes, so I’ve decided to take the liberty of reproducing those translations here along with the videos (I’ll share the other one tomorrow).

The stop-motion animation for Strophe #2 is by Percy Tienhoven. You can see all six of the Vimeo uploads on a page at the Revolver media site.

This obviously isn’t a great translation, but one can still get a good sense of the meaning:

We look over the railing at the city spread wide
the moon cartwheeling over the spires and towers
The curving roof of the Central Station glistens softly,
In this theatre a ship is the last balcony on the left
Lights spread their light so capriciously
Concentric rings that dance wider in the dark water and return
Heavy pain spreads itself thus in body and spirit
wherever the secret channels are.
The Amsterdam we can hear buzzing with anger
Is not far way but is familiar.
We seem to be forgotten by our fellows
This makes us vulnerable and ready for a vision,
creatures who work on heavenly made to measure goods
In this face appear slumberers, drinkers,
Cast of the same die through poetic simplicity.
As the elm trees lining the canals are of an equal age.
We know, go shopping, go away and multiply.
And a grammar, overshadowed by clouds,
fed by rage, averse to empiricism,
Waves its cobra heads, the threat of poetry is in the air.

Separation by W. S. Merwin

On 22 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 3 Comments - Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

A highly imaginative use of Merwin’s short poem in a film called “Coping,” which Grace Cho says is the “first video/stop-motion that I made for my video class at Simon Fraser University.”

Rio Grande by Enrique Cabrera

On 21 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

Another animation by Francesca Talenti. Enrique Cabrera appears to be an Austin, Texas-based poet, though I couldn’t turn up a good webpage for him.

The Winter Rain by Wendell Berry

On 19 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

Time for another winter-themed poem to inspire those of us weathering the summer heat. This video is by The Erie Wire; the filmmaker isn’t identified.

Hypnosis at the Bird Factory by Thylias Moss

On 16 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYxhMAFK-e0

An enjoyable “adventure in vibration studies” from Forkergirl, who includes it in a webpage devoted to her limited fork theory. I’m not sure if this is a serious theory or a gentle parody of Thylias Moss’s academic colleagues, but it doesn’t matter. The video’s description at YouTube is delightful and worth reproducing in full:

STATUS REPORT OF A SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE WITHIN FORKING AND FORKED UNIVERSES, EMPHASIZING THOSE OUTSIDE OF SETI DOMAINS

SUBMITTED BY FORKERGIRL

So many vibrations, so many patterns of movement on so many scales in so many bifurcating systems, but at last a (temporary) match to the pattern of movement (and its associated audible and inaudible, on human scales, music) of a search for signs of intelligent life.

This status report describes the finding of a feather in a forking universe system in which the feather led to hypnosis at a bird factory presumed to be the source of the feather as no other intelligent-life constructions were observed though their unavailability for observation does not preclude the existence of other intelligent life constructions in this particular universe system. The feather itself was alive with possibilities, but as forkergirl had prior knowledge of birds, vibrations of that knowledge imposed limiting factors on those possibilities, resulting in a bounded infinity, as infinite as any other, though of a different size.

An inability to find other intelligent life constructions doesn’t mean they aren’t there and indeed could indicate that parameters of the search itself do not support finding evidence that forks so far from the parameters, the parameters cannot detect or measure presences outside detectable thresholds.

It is difficult at best to report on a reality based on hypnotic evolutions when such behaviors in many western depictions of Earth realities tend both to lack and to be unable to acquire scientific credence despite the existence of terminology for the mystical and supernatural, terms that refer to something, including, though not limited to, the substance of various forms of delusion, the mind being able to generate and sustain realities that do not require confirmation of existence from outside the mind’s imagined authority, real within the imaginary realm that (at this time) is difficult to measure though its roots are tethered to an organic and electrical human body nervous system relied upon by both objectivity and subjectivity, the empirical and the aesthetic.

The full status report is available as a PDF.

The Dot by Moniza Alvi

On 15 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: , | Filmmaker:

http://www.vimeo.com/12538662

British-Pakistani poet Moniza Alvi’s poem as interpreted by a student filmmaker in British Columbia.

God Bless Johnny Cash by James Brush

On 14 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems
Poet: | Nationality: | Filmmaker:

Poet and blogger James Brush’s very first go at the videopoem genre.

I haven’t made a video for fun in 16 years. Perhaps it was the time spent working on film sets in the early ’90s, but I lost interest somewhere along the way. The inspiration for this came from Christine Swint’s “Anybody’s Child” and Dave Bonta’s post on poets and technology over at Very Like a Whale. In the comments I mentioned that I have a film degree and probably should take a crack at doing a video poem sometime.

Then, this evening, I was about to post this poem along with audio of me reading. The poem started with some pictures I had taken of my guitar with the iphone Hipstamatic app, and I thought it would be cool to put one of the pictures up. Next thing I knew, I was building this video.

The “music” is something I recorded a few years back by overdubbing several tracks of me playing my guitar (well, really I was mostly playing the amplifier) and my wife’s bass. I’m not sure if it’s too loud, but I was trying to submerge the voice a little bit without losing too much clarity.

The post also includes the text of the poem. James’ film expertise really shows here, I think: the mix of sound and images is just right, and there’s just enough movement going on for this to qualify in my mind as a “moving poem,” even though, as he says, he was inspired in part by a recent, high-quality slideshow-video from Christine Swint. I love seeing poetry-blogger friends experiment with multimedia, and I’m proud of whatever small role I might have played in helping to make that happen.