~ contests ~
We strive to link to as many poetry film/video contests and calls for entries as we can. (See also the festivals category.) Please let us know about any we might miss.
All festivals, events and calls for work are mentioned by Moving Poems with our best efforts and in good faith. However, do check all details yourself as we cannot guarantee accuracy, and make your own judgements because we cannot verify the things that we share. Events may fail for a variety of genuine reasons, or may be a scam to elicit fees.
Videopoetry challenge: help me shape a new(ish) style of videohaiku
This collaboratively produced videopoem with text by James Brush represents a new approach to videohaiku for me: one in which the first part of the haiku is represented by film footage, which freezes and transitions to text roughly where a mid-poem kireji or cutting word would occur in a Japanese haiku.
[A mid-verse] kireji performs the paradoxical function of both cutting and joining; it not only cuts the ku into two parts, but also establishes a correspondence between the two images it separates, implying that the latter represents the poetic essence (本意 hon’i) of the former, creating two centres and often generating an implicit comparison, equation, or contrast between the two separate elements.
It’s an approach for which I am partly indebted to Tom Konyves, who in his Videopoetry: A Manifesto cites Eric Cassar’s minimalist videohaiku as normative for the genre—”The videohaiku (approx. 30 seconds) uses a few words of text attached to the shortest duration of images”—and who responded to some recent thoughts of mine about different approaches to videohaiku (and there are many!) with a comment that took me a little while to digest. I had mentioned one approach in which a long shot (or series of related shots) is followed by the haiku as text-on-screen, so that the shot(s) function more or less like the painting in a traditional haiga as well as suggesting something about the poet’s observational process leading up to the composition of the haiku. This is a method both James and I have experimented with in the past. Quoting a description of the two-part structure of a typical haiku, Tom wrote:
The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this “method” addresses a question about videopoetry’s strategies re: word-image relationships in the fact that the observation of the first segment – the division into two semantic elements of unequal length, usually corresponding to two different images or ideas, which for maximum effect should have some relationship but not too immediately obvious a one – is best achieved by the image, while the non-sequitur of the second segment is best expressed in words (the text in a videopoem).
It was with this on my mind last Monday that, rather on the spur of the moment, I challenged Facebook friends and members of the POOL group there to write something to go with a section of a randomly chosen old home movie from the Prelinger Archives. I gave them six hours, later extended to eight, and linked to my post from the Moving Poems Twitter account as well:
Ekphrastic haiku challenge: I need a haiku to feature in a haiga-style short film using footage from this old home movie—the section from 3:50 to 4:50 where the baby is brandishing a flower. Haiku should contain no more than 17 syllables but may contain fewer; kigo unnecessary; number of lines unimportant. It should work as a poem and should probably refer obliquely to the film imagery at best. You’ll be fully credited as author, and the resulting video may appear on Moving Poems if I’m satisfied with it. Email haiku (as many attempts as you like) to me: bontasaurus@yahoo.com by 10:00 PM tonight (Monday), New York time (3:00 AM GMT).
In short order I received 27 submissions from 13 people, most of them published poets along with a couple of inspired amateurs. I soon realized that my instructions had been inadequate if not down-right misleading. I shouldn’t have specified that a submission should work as a poem, because the lines that seemed to work best with the footage felt incomplete until I imagined them following the footage. James had started with a rather high-concept idea and pared it down in the course of three drafts. I suggested two further edits. What finally emerged was this:
…
how your hands burn
for the sun
with the ellipsis standing in for the footage of the baby in a meadow waving a daisy around. (One could even make it fit into a line: babe with a flower, say, or toddler in the yard.)
I’m excited by the result, and I’d like to propose a new challenge to help us further explore the possibilities of videohaiku. This time I’ll make the deadline midnight on Monday, New York time — i.e., 5:00 AM January 13 GMT. (That’s for people who get the weekly email digest and read it at work on Monday.) I tend to resist the idea that haiku need to be about nature all the time, so found a home movie, evidently from the 1930s, that features two men, naked but for jock straps, playing American handball in an indoor court. There are many minutes of that footage both at the beginning and end of the movie, but as before, I’ll select less than a minute of it, so feel free to suggest specific sections to use with your submission of haiku — or should I say, half-haiku. Because the idea this time is not to submit something that would necessarily stand on its own as a printed poem, but something that can be wedded with the footage as its other half, “generating an implicit comparison, equation, or contrast between the two separate elements” as the Wikipedia entry on kireji puts it.
