~ literary magazines and websites ~
Stefanie Orphal on the aural dimension of poetry film
German literary scholar Stefanie Orphal, author of Poesiefilm: Lyrik im audiovisuellen Medium [Poetry Film: Poetry in the Audiovisual Medium], has an essay up at Poetryfilmkanal on “The fascination of hearing poetry films.” Here’s an excerpt:
In recent years there has been an increasing awareness of matters of sound and acoustics, in film studies as well as in other areas. Our understanding of poetry film can benefit a lot from this development. The principal point that we can take from this research is this: Not just on the level of signs, in terms of text-image-relations, but on the level of perception itself sound and image are fused into something completely new, into a third thing that is more than the addition of both elements. While experimental film maker Maya Deren meditated on this effect as early as 1953 on a podium on poetry and the film, contemporary scholars like film theorist Michel Chion have systematically laid out how what we hear, shapes what we believe only to see in the audiovisual experience.
One of Chion’s central terms is ›synchresis‹, by which he describes the psychophysiological phenomenon that lets us attribute discrete events that we see and hear simultaneously to the same source, e. g. the dubbed voice to the actor on screen. Such an effect – also called cross-modal association – is subtly operative in the perception of all audio-film, but it is crucial to the experience of poems in an audiovisual context, because voice over poems are often clearly not part of a diegetic world and what we hear is set apart from what we see creating counterpoint and contrast. But even in the most modernist and experimental efforts of counterpoint or of contrasting sound-image-relations, in our perception both sound and image are always drawn together, contaminating each other as Michel Chion puts it. The effect of this play of forces can be intriguing. What is fascinating about poetry film, to me, is the stunning effect when such a complex combination of elements brings about something new, the impression that something is revealed in the image or in the poem.
Interview with Tom Konyves at Connotation Press
In her latest “Third Form” column at Connotation Press, Erica Goss interviews videopoetry pioneer Tom Konyves. Goss’s usual pattern of paraphrasing and quoting from a conversation conducted by telephone gave way here to a more standard question-and-answer format, and the interview delves into aspects of Konyves’ background which were new to me. Here’s how Goss herself summarized it:
In this interview, Tom discusses, among other things, making his first videopoem on ½” reel-to-reel videotape, the medium of video being “unrecognized” by Herman Berlandt, Director of the San Francisco Poetry Film Workshop, what text-image relationships have in common with male-female relationships, and falling in love with language as a child.
I particularly liked the story of how Konyves came to make his first videopoem. But I think the most quotable bit is from the end of the interview:
Text-image relationships are no different from male-female relationships. Sometimes they get along, sometimes they don’t. They get along when they are totally aware of the other’s “potential” as well as their own. For each has the potential to be effective in different ways. They don’t try to overpower the other or usurp each other’s roles in the structure of the work. A particular image provides the only possible context in which the words are intended to be experienced. When they “complete” each other, the work is “pure poetry”. And once you’ve realized that, you will always associate the images with the text of the work. They have become soulmates. How many “video poems” have this attribute? Watch one, then close your eyes and listen to the words. Can you picture the scene? Throughout?
Do go read the whole interview.
New essays on poetry film by Nissmah Roshdy and Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel
The German website Poetryfilmkanal has been sticking to its schedule of monthly featured poetry films and weekly short essays. Much of the content is in German, of course, including a recent essay by ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival organizer Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel, “Poesiefilme, Festivals und soziale Netzwerke,” but Google Translate gives the gist of it.
