~ Author-made videopoems ~

Laurels/Les lauriers by Daniel H. Dugas

On 2 September, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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A wonderfully subversive new videopoem by Canadian poet, digital artist and musician Daniel H. Dugas, who introduced it in a public post on Facebook:

I have been thinking for a while about the mechanics and implications of submission fees when applying to moving image festivals. I favour the open model, meaning that submissions are free and no prizes are given. I feel that sharing with others is enough. I admit that it is always nice to win a prize, but if everybody has to lose something in the process, it might not be the way to go.

So, I made a videopoem about fees and laurels (see link below for the English and the French versions). During my research I stumbled upon Stop Charging (And Paying) Submission Fees by Martha Knox, an artist from Philadelphia. It is enlightening and to the point. I encourage you to read it. It might change the way you see the world. https://wordsonwoodcuts.blogspot.com/…/stop-charging…

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Synopsis đ˜“đ˜ąđ˜¶đ˜łđ˜Šđ˜­đ˜Ž

In Ancient Rome, laurel wreaths were worn on the head to symbolize triumph. The meaning is the same today, but if you want to get laurels for cinematic prowess, you must wage your artistic war on screen and pay a submission fee. Then you might get the ‘Best’ laurel for the category you applied under. Of course, some festivals don’t subscribe to this “Pay and Play” philosophy, and that’s excellent! And then, some festivals don’t charge entry fees and will even pay the selected artists!

Synopsis 𝘓𝘩𝘮 đ˜“đ˜ąđ˜¶đ˜łđ˜Ș𝘩𝘳𝘮

Pour les Romains de l’AntiquitĂ©, les couronnes de laurier Ă©taient portĂ©es sur la tĂȘte pour symboliser le triomphe. La signification est la mĂȘme aujourd’hui, mais si vous voulez obtenir des lauriers pour vos prouesses cinĂ©matographiques, vous devez mener votre guerre artistique Ă  l’Ă©cran et payer des droits d’inscription. Vous obtiendrez alors peut-ĂȘtre le prix du “meilleur” dans la catĂ©gorie Ă  laquelle vous avez postulĂ©. Évidemment, il existe des festivals qui ne souscrivent pas Ă  cette philosophie de « Pay and Play » et c’est tant mieux ! Il y a mĂȘme des festivals qui n’exigent pas de frais d’inscriptions et vont mĂȘme payer les artistes sĂ©lectionnĂ©s !

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scrambled transmission #3 by Matt Mullins

On 1 August, 2024 by Patricia Killelea with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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This month, American writer and poetry film artist Matt Mullins released a new author-made video poem on his Vimeo channel, titled “scrambled transmission #3.” It’s the most recent work from Mullins, who took second place at this year’s Filmetry 24: The Poetics of Cinema with his film, “Janet Leigh is Afraid of Jazz,” which is based on a poem by Marsha de la O and was previously profiled by Moving Poems.

“scrambled transmission #3” leads with an interesting soundscape, one which reflects the poem’s title, by way of a fuzzy, mechanical, radio-out-of-tune loop. It pairs well with the black and white found footage. The film’s opening image highlights a compelling fusion of insect and machine, and its following frames continue riffing on this same visual theme, which often make use of repetition. This piece also uses intertitles, so between the footage and its filter and the text on screen, “scrambled transmission #3” makes direct connections with the silent film era.

Film Still: “scrambled transmission #3”

The poem itself, voice-overed by Mullins, evokes something of Hunter S. Thompson in its themes and tone: a third-person narrative in fragments highlighting mundane acts of violence and estrangement on a “typical atypical day,” mind-altering substances, memory, and American underground art subculture. Overall, the links between the insect world and the human psyche are made quite clear through the poem’s intertitles, voice-over, and found footage. I also thought that the delivery of the poem, particularly its cadence and sense of addled urgency, vaguely recalled the Beat Poets.

As for the filmmaker himself, Mullins’ description of his latest poetry film is refreshingly simple, as he writes: “Some things, one hopes, are self-explanatory.”

Film Still: “scrambled transmission #3”

View the videopoem here.

