~ News and Views ~

Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival releases longlist

Rabbit Heart, the western Massachusetts-based poetry film festival, released its 2018 longlist this week. View it on their website. Many of the names will be familiar to Moving Poems readers, and because Rabbit Heart uniquely requires poets to be directly involved in the making of the films, it’s a useful reference list of some of the currently most active poet-filmmakers around the world.

In a press release, the organizers note that

The festival, due to take place in Worcester on October 20th, 2018 focuses on short films that illustrate original poems, all of which are non-performance based (read: no footage of the poems being performed). This year Rabbit Heart received submissions from 29 countries, across 6 continents […]

Rabbit Heart will be awarding $800 prizes in seven categories this year: Best Overall Production, Best Animated, Best Music/Sound, Best Smartphone Production, Best Under 1 Minute, Best Valentine, and the Shoots! Youth Prize.

Tickets to the awards ceremony and the matinee screening are now on sale.

2018 Button Poetry Video Contest open through August 31

I missed the announcement at the beginning of the month, but there are still a few days left to submit to Button Poetry’s 2018 video contest. It’s open to any poet over the age of 18 anywhere in the world (as long as English subtitles are provided for poems in other languages); videos should be 1-4 minutes in length, and “Videos that have been previously published elsewhere are eligible, with the understanding that any selected video may need to be taken down from other locations on the internet.” See the complete guidelines on Submittable.

With 996,213 subscribers and videos that routinely rack up tens of thousands of views, Button Poetry is surely the most popular poetry-related YouTube channel in English. Their preferred style is spoken word/performance poetry, but that’s a very broad tent these days, and past winners of their video contest have included proper poetry films, not simply documentary videos of live performances, which comprise the vast majority of their in-house productions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ho4dNVyuSw

Practicing Like Water

A state of the luminal…

I recently realized filmpoetry provides an escape for me. In nearly forty years of creating I have never been one to pressure myself. My professional and personal creativity always flowed organically. Then, suddenly my creativity stopped. There was just no time, nor feeling for it. In early 2017 I was working on a large client project, going through a separation and then divorce, sold a home and moved to another state. It was overwhelming and a joyful creative outlet ended, just like that.

Shortly after I moved, I slowly began to film and photograph whenever I felt emotionally moved, curious or inspired. At times I even experimented. Then, this past February, Donna, a friend and mentor who owns a spiritual center spent a few days with me in my new home. While I was at my emotional worst, she provided support, spiritual growth and compassion. We share a love of the beach and ironically when we were together symbolic events would magically appear right in front of our eyes. A turtle circled our beach chairs, a gigantic 3-foot jellyfish came ashore and as seen in “Practicing Like Water,” an island-like sandbar appeared in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, where at least a hundred birds were peacefully hanging out. Donna walked gently through the bird oasis so as not to disturb their well-being and the birds simply moved aside with her every step forward. This went on for some time until eventually the sandbar was about to disappear and fall into the water. Suddenly the birds were spooked and flew upwards. In another scene, Donna, beautiful in a white bathing suit and hat floats like an angel. I filmed both scenes with my iPhone 6s Plus. It was the perfect tool for the spontaneity of those moments in the water. For months the experience stuck with me because I would look for the little sandbar every time I visited that particular beach, but I never saw it again.

Sometime during the summer I felt as if I needed to go back to my roots—when I first began creating filmpoetry. I listened to narrated audio for poems I saved from the now closed-down Poetry Storehouse website, a wonderful place where poets, filmmakers and remixers collaborated. The beautiful voice which first spoke to me in 2013 was also the impetus five years later which led me back to creating this piece. When I read Kate Marshall Flaherty’s poem (see below), it immediately resonated with me and I knew I had footage which would work well for the piece. Still I wasn’t ready and the printed poem sat on my desk for months.

While I hadn’t been editing projects in the past year, I was producing content. More importantly, I spent time on innerwork and participated in an online course and forum conducted by the Centre of Applied Jungian Studies in South Africa. Carl Jung’s theories are concentrated on the conscious and unconscious mind, archetypes, dreams, synchronicity and symbolism. In fact, I’ve also been keeping a dream journal and analyzing them on occasion. These are the ways in which I found my way back to my authentic self, my personal journey and living a life of joy and gratefulness. It’s all a practice, along with tools like meditation and mindfulness.

Suddenly one day in June, out of nowhere I felt compelled to organize footage for the poem and put together some sequences in a stream of consciousness manner. I knew I was missing imagery and sought some stock footage to fill in additional tone. Then I left it unfinished for at least a month. When I looked at the sequence again I was quite surprised to find that I had it in pretty good shape. The final edit took me about eight hours to complete. The original image sequences were not changed in any way. I added in stock fashion imagery from the Creative Commons and made color refinements. I didn’t labor on it, I knew exactly when it was complete. I remember wondering if I could pick up on creating quality filmpoetry where I last left off. I feel this filmpoem is consistent with my other work in the genre.

