~ 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.
Balliwamta by Velimir Lobsang
On this day of international solidarity with Belgium, I’m sharing the most Belgian videopoem I could find. Marc Neys A.K.A. Swoon is the filmmaker, credited on Vimeo with “concept, add. mouthsounds & music, editing & grading,” and his fellow countryman Velimir Lobsang contributed the reading and the soundpoem. In an old blog post about an earlier collaboration, Marc explained the poet’s pseudonym:
‘Velimir’ is de voornaam van de Russische futurist ‘Chlebnikov’ en ‘Lobsang’ is een Tibetaanse naam die zoiets betekent als ‘positieve, heilzame studie’, aldus J.V. een ex-collega die onder het wonderlijke pseudoniem Velimir Lobsang gedichten schrijft.
(“Velimir” is the [first] name of the Russian futurist Khlebnikov and “Lobsang” is a Tibetan name that means something like “positive, wholesome study,” says JV, a former colleague who writes poems under the strange pseudonym Velimir Lobsang.)
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: Poetry Film in its Infancy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz3u0hPOTqw
from Two Too Young
poem: “The Charge Of The Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, performed by Carl Switzer
directed by Gordon Douglas
1936
In my quest to find the perfect video poem I stumbled upon a wonderful piece that brought me back to my childhood: “The Charge Of The Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as performed by Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer. Could this be the early days or even perhaps the first poetry film?
When I was a child the preferred baby sitter in our house was the TV. Back then morning television was limited to Farmer Grey cartoons, and reruns of The Little Rascals.
The Our Gang/Little Rascals version of “The Charge Of The Light Brigade” may not actually be the first poetry film, but it does have a place. Strictly humorous, watered down and marginalized, for many it was our first exposure to the art form better known as pop culture. I assume the intention was not to spark a new genre, however producer and creator Hal Roach did just that. If not the first at least he played a role in the development of video/film poetry. Unintentionally history or film poetry history was made.
This particular YouTube version includes some of my favorite actors: Spanky McFarland, June Marlowe (Miss Crabtree) and Eugene Gordon Lee (Porky.)
Not to stray too far off topic, Warner Brothers had a part in introducing young minds to this satiric (distorted) form of our art as well. What’s Opera Doc? from what I can remember is probably my first opera. I got hooked not only on the music but it assisted in deepening my appreciation for the art of animation, hence my love of video poetry.
Wagner’s Siegfried starring Elmer Fudd as the titular hero and Bugs Bunny as Brunhilde. Elmer is again hunting rabbits as they sing, dance and eat the scenery. For me it’s a walk down memory lane:
What’s Opera, Doc?
directed by Chuck Jones
screenplay by Michael Maltese
voice actors: Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan
1957
One Dream Opening Into Many by Kallie Falandays
American poet Kallie Falandays’ text is superimposed onto mirrored images in a new videopoem by Australian artist Marie Craven. The soundtrack is by SK123. This approach to video imagery is one that Craven has used before, in her videos Transmission and Double Life, but One Dream Opening Into Many is in my view even more effective in its sleight-of-hand gestures toward the text:
[…] This bird,
which is also not a bird, is still dyingbut at times, when my mother hobbles
past the window to get water,
the sunlight clouds it like tiny peoplemade of light stepping over the ocean
and it is set free.
Perhaps it’s an inversion of our usual way of thinking about poetry to have the text-on-screen in this videopoem seem more stable, less evanescent than the folding and unfolding elements of the world to which it alludes.
Hotelsituation, langes Liegen / Hotel Situation, Long Recumbency by Steffen Popp
A film by Marc Neys (AKA Swoon) using a poem by the contemporary German poet Steffen Popp. The poet’s recitation and the English translation by Christian Hawkey were sourced from Lyrikline. The choice to have the untranslated audio version first, followed by the translation as text-on-screen, is unusual, but I think it works, echoed as it is by the vertically split screen. It does mean, however, that more than two-thirds of the film is devoted to the slower-moving English version.
The house and the surrounding fields by Ed Madden
One of three short videopoems from the South Carolina-based filmmaking duo Allen Wheeler in support of Ed Madden‘s new poetry collection Ark (Sibling Rivalry Press), ahead of the launch on Sunday. Quoting the publisher’s description:
In a spring of floods, a son returns to rural Arkansas to help care for his dying father. Ark is a book about family, about old wounds and new rituals, about the extraordinary importance of ordinary things at the end of life, about the gifts of healing to be found in the care of the dying. At once a memoir in verse about hospice care and a son’s book-length lament for his father, Ark is a book about the things that can be fixed, and those that can’t. Ed Madden is originally from Arkansas and is currently the Poet Laureate of Columbia, South Carolina.
Wheeler and Madden have also made an exemplary book trailer, incorporating the above poem as well as some blurbs:
Creased Map of the Underworld by Kim Addonizio
Kim Addonizio‘s poem was adapted to film by Thomas Bryan Michurski for Motionpoems, where one can also read interviews with the poet and filmmaker. Addonizio’s reaction to the film was very positive:
I (naively) thought there’d be some images from the poem. But like how the words are set against the simple actions & the mood it all creates.
Michurski talks about the attraction of working mostly in advertising, then describes his approach to filming:
I like to prepare, but I don’t like to plan. I have shots in my head that I want, but experimentation is essential for me. I always have my fingers crossed for that surprising moment or happy accident. It’s like carving a marble statue–something good is already in the scene, I just need to chip away and find it.
Can you describe the creative process behind the film for Creased Map of the Underworld?
It was the first poem I read and knew immediately I wanted to work with it. I was drawn to the “innocence of death” idea. At first I struggled with how I could visually play along with the vivid imagery in the poem. The treatment I created was much different, using high contrast black and white, with a much more diverse scene and shot list, more like a music video. I realized as I was in first edit that I didn’t need to illustrate the poem because it was powerful enough. I wanted to add to the idea and not distract from it.
Did you find it more difficult to create a “poetry in motion” as compared to your other films?
The difficulty was removing myself from the need to “make a film about a poem”. I had to separate myself from belief that it had to follow a style, thus becoming a parody of another film. Once I decided that I didn’t care if anyone liked it, it was much easier to let all of the expectations go and just let it be.
What prompted you to use a specific animal to symbolize death?
It was between the girl viewing the body of an older self or discovering an animal. I even entertained a version where those visuals alternated, but the idea of how death sees death gets too twisted and meta in that scenario. The deer works well because its size and innocence matches the girl’s.
What do you hope that the audience will take from watching this film?I hope they pay attention to an amazing poem told from an alternate perspective. As humans we have an adverse, and sometimes unhealthy reaction to death and we don’t appreciate the necessity and fascinating beauty of it.
Annabel Hess is the young actress, the narration is by Jan Pettit, and David Schnack is credited with cinematography.
