~ 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.
Bicycle Love Poem: Midtown to Canal by Jessica Jacobs
This delightful film by Tom Jacobsen (Pixel Farm) was one of the winners of Motionpoems‘ Big Bridges Film Festival in Minneapolis last year. Sophie Jacobsen is the actress and Jesse Marks provided the sound mix. The many nods to selfie culture recall some of the best video work of Alt Lit poet Steve Roggenbuck.
For more on the poet, Jessica Jacobs, see her website.
For women who are difficult to love by Warsan Shire
An atmospheric video by New York-based artist BriAnna Olson for Warsan Shire‘s widely circulated poem.
Relativity by Sarah Howe
I wanted to share something by Sarah Howe today to celebrate her winning the TS Eliot prize with her collection Loop of Jade, “the first debut poetry collection to win the British prize since it was inaugurated in 1993” as the Guardian pointed out. YouTube has a couple of good videos of her reading her work, but the only videopoem is this one by Bridget Smith, produced for National Poetry Day 2015. The renowned physicist Stephen Hawking reads a poem Howe wrote especially for him. He praised the poem on Facebook:
Physicists and poets may differ in discipline, but both seek to communicate the beauty of the world around us. … Sarah Howe brings light to life in her poem “Relativity.”
It sounds as if this video, or one very like it, will be part of an upcoming Bridget Smith exhibition at the Frith Street Gallery in London, The Eye Needs a Horizon:
A high definition video installation shows a beam of light emanating from an unseen projector. The film shows nothing but light and particles of dust, yet it evokes a sense of drama and indeed of immensity using the sparest of means.
River Bicycle Peony (from August Notebook: A Death) by Robert Hass
This is a kind of metaphor, a stop-motion animation by Paige Speight of Robert Hass‘s “River Bicycle Peony.” Evan Montilla provided the voiceover.
Mor säger att det är ett minne / Mother says that it’s a memory by Eva Ström
The filmmaker Marc Neys A.K.A. Swoon writes,
My last video for 2015 is also my most personal. Mor säger att det är ett minne is a poem by Eva Ström I found on lyrikline earlier this year. I decided to use it with the footage I shot during my mother’s last week. […]
I used the audio by Mechner (Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, 2005) as base for the music. Around Eva’s reading I composed a frail piece of music using only a piano and an old clock; [SoundCloud link]
The translation by Maria Freij was used as subtitles. […]
In the film you see my mother clipping her nails after bath. She had come home to die (after her decision to stop all treatment and medication). She wanted to spend her last days at home, with her children close by.
I am well aware that this video speaks to me and my family on a whole other level, but I also believe that the combination of this footage with the poem and the music works well for other people…
Thanks to Marc for his willingness to share such personal footage and go so deep.
Crows, Reckoning by Jessica Goodfellow
A poem by Jessica Goodfellow adapted to film for Motionpoems by Alex Hanson and Edward Chase Masterson of Commandr studio. See Masterson’s Vimeo upload for a full list of credits, which appear to have gone missing in Motionpoems’ otherwise fabulous new website design.
Released on January 1, this was the last episode (as they’re now calling them) in Motionpoems’ Season 6, which was produced in partnership with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and featured a lineup of all female U.S. poets. As with the others in this season, there’s a bonus interview with the poet. Here’s the final question and response:
What was your initial reaction to seeing the motionpoem?
I don’t know what I was expecting, but I had to watch the movie two or three times before I could take it in, because its story line was so different from the poem. I was all the while captivated by the the textures in the imagery, the childlike yet knowing voice of the narrator, the mystery of the film, those actual crows (I had expected animation since I did not think real animals would be feasible) and that final striking image. Even now, though I’ve watched the film a dozen times, it remains mysterious to me, but that’s the genius of what Alex Hanson and Edward Chase Masterson have done—adding layers of mystery rather than in trying to explicate the poem. Because of their film, the poem has become a deeper, more moving experience, one that evokes a despair in me that I did not expect.
Smell! by William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams’ own recitation of his poem is included in the soundtrack of this animation by Isaac Holland. The video is part of the Poetry of Perception series commissioned by Harvard for its Fundamentals of Neuroscience course.
Situation 7 by Claudia Rankine
Published online at TriQuarterly a year ago, this is the most recent of the Situation videos produced by Claudia Rankine with her husband, documentary photographer John Lucas, and included in text form in her award-winning collection of prose poetry Citizen.
Transmission by Ashleigh Lambert
Australian artist Marie Craven describes her first videopoem in many months as
Some fun with Sheffield dance music, DIY visual fx and poetry.
Concept & Editing: Marie Craven pixieguts.com
Music & Mixing: Adrian Carter soundcloud.com/adicarter
Voice: Nic S. verylikeawhale.wordpress.com
From a poem by Ashleigh Lambert poetrystorehouse.com/2015/03/28/ashleigh-lambert-poems
It’s nice to see filmmakers continuing to draw upon work in the Poetry Storehouse.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Working Order”
Working Order
poem by Dora Malech
video by Gentleman Scholar, for Motionpoems
2015
Gentleman Scholar is a group of solution-driven artists situated at the intersection of story, style and technology. Wielding extensive experience in strategy, live-action production, animation, digital and print, we help the world’s leading agencies and brands tell their stories.
—bio on Vimeo
Gentleman Scholar created fabulous effects to illustrate the poem “Working Order” by Dora Malech. They have used a combination of animation programs to achieve a fluidity that enhances as well as captures the essence of the poetry. I personally prefer this painterly approach (there are several brush stroke filters in Photoshop that imitate painting) to the usual bells and whistles that go along with 3-D modeling, Maya and whatever else, that intends to dazzle the viewer.
The pace is fast and combined with a motion blur, Working Order gives the illusion that the paint is moving. It would be great to see it in 3-D. That would be a nice touch.
I love great art that moves. Gentleman Scholar are highly successful in their application of digital painting. A good many video-poetry artists struggle to get the same impact using illustration, photography and/or enhanced video. This group shines through and brings new life to the genre.
The combination of Malech’s poem and Gentleman Scholar’s visuals has resulted in a stunning work of art. By using this method they have not only bumped poetry video up a notch, but have succeeded in making it the quintessential platform of the 21st century.
For Gentelman Scholar’s own assessment of the video, as well as the full credits, see their website.