When I look back I realize I allowed myself time to absorb the poem into my unconscious mind. I saw it sitting on my desk everyday. Everything came together working with Kate Marshall Flaherty’s poem in a semi-conscious dream-like way. It’s almost as if I worked on it with my eyes closed. Ironically, when I asked Kate to add comments to this writing (she knew little about my thoughts), she replied,

I’ve always been fascinated with dreams, and I actually have several poetry dream sequences. I also give guided meditations, where we relax and go into that luminal state—that amazing threshold between sleep and waking—that place of the unconscious, of dreams and symbols. When I do my Stillpoint writing workshops, I always start with the meditation so that we can drag up some of those riches from the subconscious and alpha brain wave state and let it pour into our writing. Some will say that state is where we encounter the true self. It’s also a state biblically and throughout religious texts that angels and the divine appear.

I was floored to read what she said because of course this totally resonates with me and I didn’t know any of it when I chose the poem.

My spiritual and Jungian work certainly found its way into this filmpoem. Until I began writing this I hadn’t noticed repeated images of screen symbolism. In the beginning the screens are quite dense. Looking at it metaphorically screens are a framed construction designed to divide, conceal or protect. By the end of the piece there’s still a large lanai screen. But, notice while there is framework it is open to blue sky and clouds. There are also several images of floating mirror balls. According to Carl Jung, the sphere represents a universal symbol, one that illustrates time movement and analyzing the self. For me the poem is also memory closure and brings to light an important time in my life (when I was less conscious), which I will always remember gratefully. The dark, eerie trees and lightning were shot at night out the window of my old house, not long before I left. It is relevant metaphorically because it is the last vestige of my prior life and is the only footage from there included. The shadow side is exposed by the light and is ‘filtered’ back into the cleansing fluidity of water and openness——my life now. Donna’s smile when the birds lift away clearly illustrates “…peaceful silence dissolving into one smile like water.”

Filmpoetry has been a source of meaningful self-expression which offers me the ability to be abstract, esoteric and dream-like. I clearly appreciate what Kate says:

I wrote this particular poem after a very moving dream about an encounter with a dear old love. The dream was so vivid and the feeling so real that when I awoke I was in that luminal state—not sure if I was awake or still asleep and dreaming—and the feeling was so beautiful that I thought I had been visited by an angel or some wonderful part of myself, or perhaps the spirit of that first love. The dream left me with an incredible peaceful and radiant feeling.

That space is exactly where I was as I created the visual tone for the piece. I have an affirmation by Idil Ahmed above my desk which reads in part, “What belongs to you will effortlessly flow into your life…” Surely that is what happened here.

Practicing Like Water can be perceived in many ways. For me, it simply floated into my reality and it reminds me to keep growing. Kate wrote:

Lori’s images really capture that encounter with love and with self and with that incredible lightness of being. I think the music as well enhances the idea of calm and beauty; the lifting of birds so like a spirit taking flight.

All I can say is… thank you Kate Marshall Flaherty for arousing and inspiring my creative spirit to take flight once again.

Practicing Like Water

by Kate Marshall Flaherty

I.
Crumbs of sleep in my eye.
Dream residue.
I squeeze my lids tight,
burrow deeper
into the warm blanket-folds,
wanting to go back
where I am sharing a meal with you
at a sunny pine table.
Cascade Mountain through the glass.
No need to speak,
or hold hands,
peaceful silence dissolving
into one smile like water.

II.
The weightless feeling still fluttering
in the cage of my ribs.
Why do we waken
with such longing, sometimes?
Have we been floating with angels?
Practicing for death,
in sleep?
Are we slipping into a pool
where dream and dreamer are one?
Are we each a cup of water
poured into the sea?

National Poetry Library Instagram Poetry Film Winners

The world’s first Instagram poetry exhibition ran from Thursday, April 26 to Sunday, July 1, 2018 at the UK’s National Poetry Library. Jane Glennie, whose Being and Being Empty — previously posted to Moving Poems — was one of the fifteen filmpoem winners included in the exhibit, was kind enough to share a program [PDF] with me when I noticed a photo of it in a brief news post about the exhibit on her website. That program is the source of the list of winners below. I have added links to play the films, since it’s a daunting task to search for them on the individual Instagram pages, or among the 1,771 posts (as of 28 July 2018) to #instapoetrylib on https://www.instagram.com, which is where all the entries are archived, and which is still active, if you would like to contribute a film even though the contest has ended; some of the more recent posts to be found on #instapoetrylib are photographs documenting the exhibit rather than new poems.

The winning films were apparently announced via comments/DMs on the individual Instagram posts. At the exhibit, the films were on a screen on a continual loop, while the selected image poems were exhibited on the walls. After having spent some time reviewing the films posted to #instapoetrylib, I believe that the 15 selected poetry films were chosen to represent the breadth and variety of work posted to Instagram — from films of poets reciting their poems, to spoken word performance films, to Instagram as poetry notebook, to found poetry films, animated poetry films, and the kinds of film poems Moving Poems typically celebrates.