Thesaurus of Reconstructive Microscopy by Ian Gibbins

On 29 July, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Video Library
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Ian Gibbins‘ work has been featured here so often I’m apt to say he needs no introduction, but this video in fact serves as an introduction to an earlier chapter of his life, when he was better known as a scientist than a video artist, poet and electronic composer. I grew up in a natural history-obsessed family, so scientific instruments were major objects of lust in my prepubescent years, just as my poetic muscles were beginning to develop, and this takes me back to that fertile imaginary landscape. It’s super high-concept, though, so I’m gonna do the lazy thing and drop in the whole description from Vimeo:

“The Microscope Project” was a major installation / exhibition at the Flinders University Art Museum & City Gallery, 26th July – 21st September, 2014, in Adelaide, South Australia, featuring work by Ian Gibbins, Catherine Truman, Deb Jones, Angela Valamanesh and Nicholas Folland, curated by Fiona Salmon and Madeline Reece.

For much of his time at Flinders University, Ian managed the main microscopy research facility, contained divers kinds of sophisticated microscopes. In 2012, several old scanning electron microscopes, some fluorescence microscopes, and other ancillary equipment were decommissioned. Once state-of-the-art, they were now largely dysfunctional and no longer practically operational. However, they had long histories of contributing to internationally-recognised research into the nervous and cardiovascular systems, the gut, and much more.


 and then there was all their supporting documentation: schematic diagrams and plans, manuals, advertising brochures, catalogues, certifications of performance, packing lists.

Although much of the equipment had been disassembled down to their component parts, it was all to valuable to be dumped for scrap. There were many more stories to be told about these instruments. Perhaps we could re-imagine their pasts, their futures, the people who had made them, maintained them, used them


So, over more than 12 months, the artists collaborated with these elements in the unique shared environment of The Distillery to create “The Microscope Project”. As part of the project, Ian wrote a series of texts that became the basis of the book, “How Things Work”, a unique collaboration between him, Catherine and Deb. Accompanying the book is a CD of “Microscope Music” composed using samples from the microscopes themselves and the various documents accompanying them.

In celebration of 10 years since The Microscope Project, this video is built around a set of images from the “How Things Work” book, their accompanied text, and a remix of some Microscope Music that did not make it onto the CD.

Listen to the full “Microscope Music” album at iangibbins.bandcamp.com/album/microscope-music

For more see: iangibbins.com.au/projects/the-microscope-project/

Unto Ourselves by Forrest Gander

On 22 July, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Video Library
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“To see what’s there and not / already patterned by familiarity” begins this videopoem by Forrest Gander, using a text from his latest collection, Twice Alive: an Ecology of Intimacies. (The full title of the poem in the book is “Unto Ourselves III: To See What’s There”—p. 52.) The imagery of South Asian temple sculpture is used to great effect in this interrogation of familiarity/unfamiliarity, until “unconditional foreignness grows conditional, stops being foreign at all.”

Any non-titillating examination of the erotic is necessarily foreign to our sex-obsessed culture. And Gander goes further than that, choosing language from science rather than religion without disrespecting, much less heedlessly appropriating, a culture other than his own. Consider, for example, how a man with a wheelbarrow emerging from a dark passageway prepares us to see a giant boulder, a stone pestle grinding in a mortar, and the closing encounter with a lingam: the connections feel visceral rather than spiritual, to the point where stone and bodies become nearly interchangeable. This may be my favorite Forrest Gander videopoem to date.

We’d Love to be Masters of Our Time by Lina Ramona Vitkauskas

On 15 July, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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Dedicated to Wim Wenders, this square-format videopoem by Lina Ramona Vitkauskas with music and mixing by Ben Turner is an electronic ode to transience and mutability. As Vitkausas notes on her Vimeo page,

Words on paper or screen are arranged and captured for a moment. Poems exist, but the unique act of word arrangement for that moment in time is fleeting.

My poems are like photographs, capturing a string of images or moments so that they may exist in newly created forms for one moment.

Do visit her website as well. She’s launched a fascinating new generative poetry project called Hallucinations, and is looking for collaborators.

The Weekender by Joanna Fuhrman

On 14 July, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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A whimsical re-imagining of the New York City subway system by videopoet Joanna Fuhrman.