Again, please use email (bontasaurus @yahoo.com) to submit, and send along as many suggestions as you like. Also, feel free to consider the possibility that the footage might fall in the second part of the verse, with one or two lines of text at the beginning. Would that even work as a poetry film? Could the flinging of a handball operate even as an end-of-verse kireji?
If you’re unfamiliar with haiku, or wonder why a lot of us who write it in English no longer believe in “5-7-5,” I recommend the Wikipedia entry on haiku, Imaoka Keiko’s essay “Forms in English Haiku,” and an excellent brief for writing haiku based on art or literature, rather than exclusively on direct experience: “Beyond the Haiku Moment: Basho, Buson and Modern Haiku myths” by Haruo Shirane. And for a good overview of 20th-century and contemporary haiku, I strongly recommend the Spring 2009 issue of Cordite, “Haikunaut.” The issue index at that link isn’t actually complete, because the essays are as illuminating as the poetry, so start with David Lanoue’s introduction and use the “next post” links to page through. By the end of it, you should have a pretty comprehensive picture of the variety of modern traditional and experimental haiku… except for videohaiku, which they don’t mention. I guess it’s up to us to write that chapter.
News roundup: Read Our Lips Filmpoem Competition, Rabbit Heart DVD, animated poetry film screening in Leipzig
Spoken-word poets from the north of England are invited to submit films to the Read Our Lips Filmpoem Competition 2015.
Read Our Lips is a unique digital project that aims to give poets and spoken word artists the skills to make their own filmpoems, from storyboarding through to editing.
We believe that a filmpoem is not a recording of a performance to camera, but is instead a layering of visual elements on to a spoken poem in such a way as to create a new, coherent work of art. We are looking for films that do more than simply illustrate the featured poem in a literal way, but which seek to surprise, enhance or subvert by their choice of additional imagery.
Click through to the Facebook event listing for the competition terms and conditions. The deadline is February 23, 2015. Prizes total £225. (I especially liked this bit: “All poems will be screened online during March 2015 for entry into the viewer’s choice prize category.”)
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Here’s a cool thing: just in time for the holidays, a Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival 2014 DVD from Doublebunny Press.
All the best video from the 2014 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival collected in one place, including category reels, and the Best of What Not to Submit Monday.
Films by:
Yves Bommenel, Greg Brisendine, John Mortara, Sarah Guimond, Aisha Naseem & Chris Markman, Josh Lefkowitz and Chris Follmer, David Richardson, Timothy David Orme, Meriel Lland, Megan Falley and Rachel Rae Gausp, Malt Schlitzman, Cheryl Maddalena, Sou MacMillan, Jenith Charpentier, Laura EJ Moran, Scott Woods, Michael Medeiros, Cassidy Parker Knight & Jeff Knight, and Allan & the Nieces
To sample some of the films included on the DVD, see their YouTube page.
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Here’s an upcoming screening that sounds kind of intriguing: Leipzig-Präsentation von LAB/P – poetry in motion.
Wir präsentieren 9 Animationsfilme, die in der interdisziplinären Zusammenarbeit von AutorInnen und FilmemacherInnen aus der Region entstanden sind. Die Werke ermöglichen einen spannenden Einblick in zeitgenössische Lyrik und Animationsästhetik und geben Gelegenheit, neue künstlerische Positionen zu entdecken.
Which Google Translate renders as:
We present 9 animated films that have arisen in the interdisciplinary collaboration between authors and filmmakers from the region. The works provide a fascinating insight into contemporary poetry and animation aesthetics and given the opportunity to discover new artistic positions.