Poets were only supposed to submit one entry per person, but many of the poets and the National Poetry Library itself did not appear to have taken this rule seriously. Some of the winners submitted more than one entry, and one winner subverted the Instagram video limits by submitting a longer film in two parts. Of the 1771 entries, there are approximately 114 poetry film postings (of which 44 were submitted by one poster, @b.ar.d).

Here are the winning films, listed in order from the exhibition program. (Readers of this post via feed readers or the email newsletter may have to click through to Moving Poems Magazine to watch the videos.)

NHS Crisis by Thomas ‘GhettoGeek’ Owoo (@ghettogeektv)


This might be the Instagram version he submitted to the contest. This link is to a pinned post on the GhettoGeek twitter page, which includes a link to the complete 4:31 version on YouTube.

A slam or spoken word reading style combines with dynamic graphics and imagery in politically powerful ways. Owoo has produced a number of variant works on this and other subjects on his YouTube channel and a range of social media sites.

A Spring Day by Annabel Wilson (@annabelwilsonart)


This is the post on her Instagram page announcing that her film was selected to show in the exhibition. This link is to the film on her Facebook page.

When she first posted the film to Instagram, she commented: “I wrote a poem last week on one of the first spring-like mornings- it came from that feeling that walking out on a clear morning gives, just as the sun comes up in all of its glory. It’s a sunrise, dawn poem, but also a hope and happiness poem. I have created this simple animation as a different kind of way to share it on World Poetry Day!”

The Art of Narcissism by Akora @parthenocarpy

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkI7GerDx4P/?taken-by=parthenocarpy
This is the only video posted to on her Instagram page. This is a link to the performance button on her Instagram page about performing at the National Poetry Library exhibit opening.

For many of the poets posting on Instagram, a film documents the performance of a poem, as does this one.

Being and Being Empty by Jane Glennie (@jane_glennie)


Above is the film on her Instagram page; this is the film on her Vimeo page.

Her description of the film: “How to be a mother … who is this being that I am? Wanting to be half-full with the joy of play, a job well done, and the softness of a bed to sink into at the end. Feeling half-empty with a busy brain that won’t shut down and twitches into awakening too early. Feeling overwhelmed by the chores and feeling rubbish as a result because surely that’s really not important. Tossing and turning and struggling to make a zingy start to each new day.”

A flicker film technique is a visceral representation of both the delight in and the fragmented and distracted attention of motherhood.

Boob Haiku by Fatima Al Rayes (@fatimaspoems)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BgkHmsVlupL/?taken-by=fatimaspoems
Here’s the film on her Instagram page. It is the only post on the page.

A film Fatima describes as “a haiku” documents the performance of writing out the poem and making a simple illustration using time compression.

Dice by Annie Rockson (@gyallikeannie)


This is the film on her Instagram page. Here it is on her YouTube page.

A filmed performance of a spoken word poet, “Dice,” “black dots trapped in a white box,” is a trope for the various traps that constrain black lives behind “a smokescreen of racial equality.”

En Silencio by Charles Olsen (@colsenart)


This is the film on Olsen’s Instagram page. Here’s his website.

Charles Olsen translates his poem from Spanish to English in the comments on his Instagram post: “In silence/water trickles down the bark/Leaves shine/like a flight of fish/and the forest/becomes a black sea/Like you/when we are together.” His spare film consists of close shots of the bark, leaves, and forest described in the poem in superimposed titles, but makes no attempt to depict the black sea of the relationship, which he leaves to our imagination.

Esprit Ya Pouvoire by Vid’or Tampa (@PTPlays)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BgEyznohJOX/?taken-by=ptplays
This is the film on her Instagram page.

Another filmed spoken-word performance, this one in honor of International Women’s Day. The comments on the Instagram post provide a translation of the poem to English: And the one who birthed you./And the one who fed you milk./And the one who made you laugh when sadness got into your heart./And the one who cooked porridge for you./And the one who fed you fufu./And the one who carried you on her back/ in her arms./And the one who stood you up each time you fell./And the one who taught you./And the one who wiped away your tears.
And the one who encouraged you;/Gave you advice./And the one who stands up for you./And the one who makes you laugh./And the one who shows you love./And the one who has faith in you./And the one who beats her chest for you./ And the one who sings for you./Bredrin, look left and look right. /She is there and we are all there. /You have grown up in the spirit of power./Recognise us. 

Kaki by Sheena Baharudin (@sheenabaharudin)

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bgk669eACnz/?taken-by=sheenabaharudin
The film as it appears on Naharudin’s Instagram page.

Her comments when she posted the Instagram film: “Today is World Poetry Day! Submitting this bilingual piece for the #instapoetrylib call made by the @nationalpoetrylibrary . Inspired by the Zapin, a traditional Malay dance that focuses on the movement of the feet. Fyi, if the words sound familiar, it’s because this is the performed version of my previous #swipeleftpoetry post. Check them out.”

The tight fixed frame that cannot contain the dancing feet work in dialectic with the poem in what is another meditation on the joys and constraints of motherhood.