æłĄ Soaked In by ć”èŻ—é›š Shiyu Tang

On 6 July, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation, Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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This animated poem by CalArts student filmmaker Shiyu Tang has done very well on the festival circuit for good reason: it doesn’t give away all its secrets on a first watch or even a third. Dedicated “To the sisters we never had a chance to meet,” it takes a deeply personal look at female infanticide and abortions in China, with a kind of Notes section at the end to help orient an international audience. My only criticism is that some of the subtitles didn’t linger on-screen long enough for me to read them all on the first viewing, but aside from that, it was a pitch-perfect film, I thought.

Shiyu Tang is clearly a poetry filmmaker to watch. In addition to her Vimeo page, she’s got a channel on YouTube, an active Instagram account, and a website where she describes herself as an “Independent animator, whose works are mostly based on social phenomena and female perspectives.”

Nine Moons by Janet Lees

On 29 June, 2024 by Janet Lees with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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Until recently I lived for many years in the Isle of Man, where my mother’s family is from. I was deeply drawn to the paintings of Breton-born Bruno Cavellec, who was widely acknowledged as one of the leading artists working on the island. I also greatly admired his illustrative work for album sleeves and book covers. Frankly, I was starstruck. When he approached me at an exhibition opening and floated the idea of us working together, it felt like some kind of celestial door opening (accompanied, of course, by the doom bell of imposter syndrome-induced terror).

Forgiveness by Bruno Cavellec

This was the beginning of a collaboration that unfolded gradually over several years, and culminated in our first work together, Nine Moons, winning Best International Poetry Short at the recent Bloomsday Film Festival in Dublin. This was the first screening for the film. It was also one of the first public accolades for Bruno’s music, the art form which is closest to his heart and which he started working with in earnest just a few years ago, under the name of Mablanig.

Bruno says, “Ever since I saw Janet’s videopoems, I’ve been an admirer of her very distinctive style and powerful narrative. With her, it’s almost as if I discovered a brand-new language, so unique and expressive, which I find deeply moving and inspiring. Writing a score for her was a big dream of mine.”

The first couple of years of our collaboration didn’t involve any creative work – at least, not any concrete work. We knew each other’s work, but we didn’t know each other. While I was still living in the Isle of Man, we met a few times, most memorably in Bruno’s studio, surrounded by his work and his influences, and just talked. It became clear that there was a lot of common ground, and each time we met we dug down deeper into it.

Nothing Ever Was, one of Bruno’s paintings, dissolving into one of my photographs in the film

Finally, about a year ago, we set out to make a film, collaborating via Zoom as by this time we were in separate countries. It was an ambitious collaborative project, a videopoetry triptych that was a kind of multilateral ekphrasis. We wanted to respond to each other’s work, which collectively included my poetry, film and photography, and Bruno’s music and paintings. We also wanted to include both our voices.

As we got into the work, Bruno suggested bringing even more of ourselves to the project, in the form of photographs of people who have left a mark on us. Thanks to his Photoshop skills we were able to combine these with some of my images that include frame-like devices, such as windows in old walls. These animated stills make up the third section of the film which for both of us is the most powerful and, in terms of how the music, visuals and text work together, the most seamless.

One of the stills I animated for the third section of the triptych. The derelict cottage is my image, the photograph of my sister Carole is by my other sister, Niki

It was a profoundly affecting experience putting the whole film together, and particularly this section. While I was editing the sequence of images it was as though I was holding my breath, standing on the edge of another world. This was due in large part to Bruno’s hauntingly beautiful and transformative music, which I had playing on repeat the whole time. There’s something he does, an interweaving of darkness and light, sorrow and bliss – which suffuses his paintings too – that is absolutely in tune with my inner landscape.

This was a collaboration in the true sense of the word, and it came with challenges as well as huge rewards. When you are used to working in isolation, making all the creative decisions, it’s a big leap to sharing each step of the process with someone else. I had to consciously let go of both my fear of being creatively ‘wrong’ and my need to control, which I know comes from a need for psychological safety. For me, this wasn’t actually as difficult as I’d expected, because of the trust between Bruno and myself. Fear kills the creative impulse. In hindsight, because we had spent a lot of time not actually doing anything together but just being together, the space we created for the work to grow in was a fertile one.

BIOS

Janet Lees is a lens-based artist and poet. Her films have been selected for festivals and screenings including the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, the International Videopoetry Festival and the Aesthetica Art Prize. In 2021 she won the Ó BhĂ©al Poetry-Film competition, and in 2024 the first prize at Filmetry Festival. Her poetry is widely published in journals and anthologies, and her art photography has been exhibited around the world.