Here are the details:
Donnerstag, 11. Dezember 2014
Kleiner Empfang ab 19:30 Uhr, Vorführungsbeginn 20:00 Uhr
UT Connewitz, Wolfgang-Heinze-Straße 12, 04277 Leipzig, www.utconnewitz.deProgramm:
KANTEN DEINER AUGEN (Melissa Harms & Yevgeniy Breyger)
ROSTOCK, GRAND CAFÉ (Susann Arnold & Moritz Gause)
DAS BILD IN DEM BILD IN DEM BILD IN DEM BILD (Catalina G. Veléz & Marlen Pelny)
ECHO (Damaris Zielke & Peter Thiers)
AUSGEBRANNTES HAUS (Eva-Maria Arndt & Antje Kersten)
OHNE TITEL (Meng Chang & Daniel Schmidt)
VIVA VIOLENCE (Johanna Maxl & Katharina Merten)
DIE ANGST DES WOLFS VOR DEM WOLF (Juliane Jaschnow & Stefan Petermann)
KASPAR HAUSERIN (Nelly Chernetskaya & Katia S. Ditzler)
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Thanks for all three of these news items to the fabulous Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, who seems to know about everything related to poetry film going on anywhere on the world, and posts it all to the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival group page on Facebook.
Call for submissions + new documentary on Motionpoems’ “Arrivals and Departures” installation
If, like me, you’ve been wondering just how Motionpoems managed the logistical hurdles of projecting films onto the front of a train station, what it looked like, and how it was received by the general public, this great little “micro-documentary” gives a pretty good indication.
If you’re a U.S.-based poet and would like the chance to be considered for next year’s version of Arrivals and Departures, the deadline is fast approaching: November 30! I got this reminder in my email inbox yesterday from the CRWROPPS-B list:
SUBMIT TO ARRIVALS & DEPARTURES YEAR 2!
See your poem turned into a film and projected onto the 1,000-foot neoclassical facade of Saint Paul’s Union Depot in Motionpoems’ latest annual public art installation. Poems accepted on the theme of “Arrivals and Departures” through Nov 30. Broad interpretations of the theme encouraged. Poems accepted from all non-Minnesota U.S. residents (Minnesota poets will be invited to submit again in Year 4).
MORE ABOUT THE CONTEST:
Entrants are urged to consider the theme of “Arrivals and Departures” in broad terms. Although this project celebrates the newly revitalized Depot, the Depot isn’t the project’s subject. It’s just the canvas upon which the poems will be experienced. Entrants should consider not what the Depot is, but what it represents, as a source of diversity, culture, commerce, influence, inspiration, and exploration. Also consider the Depot as an early manifestation of newer depots in modern life, which may include the International Space Station, for example, or other ways in which mankind is ‘departing’ or ‘arriving’ culturally, intellectually, spiritually, etc. Poems about trains are less encouraged. Poems published within the last five years will be considered in addition to previously unpublished poems.WHERE TO SUBMIT:
Submissions can only be made online via Submittable at https://motionpoems.submittable.com/submit/34138. Submit one poem only; multiple submissions will disqualify you. The poem should be no more than 500 words. Translations are not eligible, but poems published within the last five years are eligible. Use the “bio” and “cover letter” fields to tell us who you are, how you learned about this project, and why you would like to be part of it.DEADLINE:
Entry deadline is November 30, 2014. No entries will be accepted after the deadline.WHAT HAPPENS NEXT:
All finalist poems will be presented to filmmakers, but only a handful will be developed into films. That handful of poems will be selected by participating filmmakers based on individual preference, as part of an open call to filmmakers in partnership with Independent Filmmaker Project New York. Motionpoems does not guarantee the number of films to be made. Remember: Not all finalist poems will be made into films.MORE INFORMATION:
To read the complete guidelines and submit: https://motionpoems.submittable.com/submit/34138To read the Official Terms of Entry: http://www.motionpoems.com/a-and-d-2-terms/
For more about Arrivals and Departures Year 1: http://www.motionpoems.com/arrivals-departures-at-st-pauls-union-depot/
To learn more about Motionpoems and watch 5 seasons of motionpoems: http://www.motionpoems.com
In other Motionpoems news, there’s an interesting note on their About page regarding their next regular season of films: “Season 6 is a special collaboration with VIDA: WOMEN IN THE ARTS, designed to balance the Motionpoems ecosystem with more poetry by women.” I’ll be looking forward to that. VIDA is a good organization.