Public House by Laurie Bolger (@lauriebolger)


The film on Instagram. Here’s the link to Bolger’s website.

“A little poem about pubs” is how the author described this when she posted it, and it does have the casual feel of a cellphone film.

Love Loving by Sanah Ahsan (@psychology_and_poetry)

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUFyeP5jAwL/?taken-by=psychology_and_poetry
Her poem on Instagram.

Another film that documents a poet reading her poem. Sanah comments on her Instagram post, “Tonight has been incredible. I performed a piece that explored culture, mental health and identity as part of an upcoming @bbcthree documentary. Such a BLESSING to listen to and share honest stories about #mentalhealth in the #lgbtcommunity. Thank you for having me.”

Somewhere, Nowhere by Mark J. Rigby @filmmaker_markjrigby

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbXvE9EFZtJ/?taken-by=filmmaker_markjrigby

https://www.instagram.com/p/BbXvdPNlh9I/?taken-by=filmmaker_markjrigby
These are the links to the film on his Instagram page; the film was submitted in two parts. This is the link to his website.

In his comments on the Instagram post, Rigby notes that he wrote, performed and directed this film, which he describes as a “spoken word video … borne out of volunteer work for acting and drama workshops centred on homeless and vulnerable adults.” However, he does not film himself reciting his poem, and his piece has more of the feel of a music video.

Southwark Love Song by Claire Trevién (@ctrevien)


The film on her Instagram page. This is her poetry website.

In her comments, Trevién describes her piece as a “#poetryfilm of #foundpoetry collected around Southwark, London Bridge, etc.” This in one of a series of her poetryfilms that find a poem in the camera framing of portions of street signs, names of buildings, advertisement art, and more. The sound is whatever the camera mic records in real time. The technique is tantalizing, and certainly permits the intentional roughness of execution.

MAN by Tommy Evans (@tommya_manevans)


This is the film on #instapoetrylib. I believe this is the film on his Instagram page, although I don’t see either #instapoetrylib or @nationalpoetrylibrary in the comments.

Here is a longer version on his YouTube page; both of the Instagram films appear to be excerpts from the longer work. Here’s a post on his Twitter page about his film being exhibited at the National Poetry Library.

A spoken word poet performance that uses the jarring contrasts between medium shots and tight close-ups to suggest the contradictions in the social construction of masculinity.

We be in No Thing by Jason Kofi-Haye (@surf._ace)


This is the poem as it appears on #instapoetrylib. I could not locate this version on his Instagram page, but there are many variants of this work, which is an instance of a year-long project to use Instagram as a kind of artist’s sketch pad. This tendency to post variants, works-in-progress, and rough drafts is a strategy he uses not only on his Instagram page, but also on his other web and social media sites. To see more examples, search Instagram for #WeBeinNoThing.

And finally, one possible winner who got notified, but apparently wasn’t exhibited:

Receipt for our Romance, by Jade Cuttle (@jadecuttle)


That’s the film as it appears at #instapoetrylib.

The poem is represented as a cash register receipt, which the camera simply scrolls down. I find the technique quite clever, albeit probably unrepeatable.

More information on the National Poetry Library exhibit

There have been four posts on the National Poetry Society website: Instagram poetry; Celebrating Instagram Poetry at National Poetry Library; Instagram poetry is here – find out more in our podcast; and A new generation of poets emerges on Instagram. This last post, in which Jessica Atkinson, the National Poetry Library’s Digital Co-ordinator, discusses four of the Instagram poems included in the exhibition and what makes them stand out, is particularly interesting, since it provides some insight into the curation process.

And finally, stay tuned to the blog at littlethoughtspot.co.uk, which promises a review of the exhibition.

For more information about Instagram poets and poetry, here is a brief online bibliography:

Voices of the new ‘Instagram poets’ | Financial Times

The Life of an Instagram Poet | The New Yorker

Why Rupi Kaur and Her Peers Are the Most Popular Poets in the World | New York Times

The Poetry of Instagram | BBC Radio 4

Can Instagram Make Poems Sell Again? | Publishers Weekly

12 Instagram Poets to follow | HuffPost
Is It OK To Make Fun Of Instagram Poets? | Luna Luna Magazine

Instagram poets society: selfie age gives new life and following into poetry | The Guardian

And finally, an interview with Marisa Crane, who says,

I didn’t necessarily mean to cultivate such a large Instagram following. It all happened pretty organically, and I think it helps that I began posting my work right before the boom of Instagram poetry (which is going downhill now, and fast). I can remember sitting on my couch in 2012 reading a poem by Tyler Knott Gregson, which had been typed on a typewriter. He had thousands of likes on a piece that was, in my opinion, pretty basic. Not to say that it wasn’t intriguing or good, but it was short and easily digestible, which made it perfect for people scrolling quickly. I figured I’d take a stab at it, so I began posting some of my shorter poems on my Instagram, which had about 300 followers at the time. I even forgot to put my name under a few of them. For a while, nothing happened, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t posting to become Instagram famous. Then, I think sometime in 2014 some bigger poetry accounts, like Christopher Poindexter, began reposting my work, and it snowballed from there. I don’t particularly enjoy the medium anymore, as I feel that it’s on its way out. Instagram changed their algorithm, and it hurt engagement for a lot of people. I’m basically just riding it out until it becomes null and void.