See more of Janet’s poetry film work here.

Mablanig is the music output of Breton artist and illustrator Bruno Cavellec. After 25 years of designing album covers and film posters, he is now embracing his new career as a composer, and released his first album in 2022. Described as cinematic and atmospheric, his textured compositions are often permeated with a strong sense of drama. 

Hear more of Mablanig’s music here, and see more of Bruno’s paintings and other artworks here.

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“What Memphis Needs” by Alexis Krasilovsky

On 22 June, 2024 by Patricia Killelea with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Video Library
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Watch on Vimeo.

Acclaimed author and filmmaker Alexis Krasilovsky recently spoke with Moving Poems about her videopoem, “What Memphis Needs” (1991). The film offers a unique view of social inequalities prevalent in Memphis, Tennessee throughout the 1970s and 80s but feels just as relevant today. Featuring original 16mm footage taken by Krasilovsky in the 1970s while she was working on the documentary, Beale Street, she is also the author and narrator of the poem around which the film is centered.

What Memphis Needs ( l to r): Reseda Mickey ( Associate Producer); Alexis Krasilovsky (poet/director); Sabrina Simmons (additional cinematographer).

The story behind “What Memphis Needs” reveals a small piece of videopoem history and serves as an interesting reminder of how this form has always held a close relationship with technology and continues to evolve. Editing for the videopoem took place in the early 1980s and 90’s and the work was completed and screened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1991. Krasilovsky writes, “Back in those days, I relished using sharpies and yellow grease pencil to mark off frames of 16mm soundtrack and workprint on the Moviola while figuring out the rhythmic beats and counterpoints of ‘What Memphis Needs.’” The result is a poetryfilm which serves as a snapshot of an American city at historical and social crossroads, as well as an enduring social commentary on racial tensions in the South.

Calvin Brown at the Lorraine Morel, Memphis, Tennessee- from “What Memphis Needs” by Alexis Krasilovsky

When asked about the origins of the title poem, Krasilovsky’s response highlights a fascinating history:

“What Memphis Needs” is my own poem: I wrote it myself. I also included it in my chapbook, Some Women Writers Kill Themselves (A Street Agency Publication: Los Angeles, 1983) and my DVD, “Some Women Writers Kill Themselves: Selected Videopoems & Poetry by Alexis Krasilovsky” (Rafael Film: Los Angeles, 2008). However, I was inspired by Etheridge Knight and his Free People’s Poetry Workshop, which he held in Memphis, Tennessee in the late 1970’s. (I was one of the token white members of the workshop.) I later became Etheridge Knight’s West Coast poetry tour coordinator and dedicated the poetry video, “What Memphis Needs,” to him.

Described in the poetry film’s abstract as providing “a searing cross-section of Memphis history and society,” the piece also features musical acts by Harmonikeys and Roosevelt Briggs. The production of “What Memphis Needs” runs parallel the blues documentary work Krasilovsky was doing at the time for the film Beale Street (1981. black and white, sound, 28 min). The filmmaker explains that, “It was an interview-intensive documentary with over a hundred hours of B.B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Ma Rainey II, Little Laura Dukes, Rufus Thomas, Nat D. Williams, Fred Hulbert, the Hooks Brothers, Ernest Withers, and many others who knew this 125th Street of the South, where Martin Luther King, Jr. last marched before he was assassinated. It was taking forever to complete (—although we did finally complete it: it’s available on Kanopy.com), and in the meantime, Eastman Kodak was offering free samples of a new 16mm film stock to select filmmakers to test out its color palette.” This is one reason why “What Memphis Needs” is marked not only by the rhythms and sounds of the blues but also by an iconic color palette.