Results of the Poetry Storehouse’s First Anniversary Contest
Remix Category results
by Erica Goss
From the judges (Dave Bonta, Erica Goss & Marc Neys):
The winner of best video for the Poetry Storehouse’s First Anniversary Contest is:
Marie Craven for “First Grade Activist”
(based on the poem by Nic S.)
Watch the video at Moving Poems’ main site.
In judging the contest, we looked for an overall fit between the poem, images and soundtrack. The winner had to demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the elements of video poetry, blending them to create an artwork that is more than the sum of its parts.
As we evaluated the contest entries, we watched the videos many times over. Dave watched each video on different days, to try to eliminate the influence of whatever mood he might be in at the time, while Marc says he looked at “the total package, the crafting, as in editing skills, original camerawork, and the visual concept and originality.” For my part, I watched looking for that indescribable quality that a good video poem has, the juxtaposition of poetry, sound and image that jumps from the screen.
We agreed that “First Grade Activist” has those qualities. Dave said it had a “great populist aesthetic, as is appropriate for the subject matter. The music is fitting and compelling. The split screen with text on the left is on one hand reminiscent of a classroom blackboard, and on the other just a good choice for a self-referential poem like this one. I like everything about it.”
I thought it dealt well with a subject that’s gotten a lot of attention lately: bullying. I love that the poem imagines a “first grade activist” who combats bullying with a poem praising her friend’s red hair, the very attribute she’s getting teased for. As the children march down the hallway, little ones first, we feel the pain of the child who doesn’t fit in and the courage of her friend, who imagines a way to help.
Marc added, “The video is as crisp and fresh as a first school day, with a strong and taut concept in a tight execution. Good rhythm and good use of split screen in combination with the poem on screen (and the use of red in the letters). The music brings it together and gives it a nice build up, while the visuals remain the same. The video is clever and actually lifts the poem to a higher level.”
Congratulations to Marie Craven for winning the contest, and thanks to all who sent in their work.
Disclaimer: Although Nic S.’s voice and poem are part of the winning video, she had no part in the judging of the contest.
Poetry Category results
At the Poetry Storehouse, we believe multi-genre work is truly special. The best ekphrastic art will draw from the spirit of two (or more) separate works to truly create something new, ideally allowing the very best of multiple genres to shine in a single work.
As the judge of the poetry portion of the 2014 Poetry Storehouse Anniversary Contest, I was excited to see the new life our entrants would breathe into our video offerings. How would they respond, I wondered, to Marc Neys’ dark, psychological clip, Eduardo Yagüe’s gritty but hopeful urban commentary or Lori Ersolmaz’s semi-expressionist land- and water-scapes?
We could not be happier with the answer to that question. We were looking for poems of individual merit, of course, but more importantly we wanted pieces that paired with the visual imagery to tease out ideas, nuances and feelings that neither poem nor video could evoke on its own. And we found them.
Thus, we are proud to congratulate the winner of the poetry portion of the 2014 Poetry Storehouse Anniversary Contest.
“Backward Like a Ghost” by Amy Miller
(based on a film by Lori Ersolmaz)
We also chose three runners-up, one for each video presented to contest entrants:
“Muscle Memory” by Michael Biegner
(based on a film by Lori Ersolmaz)
“Foretold” by Luisa A. Igloria
(based on a film by Marc Neys)
“I Was Grass” by Amy Miller
(based on a film by Eduardo Yagüe)
The poetry entries were screened by Marielle Prince and Jessica Burnquist, who were indispensable to this process. Thanks to them, and to Lori, Eduardo and Marc for creating such incredible videos for this contest.
Editor’s note: We’ll share the poems on the main site along with the resulting video remixes when they are completed. Stay tuned.
About the winners
Marie Craven (music, videos) began making independent films on celluloid in the mid 1980s as part of the super 8 group in Melbourne, Australia. She was involved in experimental and narrative filmmaking on 16mm and 35mm throughout the 1990s and the short films she directed were successful on the international festival circuit. Screenings included the festivals of Cannes, Rotterdam, London, Sydney and about 100 others. In the 2000s the digital age saw her finding special interest in newer technologies and the possibilities of internet collaboration. Since this time she has collaborated widely as a vocalist for electronic musicians around the world. More recently she has returned to audiovisual arts through poetry video.
