~ 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.
At the Crossroads by David Bengtson
Poem by David Bengtson
Video by Media Mike Hazard (The Center for International Education) with a class of students at Long Prairie-Grey Eagle High School
Accordion: Juergen Brunkhorst
Tomorrow by Abbas Saffari
Translation and video by Niloufar Talebi for The Translation Project DVD, Midnight Approaches
Last year at the Orange County Poetry Festival, Talebi discussed the translation process using this poem as an example.
Aaj Bazar Mein by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
http://youtu.be/Ara199ZUiKQ
Poem and recitation by Faiz Ahmed Faiz
Video by umer05, whose description is worth quoting in full:
Faiz Ahmed Faiz is amongst the most famous poets of last century. Faiz, who was hounoured by Lenin Peace Prize in 1963, was seldom subjected to arrests by the right-wing pro-imperialist military regimes of Pakistan. Once, during the dictatorship of General Zia-ul-Haq, he was arrested and taken to the police station in front of the public. In this context, he wrote ‘Aaj Bazar mein’.
The video starts with a ‘mushairah’ (public recitation), where Faiz presents the poem, and describes its context. Then the video, with the melodious voice of Nayyara Noor in the background singing the verses of Faiz, shows the sufi culture of Pakistan, which was suppressed by the religious fundamentalist government of Zia-ul-Haq. Then, there are some clips of public floggings and public hangings of political dissidents, which were employed to ingrain terror in the people of Pakistan. Public floggings were a norm during Zia’s time. The video, then, takes us on a trip to a well-known red-light area of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. This red-light area is in the neighbourhood of a very famous mosque, a contradiction unresolved.
Poem for the Rivers Project by Tom Konyves
Poem by Tom Konyves
Video by Alex Konyves
In a comment at the YouTube posting, Tom gives the background for the poem.
In the summer of 2003, my 18-year-old son Alexander was working for a “Rivers” project at the Surrey Art Gallery — he kept pestering me to submit a poem. I wrote a 13-line poem which we posited over Alex’s abstract water-related images, all sustained by the drone of an unrelenting Didjeridu. The poetic narrative is resolved by a verbo-visual pun on the underside of the Alex Fraser Bridge.
El lenguaje de las hormigas (The Language of Ants) by Fernando Sarría
Poem by Fernando Sarría
Video by sonolopez (Javier López Clemente)
El lenguaje de las hormigas es húmedo, constante,
ligero pero lleno de matices y sabores.
Nada se determina de antemano,
reconocen las sendas claras y oscuras de la tierra,
de un cuerpo sonrosado y de un anhelo.
Su murmullo es la marca de su saliva,
la piel siempre deseándolas
y aunque cierren los oídos, las ventanas,
las puertas de la cama,
ellas, pacientes, sabrán esperar.
The Language by Robert Creeley
Animation by Chad Edwards of a poem by Robert Creeley.
Triple Sonnet of the Plush Pony Part 3, by Anne Carson
Poem by Anne Carson, from Possessive Used as Drink (Me), a lecture on pronouns in the form of 15 sonnets
Video by Sadie Wilcox
See “Recipe” for more information on the production.
Cadáver by Daniel Iván
Poem and video by Daniel Iván