Fortunately for us monolingual types, the latest essay, by Egyptian filmmaker Nissmah Roshdy—”Poetry Films: A Genre Alien To A Poetry Nation“—is in English. Roshdy brings a unique perspective on a uniquely poetry-drenched culture:
For some reason, Arabic Poetry, which is only the most significant form of art produced by the Arab world and considered one of the most visually rich and sophisticated breeds of poetry, had never officially taken part in the conversation of poetry films worldwide in a noteworthy manner. It sounded crazy to me, but I figured that it’s not surprising if you actually consider how many Arabs today appreciate or even understand their own poetry. But regardless of that, the main problem I saw was because of how poets and visual artists in the Arab world have no interest in collaborating with one another. The issue, as I see it, is from the literary experts side. For many writers, the argument usually made is that the beauty of poetry must be in the words only and how they manifest themselves visually in the imagination of each reader. However, this notion should not be threatened by the discourse of poetry films, because a poetry film is essentially a manifestation of the imagination exercise we go through while reading a poem. The defining line here is in accepting a Poetry film as an example of a visual representation of a poem as seen by one person.
Jutta Pryor and Marie Craven featured at Connotation Press
Interviews with Australian poetry-film makers Jutta Pryor and Marie Craven are the focus of Erica Goss’ column “The Third Form” at Connotation Press this month. I’ve long been an admirer of both, so it was interesting to learn about their routes into online collaboration and filmmaking. “Poetry is an inspirational starting point that lends itself to creative interpretation and collaboration by bringing together writers, filmmakers, remixers, sound artists and actors to create poetry film,” says Pryor. And Craven notes that poetry film is “like collage, or quilting. You enjoy the surprise, and never know what you’ll find. I don’t plan things out too much, but let the process dictate the final product.” Go read.
News roundup: Text(e) Image Beat exhibition, “Send and Receive” videos, Facebook video embedding and more
The videopoetry exhibition Text(e) Image Beat, curated by Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas, is now showing at the Galerie Sans Nom in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. It runs through May 1.
With: Heid E. Erdrich + R. Vincent Moniz, Jr + Jonathan Thunder; Hannah Black; Matt Mullins; Martha Cooley; John D. Scott; Tom Konyves; Swoon (AKA Marc Neys) + Howie Good; Michel Félix Lemieux; Kevin Barrington + Bruce Ryder; Maryse Arseneault; Fernando Lazzari; Matthew Hayes + Sasha Patterson + Lee Rosevere.
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The call for Text(e) / Image / Beat did not specify particular themes. Through the necessity of paring down the choices and assembling a flow of works that complemented and gave space to each other, we became aware of recurrent elements. In spite of the fact that the videos originate from many distinct locations, ideas of awaiting / finding miracles and mysteries of living, are frequent. Each work exhibits innovation and imagination, calling upon a wide range of skills to layer meaning. Slam poetry, rants, softly spoken words, hand written notes, and remixes are all used to articulate.
Click through to read the rest of the detailed and annotated curators’ commentary.
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I discovered this week that videos of presentations from the “Send and Receive – Poetry, Film and Technology in the 21st Century” conference at FACT in Liverpool have been posted to the web at artplayer.tv. The videos are embeddable, but with code that will probably not show up in feeds or email, so I will just link to the presentations here. Check out presentations by: Suzie Hanna; Zata Kitowski; Marco Bertamini; Deryn Rees-Jones; Jason Nelson; George Szirtes; Judith Palmer; and Roger McKinley (the host). They’re all worth your time, but I found Rees-Jones’ talk to be especially thought-provoking. (See also the earlier report at Moving Poems Magazine: “Conference on poetry, film and technology at FACT: three views.”)
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News emerged this week from Facebook’s annual developer conference, F8, that Facebook videos will soon be embeddable. Venturebeat reports.
A lot of poetry videos, especially of the more rough-and-ready sort (e.g. self-recorded recitations), are only uploaded to Facebook, so it will be helpful to have the freedom to share them on sites like this one. But Facebook launching a proper video hosting platform isn’t necessarily something I welcome, given the corporation’s poor track record with privacy and its ambition to swallow up the independent web, which Facebook succeeds in reproducing about as well as the Mall of America reproduces an agora.