Amy Miller’s poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Rattle, Spillway, Willow Springs, and ZYZZYVA. Winner of the Cultural Center of Cape Cod National Poetry Competition, judged by Tony Hoagland, she has been a finalist for the Pablo Neruda Prize, the 49th Parallel Award, and the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. She works as the publications manager of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and blogs at Writer’s Island.
Michael Biegner has had work published in Blooms and Silkworm, and has taken part in Florence Poetry Society’s annual poetry festival. His prose poem (“When Walt Whitman Was A Little Girl”) was converted into a video short by North Carolina filmmaker Jim Haverkamp, where it has traveled across the nation and overseas, winning best of show and other honors in various film festivals. He has been part of UMASS MFA program’s Juniper Institute, studying with poets such as Matea Harvey, Matthew Zapruder and Dan Chelotti. He has taken part in Patrick Donnally’s Writing Poetry for Performance workshops. Biegner received his M.Ed in Education and is currently studying for his MAT where he hopes to teach writing. He lives in Western Massachusetts with his wife of many years.
Luisa A. Igloria‘s books include Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (Utah State University Press, selected by Mark Doty for the 2014 May Swenson Prize), Night Willow: Prose Poems (Phoenicia Publishing, Montreal, 2014), The Saints of Streets (2013), Juan Luna’s Revolver (2009 Ernest Sandeen Prize, UND Press), Trill & Mordent (WordTech Editions, 2005), and 8 other books. Luisa has degrees from the University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University, and the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was a Fulbright Fellow from 1992-1995. She currently directs the MFA Creative Writing Program at Old Dominion University. She enjoys cooking with her family, book-binding, and listening to tango music.
Motionpoems’ “Colossal 3D poetry film installation” prepares for first run, issues nation-wide call for entries for 2015
Most poets seem to limit their greatest bursts of creativity to their writing, but Minnesota-based poet and force of nature Todd Boss (check out his new website) seems to come up with ingenious ideas for public poetry projects almost once a year — and given his background as an arts administrator, he then makes them happen, too. He’s really committed to bringing poetry to the people. He of course co-founded Motionpoems, of which he is still Executive and Artistic Director. In 2012, he worked with Swedish visual artist Maja Spasova on a large-scale public art project in the Mississippi River, Project 35W, which included audio stations and a print supplement of the associated poems in the local newspaper. Then there’s this:
https://vimeo.com/103811378
“Arrivals & Departures at Saint Paul’s Union Depot” has a page on the Motionpoems website. Let me paste in the first part of the announcement (minus some of the formatting):
A L L A B O A R D
F O R A M A J O R M O T I O N P O E M S P U B L I C A R T P R O J E C T“Arrivals & Departures at Saint Paul’s Union Depot”
C O M I N G | S T . P A U L | O C T 1 0 – 1 1 , 2 0 1 4
Motionpoems and public artist Todd Boss present “Arrivals & Departures at St Paul’s Union Depot,” a colossal 3D poetry film installation that will magically transform the facade of one of St Paul’s most impressive landmark buildings.
Follow #DepotPoems
for weather and late-breaking updates.This is the first of an annual projection.
NOW CALLING FOR POEMS by US poets. DEADLINE Nov 30, 2014.
Click here to enter.We selected a handful of original poems by Minnesotans (theme: “Arrivals & Departures”) from a statewide call for poems (CLOSED), then commissioned Minnesota film teams to turn finalist poems into short films to fit digitally mapped 3D templates of the building.
In Oct 2014, we’ll project the films onto the screen-filled facade of St Paul’s historic Union Depot to loop at 5-minute intervals like trains, with accompanying audio from lawn-area speakers, during the St Paul Art Crawl, October 10-12, 2014.
The artistic vision for this project is to celebrate Union Depot’s renaissance as a rail hub with an act of place-making that will reclaim the space in the hearts and minds of all who experience it.
Read the rest (including the 2014 winning poems by Brian Beatty, Robert Dougherty, Mike Rollin, and Linda Back McKay).