Read the complete interview on Bekah Steimel’s blog. (Thanks to Dave Bonta for the link.)

There might be something in this: Maybe today everyone wants to be a poet, just like everyone wants to be a filmmaker. But when there are 5,000 submissions to some film festivals for the 60 or 70 spots available for films to be screened, maybe there is also something to be said for being able to post poems or films to social media sites, despite the overwhelming numbers that soon cry out for curation by means other than the viral. I believe Moving Poems is a valuable community in that regard.

Flicker film, and a review of the world’s first documentary on videopoetry

Two new English-language articles have recently been published in the online version of Poetryfilm Magazine, the bilingual journal embedded in the Weimar-based Poetryfilmkanal website and released annually in a print and PDF version. UK artist and typographer Jane Glennie, a couple of whose videos I’ve shared at Moving Poems, has an essay titled Flicker film and the videopoem:

A ›flicker film‹, as I have made them and understand them thus far, consists not of moving image footage but of a series of still images presented at around 24 or 25 per second. It could be described as an extremely rapid slideshow. Cinema film is also, of course, still images projected at 24 frames per second, but with the intention of transforming frames into seamless movement, whereas a flicker film disrupts the seamless with disparate frames.

Glennie gives a brief history of the technique, which dates back to 1966, then talks about its relevance today, and to her own practice:

Flicker film can also be perceived as reflective upon the broader culture of the online environment where so much time is now spent. Indeed, Parker’s film was derived from her Instagram feed. Image usage, sophistication and relevance continues to grow rapidly. In 2014, two thousand million photos were shared per day across five key social media platforms, rising to over three thousand million in 2015. Upcoming generations are expected to communicate with images even more than at present (happily videopoetry is part of this ever growing online scene). Flicker film can have instant visual impact in a short length and can capture attention in the brief, ephemeral encounters of social media. For instance, my film Being and being empty (2018) was selected for the world’s first Instagram Poetry exhibition at the National Poetry Library in London. But flicker film also offers challenges to the viewer: what can be perceived each time it is viewed? What images or messages might have entered the subconscious? If I continue to view the film – can I perceive more through practice or ›training myself‹ or do I enter a visual fatigue and ›see‹ less and less? A flicker film can be seen as a test of endurance and the brain’s ability to digest images at speed and through the subconscious. If we are to continue to consume images at ever greater volumes and pace, the flicker film begs the question – what are the limits that human cognition can take? Is there a point at which the message and/or the poetic is lost in the frenzy? I am interested in how the fleeting can be imprinted in the mind and create an overall impression through repetition, the subliminal message, and/or the blurring of the distinctions between discrete elements.

Fascinating stuff. Do go read the whole thing.

The other article was my own, published just yesterday: ›Versogramas‹ and the Possibilities for Videopoetry.

Versogramas, the 2017 film directed by Belén Montero, is apparently the world’s first documentary about videopoetry, and as such, it’s likely that viewers may come to it with heightened expectations which will not be fulfilled. Taken on its own terms, however, I found it a delightful romp with a few glaring defects. It has great potential as a teaching aid in the poetry or film classroom—especially if, as I hope, its official web release is accompanied by links to all the videos and videopoets in the film. It’s also available as part of a bookDVD from Editorial Galaxia (which I have not seen).

Quoting oneself is always a bit awkward, but let me skip over the snarky bit and give one more excerpt:

It’s impressive that the producers can focus on just one part of the world—Spain, especially the Galician region—add a handful of filmmakers and videopoets from outside that region, and still end up with a highly varied, complete-feeling snapshot of the state of videopoetry in the 21st century. […] I liked the rootedness of this approach, and I enjoyed getting a sense of how Spanish and Galician poets and artists have been working with videopoesía in recent years.

And for all its playing around with definitions, Versogramas does not end up providing some kind of unified field theory of videopoetry, thank God. (Though it does give Konyves the last word, as is fitting.) What it does, and does very well, is present us with a series of possibilities: this is what videopoetry might be (the narrative sections); this is what a bunch of actual practitioners have found it to be (the interviews).

I had, of course, much more to say than that. I’m grateful for the opportunity to have seen the documentary, and if and when it becomes generally available online, I’ll be sure to share the link here.

Call for work: 2nd Newlyn International Film Festival

Submissions are open for the second annual Newlyn Film Festival, to be held at the southwestern tip of Cornwall in April 2019. Once again, poetry films under six minutes long are solicited, with poetry film scholar-practitioners Lucy English and Sarah Tremlett acting as judges. During the festival, I’m told, they’ll also be giving a talk about the genre. Which is great, because this is one of the few general film festivals to include a poetry film category. We get to break out of the poetry-film ghetto and mingle with other fimmakers! Maybe even make a few converts.