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More details are emerging about Media Poetry Studio, the multimedia poetry summer camp for girls in Silicon Valley. The website now lists the time and location (July 20-31 at Edwin Markham House in San Jose’s History Park at Kelley Park, home of Poetry Center San Jose). And a March 27 article in the San Jose State University newspaper Spartan Daily interviews camp organizers Erica Goss and David Perez:
In terms of tuition, Goss said the program is “pretty reasonable,” costing $799 for two weeks.
The three poet laureates started planning the camp last spring.
“We had to secure funding, we had to write grants, we had to come up with curriculum—which we’re still working on—we had to find a place to do it and a fiscal sponsor since we’re not a nonprofit,” Goss said. “There’s lots of work and we’ll be doing it right up until the day it starts.”
Goss said they want to be able to give each student individualized attention so there is room for about 20 young women.
The Indiegogo campaign is now 62% funded, with $3,075 raised toward a $5,000 goal.
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And finally, speaking of Erica Goss, she has an essay in The Pedestal Magazine about her experience at the 7th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival last October.
Poetryfilmkanal website launches, issues call for essays to publish in magazine
After a slight delay from their projected February launch, the German website Poetryfilmkanal debuted this week, and I was happy to be able to add such a promising new site to the Moving Poems links page. Most of the content so far is in German, but it still has some useful features for Anglophone (and other) readers—especially the Calendar of world-wide poetry film events and the bibliography (Lektüretipps).
As the latter page suggests, this is a scholarly site. Here’s a machine translation from Google of the background page (Die Idee), edited for clarity:
Poetryfilmkanal—Poetry Film Channel—is an e-platform designed to carry ideas and information about the genre of poetry film. It was founded as a joint project between the Multimedia Narration degree program at the Bauhaus University Weimar and the Thüringen Society of Literature, incorporated [e. V.] by Aline Helmcke and Guido Naschert.
Examples of the cinematic adaptation of poetry, or poetic-associative design of short films related to poetry, can be found since the beginning of film history. With the advent of new media design options, a global poetry film movement has emerged in the last two decades. A growing number of festivals and contests, seminars, blogs and scientific publications have made for a confusing field. In addition, the standards by which poetry films are judged (and supported financially) are still very diffuse. The genre is often referred to, but without being explained – and misunderstood accordingly.
Poetryfilmkanal will supply information about this wild field, invite dialogue and contribute to the formation of concepts. With an international calendar of screenings and festivals (Calendar) and regular information on contests (Deadlines), ways to produce and view poetry films will become more transparent. Short articles showcase particularly valuable short films on a monthly basis (Film of the Month). Poetryfilmkanal also imparts basic knowledge of the history of poetry films (Timeline), shares references (Reading Guide) and tries to find a network of relevant web content (Links).
The core of the site is the Magazine that tracks the blog about three quarters of a year on a specific theme, before all the posts appear in an ePaper edition—just the Poetry Film Magazine archived. The editorial provides an introduction to the topic. Essayistic and literary texts in German and English will monitor the genre or introduce artists and authors. In addition, the blog will contain “excavations”: historical poetry films, interviews, festival reports and meetings. And an English translation of German contributions will be provided in the future.
This all sounds very ambitious. Two films have already been included in the Film of the Month feature, and the inaugural editorial, “Faszination Poetryfilm?” has been made available in English translation. I urge anyone with an interest in the genre to go read the whole thing; I’ll just quote the final two paragraphs:
We decided to open the blog’s discussion on a very general level in order to prepare the ground for more specific investigations in future editions. What makes an engaging poetry film? By which characteristics a poetry film is able to develop a certain fascination? Is there any general answer or do we have to look more precisely into the categories of live action and animation film? Are there certain sorts of poems which are particularly suitable for a translation into the audio-visual media? In which way do sound and voice-over determine the outcome? How come so many poetry films appear to only scratch the surface and fail to take us deeper into the meaning of the poem?
The discussion will consist of short blogs in an open form, about 3000-4000 signs in length. We will invite practitioners in the field to contribute their texts but encourage and welcome anyone interested to submit their own statement or opinion. By the end of this year, we aim at publishing the first edition of the Poetry Film Magazine from the texts and statements received.