Todd Boss, meanwhile, isn’t resting on his laurels. Next spring, Minneapolis-Saint Paul residents will get to experience the Wee Cinema:
https://vimeo.com/104415198
The Poetry Storehouse First Anniversary Contest
(Reblogged from The Poetry Storehouse.)
The Poetry Storehouse opened its doors on October 15, 2013 and since then has amassed a fabulous collection of poems and audio-visual remixes based on those poems, thanks to a more than 100-strong (and growing) community of poets, remixers and readers.
Creative energy is never created from scratch, nor does it ever die, but continually morphs from form to form as each of us is inspired by what has gone before us and in turn inspires what comes after us. Unique for its three categories of contributors – poets, remixers and readers – who engage with each others’ work with always interesting and frequently stunning results, the Storehouse embodies that continual passing on of the creative baton.
Join us in celebrating these awesome community achievements by participating in the Poetry Storehouse First Anniversary Contest as either a remixer or a poet, details below. Deadline for all contest submissions is midnight EST on Sunday October 19, 2014.
FOR REMIXERS
Create a remix (a video remix, an art collage, a soundscape, a sound collage, or surprise us) in response to any Storehouse poem currently up at the site. All contest remixes must be created on or after September 22, 2014. If you would like a reading by a specific Storehouse reader for the poem you select, email nic_sebastian at hotmail dot com and we will see what we can do for you.
Audio-video judges – Marc Neys (aka Swoon), Erica Goss and Dave Bonta
Art judge – Peter Ciccariello
The winning remix, depending on its format, will be featured by The Poetry Storehouse, Moving Poems and The Third Form.
Contest submissions – please email nic_sebastian at hotmail dot com with a link to your submission or to discuss the best format for your submission.
FOR POETS
Write a poem in response to one of these three videos by Storehouse remixers:
Poetry judge – Jessica Piazza
Our judge, working with a panel of screeners, will select one poem for each of the three videos and all three clips will be finished by the original film-maker to incorporate the selected poems. The three finished clips and poems will be showcased both at The Poetry Storehouse and by our contest collaboration partner, Menacing Hedge.
Contest submissions – please use our submissions manager and submit in the ‘Poetry Storehouse 1st Anniversary Contest‘ category.
Video clip by Eduardo Yagüe
http://vimeo.com/106044618
back to video list
Video clip by Marc Neys
Video clip by Lori Ersolmaz
Poetry film festival news: Ó Bhéal releases shortlist; TARP plans 24-hour-long festival
There was poetry film festival news out of Ireland and Lithuania this week. Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition, due to be screened on October 18-19 in Cork, released its shortlist.
The competition shortlist of thirty films which follows, will be screened in two parts, at the Smurfit Theatre in The Firkin Crane, Cork. These have been chosen from over eighty submissions of poetry films completed in the last two years, from twelve countries – Ireland, England, Canada, USA, Ukraine, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Lebanon, Isle of Man and Macedonia/Croatia. The Ó Bhéal panel of judges will select one overall winner, who will receive the IndieCork festival award for best poetry film, at the awards ceremony. This year’s judges are Paul Casey, Stephen O’Riordan, Rosie O’Regan and Rab Urquhart.
And a post in English at the TARP website outlines the programme for this year’s festival.
Every year the audiovisual poetry festival TARP challenges itself and the audience – this year they will present a unique format of an event. Once the festival lasted for a month and visited the bigger cities in Lithuania, the only festival for interdisciplinary poetry will last for twenty four hours this year – from 9 am on 11 October until the same hour on 12 October in various places in the capital city.
The programme includes a preview of the 2014 ZEBRA festival due to take place in Berlin a week later, hosted by ZEBRA director Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, as well as the opening of an international exhibition of graphic type animation, concerts, performances and more — check it out. It’s full of ideas that other festival planners might benefit from.
Organizers of the audiovisual poetry festival TARP have the right to surprise. Maybe the day has twenty five hours, maybe not read but performed text can have a completely different meaning.
Call for submissions: Don McKay Video Poem Contest
There certainly are some interesting contests popping up these days. The Victoria Writers Festival in Victoria, British Columbia is sponsoring a contest for videos based on the poems of Canadian poet Don McKay.