Please visit FilmFreeway for the complete details on how to submit. Note that all films must be in English or have English subtitles; there is a submission fee: £15 or $20; the deadline is January 31; and “Newlyn Film Festival does not require any premiere status, but notes that this may come into consideration during the selection process”. And as a fairly, um, basic filmmaker myself (who—full disclosure—had a poetry film chosen for last year’s screening), this is my favorite bit:

A film’s success is dependent not on its budget or length, but on its core vision and the creativity/efficiency with which it communicates that vision. Programs consist of these diverse visions assembled in an order and rhythm so that even in contrast each is mutually complimentary.

Read the rest.

Dancepoems: a new voice in poetic heteroglossia

The term ‘heteroglossia’ originates in the intertwined roots of the personal and social and captures the dynamic evolution of individual and collective forms of meaning inherent in human experience. ‘Heteroglossia’ was coined by the late Russian philosopher and literary critic, Mikhail Bakhtin, who conceptualized it in linguistic terms, as a convergence of multiple dialects and varieties within one language.

Just like all acts of expression, poetry is historically and geographically situated. Exploring poetry through this perspective of multiplicity allows expansion of these boundaries, opening them up to new territories. I have been engaged in what I call heteroglossic poetry for a number of years, with the intention of intertwining various art forms with poetry. Approaching poetry through heteroglossia has infused my practice with freedom and a sense of purpose.

I like to create my own ‘poetic cocktails’, in which I combine my playing of piano or harp with poems written by myself or others. I have also created short films, in which I edited together photographs or film sequences with music and poetic voiceovers. (And I have also experienced heteroglossia on a linguistic level as a poet writing in Slovakian, which is my mother tongue and in English, which is my dominant language).

However, I have felt most satisfied with poetic heteroglossia that blends the ingredients of several artists. In 2015, I held an honorary position as a poet in residence at the Westbury Arts Centre, Buckinghamshire, England. As part of this role I collaborated with many artists represented by the centre: photographers, ceramicists, designers, performers and other creative practitioners. A particularly fruitful collaboration was with a visual artist Kate Wyatt, which resulted in a pamphlet of ekphrastic poems and a joint exhibition at an art gallery in London in 2015.

This experience taught me the importance of placing meaning above any hierarchy of artistic forms. Genuine heteroglossia is not confined by arbitrary boundaries of ephemeral needs or situational priorities. Poetry is placed alongside other art-forms, such as paintings for example, that together constitute one artistic piece. When composing heteroglossically, I felt free to draw upon a vast, shared mosaic that captures the visceral, the complex and the ineffable. Yet, the more my poetic practice had become heteroglossic and artistic collaborations grew, the more I was moving towards a territory of untouchable and transcendent aspects of life. I came to realize that I needed another outlet for my heteroglossic expression: dance.

Dance and poetry often emulate each other. Dance is said to be poetry in motion and poetry the dance of words, so how can their dominant voices be married without conflict? When toying with the multiple voices of dance and poetry, I didn’t want to envelop movement in language. Rather, I aimed to explore how poetry and dance could address the invisible forces within each of us. I wanted to respond to the “visceral ways of connecting to the inner landscape of self and the outer landscape of the natural world” (p.67, Snowber & Bickel, 20151).

I had never danced before but felt that I needed to develop my understanding through experiencing what I was trying to express. Encouraged by Chris Bradley, a dancer, choreographer and teacher living in Milton Keynes, UK, I gained the confidence required to rise to the challenge of composing a ‘dancepoem’. Later, I collaborated with an aerial dancer, Ed Swift, in Manchester and most recently with Dickson Mbi in London. We ‘danced’ poems and ‘wrote’ dance movements – creating ‘dancepoems’.2

Poetry combined with dance has been described as moving poetry or choreopoetry. But if the two originate in unison and yet keep their discrete voices as they progress, then I feel the term ‘dancepoem’ better captures their interconnectivity and shared past. In the concept of ‘dancepoems’, words do not mimic moves and moves do not mirror words. Poetry and dance do not blend; they are in the same rhythm. In this respect, they resemble a musical argument. As Phil Lesh (1982) explained: “A musical argument is not the same as a verbal argument. A verbal argument implies that there’s two sides; a musical argument makes the two sides one thing, like counterpoint”.3 Therefore, when composing ‘dancepoems’, it is important to ensure that both arts play their own ‘instruments’. Poetry and dance should not eclipse each other’s voices, but swell into bigger proportions as one shared voice. In doing so, they enrich individual artistic practices and enable mutual learning and personal growth.