We are looking forward to an engaging and lively discussion!
All the Best,
Aline Helmcke, Guido Naschert
Poet-filmmaker Rachel Eliza Griffiths interviewed at Connotation Press
The March issue of Connotation Press is out today, and with it a new Third Form column by Erica Goss. This time, she interviews a poet and multimedia artist I’ve been especially curious about, having featured several of her films at Moving Poems: Rachel Eliza Griffiths. A couple of snippets:
“Students have a more visual life nowadays. In my creative writing classes, I often have students respond to photos on their iPhones. One day they might examine their own work, and on other days they respond in writing to the photos of other students. It’s very interesting to see what they come up with.” Students write self-portrait poems using, for example, five photos as a gallery. Rachel Eliza asks them, “How does shadow work in a poem? Is it similar to shadow in a photo?”
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Rachel Eliza’s current project is P.O.P (Poets on Poetry), a project with 100 contemporary poets who read and comment on poetry, their own and others’. “I wanted videos that showed poets in a better light, quality-wise, than what you often see in archival videos on YouTube, for example. I’m happy that teachers use some of the videos as part of their lesson plans.” P.O.P includes poets such as Cornelius Eady, Tina Chang, Michael Dickman, Marilyn Nelson and Terrance Hayes.
The interview includes commentary on some embedded films. I was especially struck by Griffiths’ description of how she came to make Incident, her contribution to the #BlackPoetsSpeakOut movement. And I was excited to hear that she plans a triptych of new videos in support of her upcoming collection of poems. Check it out.
News round-up: Motionpoems’ Kickstarter; Dylan Thomas movie; videopoems on Montreal poetry festival website
With just four days to go, Motionpoems’ Kickstarter campaign for its innovative weeCinema outdoor theater is still $15,000 short of its $20,000 goal. As previously reported here, a mere $10 pledge qualifies one to answer their call for poetry films to be screened in the weeCinema during the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival. Todd Boss announced on Facebook a few days ago that “Kickstarter CEO Yancey Strickler emails today to say he’s a huge Motionpoems fan. He pledged $200 to our newest project.” But it won’t happen without a lot more pledges. Do give if you can.
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In not-so-wee cinema news, the Welsh newspaper Daily Post reports that
A movie about iconic poet Dylan Thomas, which stars a Holyhead-born actor and music by a top Welsh rocker, is to be released in the United States.
Set Fire to the Stars tells the story of a week in the life of hell-raising Welsh poet Dylan Thomas as he embarked on a disastrous tour of American universities in the 1950s.
By his side is young poetry professor and admirer John Malcolm Brinnin, whose philosophy for looking after the firebrand is “I’ll improvise”, but a fragile friendship is stretched beyond the limit.
Holyhead-born Celyn Jones stars as Thomas and he also co-wrote the script while Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys of Bethesda provides the original soundtrack. Brinnin is played by Lord of the Rings star Elijah Wood.
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Finally, a poetry festival set for June in Montreal is foregrounding videopoetry. If, like me, you don’t understand French, here’s what Google Translate makes of it:
The House of Poetry of Montreal, in partnership with the Self media arts center Vidéographe launched an innovative advertising campaign in several districts of the city. On more than one thousand posters in the Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood, Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Mile End, Ville-Marie, Rosemont Petite-Patrie and in the city center and Old Montreal, passers equipped with a smartphone can now scan a QR code and instantly watch videos-eight poems as many poets and video artists.
The viewer-reader at the end of each video-poem purchase the book of poetry which is taken the extract by a single click. It will then be directed to the website of a bookseller or publisher. He can also view all the video-poems on the www.videopoeme.com or at home in the Plateau-Mont-Royal culture, which showcases the works continuously for the duration of the Festival.
Through this joint development program for stimulating the House of Poetry allows several poets disseminate their work in a new form and touch and new readers. The expertise of Vidéographe in the field of media arts opens wide the door of new technologies to the current Quebec poetry.