“What Memphis Needs”

Alexis Krasilovsky continues producing quality videopoems to this day, having recently collaborated with poet Rodger Kamenetz to create a film based on his poem, “Rafael,” originally published in his collection, The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022. The poem spoke to Krasilov on multiple levels because, as she explains, “Rodger’s poem is about the angel Rafael, but Rafael is also the name of my film company, and my middle name.” Krasilovsky continues:

I greatly enjoyed these experiences in collaborative poetry filmmaking. “Rafael” was awarded Best One-Minute Film at the Luis Buñuel Memorial Awards in Kolkata, India. “A Petal Pushed By a Breeze” won “Best Mobile Film” at the World Film Carnival in Singapore and other awards. And “Positive Thinking” won Best One-Minute Film at the Filmzen International Competition in Paris, France, as well as at the Cult Jury Film Festival in Gurgaon, India. “Positive Thinking” also won the “Free Speech” Award at the Gangtok International Film Festival in Goan, Sikkim, and was an official selection along with “A Petal Pushed by a Breeze” at the Crimean Tatar Cultural Center in Odesa, Ukraine on May 28, 2023.

VHS cover, “What Memphis Needs” Photo of Etheridge Knight by Alexis Krasilovsky

In addition to producing videopoems, Alexis Krasilovsky is a screenwriter (member of the Writers Guild of America West) as well as the author of the book, Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling (Routledge – 2nd place winner, 2019 International Writers Awards). On an interesting note, one of her poems, “No Sex, No Violence,” which also came out of the Etheridge Knight Free People’s Poetry Workshop, is being made into a film. But, she explains, “rather than make a poetry film from my ‘No Sex, No Violence’ poem, I wrote a novel.” Krasilovsky is currently putting her expertise in screenwriting and adaptation to work as she adapts this novel, titled A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman. She explains,

I love the interfacing of visual media with written poetry,” and her  recent book, Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems (Cyberwit: India – finalist, 2022 International Books Awards) “includes three short poems that are woven into the soundtrack of my 2021 poetry film, ‘The Parking Lot of Dreams,’ which is about the pandemic. The film’s visuals are collated from dozens of photocollages that I made in a deserted parking lot, which was the only safe place I could find to take walks during the early months of Covid.

For more information about Alexis Krasilovsky’s videopoems and books, please see www.alexiskrasilovsky.com and https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/filmmaker/?i=182

BIO: Alexis Krasilovsky was born in Alaska, survived sexual assault at gunpoint, and knows what it’s like to be completely deaf. After graduation from Yale and receiving an MFA at CalArts in Film/Video, Krasilovsky became an award-winning filmmaker and the author of “Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling” (– 2nd Place Winner, 2019 International Writers Awards). Her recent book, “Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems,” was a finalist for the 2022 International Book Awards. She also contributed to Reclamation: A Survivors Anthology and Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence. As writer/director, her films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art and in festivals around the world. Her recent poetry films won an Outstanding Achievement Award (Experimental Film) at the Tagore International Film Festival in India and the Best Original Concept Award (Experimental Film) at the Jane Austen International Film Festival in the UK, and other awards. Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center has called her “Southern California’s poetry video diva.”

Close Encounters of the 21st Kind by Joanna Fuhrman

On 21 June, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 4 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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An author-made videopoem by Joanna Fuhrman,

an Assistant Teaching Professor in Creative Writing at Rutgers University [who] is the author of six books of poetry, To a New Era (Hanging Loose Press 2021), The Year of Yellow Butterflies (Hanging Loose Press 2015), Pageant (Alice James Books 2009), Moraine (Hanging Loose Press 2006), Ugh Ugh Ocean (Hanging Loose Press 2006) and Freud in Brooklyn (Hanging Loose Press 2000). In 2011, Least Weasel published her chapbook The Emotive Function. Her seventh book Data Mind, a collection of prose poems about the internet, is forthcoming from Curbstone/Northwestern University Press in October 2024.

Read the rest.

“Close Encounters…” is from that forthcoming collection, Data Mind. Fuhrman told me,

In this collection, I wrestle with the experience of being online as a non-digital native. My generation entered the Internet age with a lot of optimism about the possibility of a new kind of community and has watched with anguish as what was sold as a utopian space has instead reflected and magnified all of the horrors and anti-democratic demons of necrocapitalism. Still, the Internet can be fun. Some of the joy and the feeling of connection is real. I am interested in exploring these simultaneous and conflicting realities. I use the trope of the Internet as a way to remix the stories of famous films as well as a way to examine the ancient tension between the mind and the body. The book also tackles how gender stereotypes are either exaggerated or erased in Internet culture.

I’ve shared a couple of Fuhrman’s other films, but do visit Vimeo for more.