Last year a woman from an unnamed youth organization approached me, with great enthusiasm, about running a workshop for them. I had to turn down her kind offer as I didn’t want to translate this new artistic form into a business opportunity. I didn’t have a recipe that could be followed step by step and developed into a suite of courses. All my ‘dancepoems’ were created organically as a result of gradual and delicate negotiation with the individual dancers. Sometimes a poetic phrase came first, sometimes it was a move. Occasionally there was more dance than poetry, or vice-versa. At times we followed musical phrases and at others, stanzas and poetic rhythm. So far, I have danced with male dancers because it fitted the theme of universal forces that my ‘dancepoems’ responded to, but ‘dancepoems’ can relate to any theme: be it mixed, single, duo or larger dance groups. I told the well-meaning woman that they were free to monetize and popularize the concept in any way that worked for their organization. I felt fixing ‘dancepoems’ to a model would go against the very nature of heteroglossia.

Nevertheless, the more attention my ‘dancepoems’ received, the more I realized that I was producing something new which might be of interest to others. Sadly, as I am not a full-time artist I could not dedicate my time to live performances. I thought of sharing my ‘dancepoems’ online but I was apprehensive of the digital medium and how it would affect poems and dance. I was concerned that the screen might flatten a spatial experience and remove the visceral feeling spectators have when they breathe the same air as the dancers on stage. Moreover, I worried that combining words, dance and music for a small screen might fragment the meaning and overall impression. Taking into account the forces shaping our contemporary lives, including increased digitalization of privacy and communication, I found myself caught between the traditional forms (dance seen live and poetry read on paper) and our modern social media sharing culture.

I returned to Bakhtin for an answer and reread his works. I learnt that denying tension between multiple forms and rich content is at the very heart of heteroglossia. As Benjamin Bailey, University of Massachusetts-Amherst writes, “heteroglossia addresses (a) the simultaneous use of different kinds of forms or signs, and (b) the tensions and conflicts among those signs, based on the sociohistorical associations they carry with them” (Bailey, 2007, p.2574). While diglossia (i.e. the use of two clearly different varieties of language) is about the “development and characteristics of standardization” in language (Ferguson, 1959, p.4295), heteroglossia is about validating and valorizing the tensions among voices.

When I released my first ‘dancepoem’ on YouTube in 2015, it was picked up by several outlets (including Moving Poems and The Woven Tale Press) and resulted in many messages and comments from other artists. I began to realize the power of the collective digital voice and how it can lead to a re-examination of the creative process and its presentation. I came to see how much of contemporary poetry practice depends on the medium (such as so-called Twitter or Instagram poetry) and was encouraged by the prospect of ‘dancepoems’ offering a medium-free art form. I have begun a living book of dancepoems, where I capture my thoughts on producing and consuming dancepoems and where others can add their own works. (Please do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to join our community.)

To conclude, heteroglossia is an empowering concept that encourages fusion of established canons and innovative forms, and in doing so, is shaping a new landscape for the poetic voice. As our lived realities are becoming increasingly multicultural, multi-platform and multi-vocal, poetic heteroglossia offers a means for realising the polyphonic forces between self and others. For me, ‘dancepoems’ carry the deeper message of heteroglossia, perhaps the most important message of all poetry, which aspires to listen to the world and echo its multiple voices.


1Snowber, C., & Bickel, B. (2015). “Companions with mystery: Art, spirit and the ecstatic.” In Walsh, S., Bickel, B., & Leggo, C. (eds), Arts Based and Contemplative Practices in Research and Pedagogy, New York: Routledge (pp. 67-87).

2https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgHBEuAWdVyVgG4Z7MKxtMfXrXU79R2Nk

3Cited in Gans, David (2002). Conversations With The Dead, Cambridge: Da Capo Press.

4Bailey, B. (2007). Heteroglossia and boundaries. University of Massachusetts – Amherst. From the Selected Works of Benjamin Bailey.

5Ferguson, C. A. (1959). “Diglossia”. Word, 15, 429-439.

Updates from Art Visuals & Poetry / Vienna Poetry Film Festival

It’s the off-year for the biannual Poetry Film Festival in Vienna, but that doesn’t mean they’re sitting on their hands. Here’s the English-language portion of their latest emailed newsletter:

The preparations for the next Poetry Film Festival in Vienna have started. During the festival pause there are several poetry film screenings in Austria:
August, 15, 2018 Millstatt, Carinthia  – curated by Hubert Sielecki
September 27, 2018,  Austrian Society of Literature Vienna – curated by Anita C. Schaub
October 9, 2018, International Poetry Film screening, Künstlerhaus Vienna – curated by Sigrun Höllrigl

For the ones, who want to submit again to the next poetry film festival. The submission period will start around begin of December 2018 and will last appr. until April 2019. The next festival will take place in November 2019 at Metro Kinokulturhaus Vienna. Keep in touch with informations in English on www.poetryfilm-vienna.com.

We’re back! And GDPR compliant. Probably.

If you subscribe to the Moving Poems weekly digest, you may have been wondering: A) Why haven’t there been any digests for nearly two months? And possibly also B) Why didn’t you receive an email exhorting you to re-subscribe to make sure that Moving Poems is in compliance with the EU’s new data protection law?