Yes! To celebrate the publication of Angular Unconformity: The Collected Poems of Don McKay (Goose Lane Editions, 2014), we invite anyone with a camera and/or computer and a little editing savvy to create a video that “performs” any poem of Don McKay’s. You can easily find poems by this giant of Canadian poetry online, in bookstores and libraries, or hopefully on your own shelves. Prizes in two categories: Youth (under 18) and Adult.
THE SIMPLE RULES:
1. Videos must be no longer than five minutes.
2. Videos must include the entire poem.
3. Don McKay MUST be credited as the writer in the film itself and in the video description at YouTube or Vimeo, along with the title of the book or magazine in which the poem appeared, the publisher, and the date of publication.
4. Know copyright. Get permission to use audio, video and photography, or ensure that what you use is in the public domain. Moving Poems has compiled details about fair use, and links to troves of public domain video and audio here: Web Resources for Videopoem Makers. Best yet, shoot your own material. (Don McKay has given his permission for his poems to be used in this contest.)
5. Upload your video to YouTube or to Vimeo and send us the link at victoriawritersfestival@gmail.com. Please note if you are entering as a Youth.
6. Have fun – Don does!
The deadline is November 1, and the festival takes place November 6-8. Click through for details about judges, entry fees, and prizes, as well as samples of McKay’s poetry.
I’m glad to see my web resources guide put to good use, but I’m especially delighted to see a regular writers festival creating a space for videopoetry. I think this is part of a growing, international trend for writing or poetry festivals to include a screening of poetry films. In a few more years, it may seem odd to put on a writing festival and not include film or video in some way.
Right Hand Pointing magazine tempts poets to submit with promise of a video made from their work
The always innovative online literary magazine Right Hand Pointing has hired an unusual reader for their next issue.
81: (December 2014): Special poetry issue: “Swoon,” One to three poems will be selected by Marc Neys who, under the name “Swoon” creates videos incorporating poems. Marc will create a video based on the winning one, two, or three poems. We will begin reading for this issue immediately. Deadline October 31, 2014.
And check out their fancy multimedia guidelines! I can’t remember the last time I was so entertained by a list of rules.
Neys probably needs no introduction to regular readers/viewers of Moving Poems, but just in case, here’s his website.
Independent animator Neely Goniodsky invites submissions to Kickstarter-funded animated poetry contest
Well, this is different. And potentially very cool. As Goniodsky points out at the very bottom of the page, professional animation doesn’t come cheap. “If this were a commissioned project, my fee would be between 5K to 15K depending on the amount of work involved.” And she does have an impressive bio and demo reel. Do click through to get all the contest details, watch the demo reel, or even donate to the Kickstarter campaign to help fund it. (For as little as $5.00, you’d be able to view the film as soon as it’s made.)
(Hat-tip: poet Peter Cherches on Facebook)
Ó Bhéal poetry-film competition is open for submissions
I’ve just learned that the 2nd Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition 2014 is open for submissions. I’m sure they won’t mind if I reproduce their call.
Ó Bhéal is pleased to continue its association with the IndieCork festival of independent cinema (www.indiecork.com). This is Ó Bhéal’s fifth year of screening poetry-films (or video-poems), and the second year featuring an International competition.
Thirty films will be shortlisted and screened during the festival from 12th-19th October 2014. One winner will be selected by the Ó Bhéal jury.
Deadline for submissions is the 15th of September 2014.
Guidelines
Entry is free to anyone, and should be made via email (after May 12th 2014) to poetryfilm [at] obheal.ie – including the following in an attached word document:
- Name and duration of Film
- Name of director
- Country of origin
- Contact details
- Name of Poet
- Name of Poem
- Synopsis
- Filmmaker biography
- and a Link to download a high-resolution version of the film.
Films must interpret or be based on a poem, and have been completed no earlier than the 1st August 2012. They may not exceed 10 minutes in duration. Non-English language films will require subtitles.
The final programme (shortlist) will be available via both the Ó Bhéal and IndieCork websites as of the 30th of September 2014.
Hope to see you there!