Assuming that’s more or less the gist of it, that sounds pretty cool. And the videopoems are already available to watch on the website.
(Hat-tip for the second and third links to Thomas Zendegiacomo del Bel at the ZEBRA Facebook group page)
Carbon Culture offers $1000 poetry film prize
Carbon Culture is a print and online journal at “the intersection of technology + literature + art.” This week they announced a unique poetry film contest:
Poetry Film Prize
We want to integrate film and literary culture. Carbon Culture will award a $1,000.00 prize for the best poetry film using the complete text of John Gosslee’s poem “Portrait of an Inner Life.” The winning entry will receive $1,000.00. The top five entries will receive high-profile placements across a number of networks, note in a one page ad alongside honorable mentions in our newsstand print and device editions. All entries are considered for sponsored entry to our list of film festivals and poetry film festivals. Deadline for submissions is January 1, 2016.
Rules for Submission
1. Create a video adaption of John Gosslee’s poem “Portrait of an Inner Life” using the full text of the poem and the author’s name
2. Post the video to a Youtube or Vimeo account and make it live
3. Submit the piece as an Mp4 alongside your bio or team member’s bios to us.Prize Announcements will be made in April 2016
Film Types
All visual and textual interpretations of the poem are welcome. Animation (digital or cartoon,) live action, kinetic poems, stop motion, anything you can imagine. We are looking for literal or non-literal interpretations of the poem. How long should it be? That is up to you. Poetry is meant to be heard and we encourage audio.
Eligibility
The prize is open to students, individuals and teams.
Click through for the text of the poem (which is very brief) and the link to submit. Fjords Review (which Gosslee edits) included the poem in a video interview, filmed by Roberta Hall at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco:
Three poetry films in latest issue of TriQuarterly
TriQuarterly 147, Winter/Spring 2015 is out, and kicks off as usual with some high-quality poetry film: Situation 7, a video essay by poet Claudia Rankine and filmmaker John Lucas, and two “cinepoems”: John D. Scott’s In the Waiting Room (poem by Elizabeth Bishop) and Martha McCollough’s Indefinite Animals.
TriQuarterly remains one of the most prestigious literary journals to feature multimedia works. Submissions are open for five months, beginning on February 16.
Pond5 Public Domain Project gives free access to 10,000 historical film clips
Online multimedia marketplace Pond5 has just launched a Public Domain Project, which provides free access to a variety of media including nearly 10,000 public-domain film clips from various U.S. government sources and other repositories. It’s unclear what percentage of it has been uploaded to the web for the first time, but simply having such a large, curated collection available under one virtual roof and searchable by keyword should make it an important new resource for videopoets and other filmmakers. According to a help page,
Pond5 is thrilled to begin representing public domain content on our Website through the Pond5 Public Domain Project. We are making this content available to our customers and contributors without any charge, so they can rediscover part of mankind’s history and build upon it in their creative projects. We have designated Content on the Website as being “Public Domain Content” when we believe that it is in the public domain under the laws of the United States, meaning there are no copyright restrictions over that content.
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What are Pond5’s sources of Public Domain Content?
We have generally obtained our public domain content from three categories of sources:
- U.S. government repositories of creative works.
- Other online and offline collections of public domain content that we believe are reputable.
- Content that our curators or contributors have reviewed, and based on that review, believe are in the public domain.
I’ve added the link to Moving Poems’ page of Web Resources for Videopoem Makers. Thanks to Anna Dickie for bringing it to my attention.
Call for videopoetry submissions: Atticus Review
Writer and videopoet Matt Mullins asked me to share this call-out:
The Atticus Review, an online literary/mixed media magazine, seeks filmpoems/videopoems of between one and eight minutes in length for publication. You can submit via Submittable at the Atticus Review website, or you can email mixed media editor Matt Mullins directly at m-mull at hotmail dot com.