The second question is easier to answer: Since everyone receiving the newsletter signed up for it of their own volition and can remove themselves at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in the footer of any edition, there is apparently no legal need to require current subscribers to re-subscribe, and we’re happy not to have contributed to the sheep-like stampede of panicked arts organizations last month clogging up everyone’s inboxes. However, we do embrace the new privacy protections and applaud the EU for enacting them. So we’ve created a privacy policy and placed one of those annoying-but-necessary banners on the site asking visitors from EU countries to accept the policy before using the site. Ironically, perhaps, the banner itself sets a cookie so you won’t have to see it on every subsequent visit. I suppose I should include something about that in the privacy policy, but I was afraid of creating some kind of infinite loop of things you’d have to approve before seeing other things that you’d also have to approve.

In answer to the first question: I needed a break. Burn-out is a real issue for this kind of thing, so from time to time I take an unscheduled hiatus. I realize this does inconvenience people who rely on Moving Poems for news about contests, festivals and the like. I’m sorry about that, and all I can say is that if someone would like to volunteer to help out with news posts, I could certainly use another writer. There would be no pay, of course, and you’d probably want to be a bit more active in social media than I currently am, having deleted my Facebook account on May 1. On the other hand, I can’t in good conscience require someone to be on Facebook when I’m opposed to its use myself. Anyway, email me (bontasaurus@yahoo.com) if you’re interested in helping out.

Call for work: Poetry Film Live

Poetry Film Live, the magazine for all things related to poetry film and video, is open for submissions. Please send poetry films and videos via the submission page. Previously shown work is fine, but please send your best work!

We also publish articles and essays, and reviews of poetry films. If you wish us to consider these, send us a message about your work or submit it directly through the submission page.

Poetry Film Live began in 2016 and we have been honoured to publish work from established and emerging poetry filmmakers. To our contributors and readers — thank you for your continued support!

Film and Video Poetry Symposium, Weimar Poetry Film Prize announce winners

Back at the end of April, the Film and Video Poetry Society website had a post announcing the winning films coming out of their inaugural symposium, presented in image form, with no accompanying text. They were:

Best Choreopoem

Moving Southwark (director & poet Jevan Chowdhury, U.K., 2016)

Outstanding Poem

Oceanik (director Lucia Sellars, poet Nia Davies, U.K., 2017)

Best Film Essay

Where Is Eva Hipsey? (director Orla McHardy, writer Justin Spooner, U.S., 2016)

Best Experimental film

Phantom Cinema (writer & director Cheng Li-Ming, Taiwan, 2016)

Best Videopoem

Dog Daze (director & poet Ian Gibbins, Australia, 2017)

(Details grabbed from their previously published shortlist.)

*

Earlier this week, the 2018 Weimar Poetry Film Prizes were announced on the Poetryfilmkanal website, in German. Here’s how Google translates the first part of the post:

The winners of the third Weimar Poetry Film Awards are the films THE DESKTOP METAPHOR (jury prize) and PATATA DAY (Audience Award). The jury also awarded a special mention to the film BLUE FLASH FLASH.

JURY PRIZE

The jury of the third Weimar Poetry Film Award, consisting of the Thuringian poet Daniela Danz, the artist and curator Cathy De Haan from Leipzig and the Norwegian animator Kristian Pedersen, chose the English entry THE DESKTOP METAPHOR (2017) as the winner of the €1000 jury prize. Directed by the Dutch director Helmie Stil; the underlying poem was written by the British author Caleb Parkin.

Google makes a hash of the jury statement, but here’s the film:

And here’s the winner of the jury’s Special Mention, Blue Flash Flash by Jane Glennie:

The Poetryfilmkanal post also includes a trailer for the winner of the audience award, but that’s their own upload, so you’ll have to click through to watch it.

Don’t miss the illustrated and annotated (in German and English) shortlist. These were a bunch of really strong films.

A belated but nonetheless heart-felt congratulations to all the winners!

Call for work: 6th annual Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition

Just received this communication from the Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition.

2018 is Ó Bhéal’s ninth year screening International poetry-films, and sixth year featuring this competition. Up to thirty films will be shortlisted and screened during the festival in October. One winner will receive the IndieCork/Ó Bhéal prize for best Poetry-Film.

The festival takes place between the dates of the 7th and the 14th October, 2018.

Entry is free to anyone, and should be made via email to poetryfilm [at] obheal.ie – including the following info 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.

You may submit as many entries as you like. Films must interpret, or convey a poem which must be present in its entirety, having been completed no earlier than August 2016. They may not exceed 10 minutes in duration. Non-English language films will require English subtitles. The final shortlist will be announced during September.

Shortlisted films also appear in Ó Bhéal’s poetry-film touring programme, at a number of film and literary festivals, to date including the Clare Island Film Festival, Belfast Film Festival, Stanzas in Limerick, the Cyclops festival in Kiev, Poemaria in Vigo and at the Madeira Literary Festival (2018). Shortlisted entries are also screened throughout the year from Ó Bhéal’s competition shortlist archive (in random), at the start of each Ó Bhéal poetry evening.

This year’s entries are judged by poet Oonagh Kearney and filmmaker Anamaria Crowe Serrano.

The submission deadline is August 15th, 2018.