Videopoem Mixtape Vol. 1 by Patricia Killelea

On 15 June, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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I was struck by how well these six author-made videopoems work together as a collection, and thought they’d also serve as a good introduction to the videopoetry practice of the latest addition to our editorial team, Patricia Killelea, whose work I’ve featured here in the past, but none since 2018. The embedded YouTube player should work, but let me append links to the six films, in order, with the YouTube descriptions for each, excluding the repetitive but vital detail that each features Patricia’s own words, voice, and video:

The Middle of Nowhere
“The Middle of Nowhere” received an Honorable Mention @ The Midwest Video Poetry Fest, Madison, WI 2023
This poetryfilm is a meditation on what it means to live in the rural Midwest— the phrase, “middle of nowhere,” itself is a misnomer.

In the Summer of 2020, We Picked Berries
“In the Summer of 2020, We Picked Berries” was Award-Nominated and an Official Selection for the REELpoetry International Poetry Film Festival – Houston, TX 2024
Poetryfilm reflecting on the politicization of the COVID-19 pandemic and historic protests in U.S. urban centers in 2020. There was a stark contrast between life in the cities and life in rural America during this time. But that was only on the surface.

A Rusted Bird Cage in an Otherwise Empty Field
“A Rusted Birdcage in an Otherwise Empty Field” was an Online Feature @ FENCE, 2021
A poetryfilm addressing the shadow self.

Greetings from Lake Superior
“Postcard: Greetings from Lake Superior” was an Official Selection @ Det Poetiske Fonoteque: Nature & Culture Poetry Film Festival, Copenhagen 2022
A poetryfilm exploring ecological crisis in the Great Lakes region: mercury poisoning, PFAS (forever chemicals), and toxic stamp sands from mining waste.
Poem originally published in Sky Island Journal.

A New History/Una Nueva Historia
“A New History/Una Nueva Historia” was a Finalist and Official Selection for Frame to Frames II @ FOTOGENIA Film Poetry & Divergent Narratives Festival, Mexico City 2023
Spanish translation by Camilo Bosso. With special thanks to poet Lisandra Perez, MFA, for PK’s original Spanish translation assistance.
An ekphrastic poetryfilm inspired by Ana Segovia’s painting Huapengo Torero, “A New History” celebrating the act of crossing over into a new way of life— one that challenges stereotypical conceptions of gender, animal-human relationships, and desire.
Published in Poem Film Imprints Vol. 1, Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow II/Cuadro a Cuadros : Tus Ojos Siguen II (ekphrastic poetry + films/cine + poesĂ­a ecfrĂĄstica), Anthology, Bilingual Edition, Poem in Print & QR Code linking to Videopoem, Liberated Words, Bath, UK, 2024 available here.

How it Starts
“How it Starts” was Shortlisted and an Official Selection at the Ó BhĂ©al Poetry Film Competition, Cork, Ireland 2017 Also screened @ POETRY FILM LIVE ​
A poetryfilm addressing violence, internet culture, and history.
Poem appeared in Counterglow (Urban Farmhouse Press, 2018)

I asked Patricia why “mixtape” (rather than, say, “chapbook” or “anthology”), and what led her to this grouping, and her response is worth quoting in full:

It felt like my poetryfilms didn’t have a home. They were scattered across the internet— some streaming on lit journal or videopoem sites, while others were screened at festivals but otherwise not made public. I’m a private person, but what are these poetryfilms for if they’re not out there in the world moving around? The concept of the mixtape came to mind, a curated playlist that would be free and accessible to anyone online. When I pick up a poetry collection, I can read from the opening page all the way to end, or I can skip around from poem to poem. And when I listen to an album, I can move between tracks or hear it all the way through in a continuous experience. Why couldn’t I do the same with my videopoems?

As someone born in the early 80’s, I remember the joy and excitement of the mixtape. I made a tape for a high school crush, traded carefully pirated masterpieces with other goth-industrial, punk and metalhead friends. It took time and care and I had to think about the impact of the mixtape taken as a whole. What messages would it send? How would it make the listener feel? Would I finally be understood? With this Videopoem Mixtape Vol. 1, I am bringing together selections from my recent poetryfilm work as a kind of retrospective exercise and an offering to the videopoem community to encourage more open sharing and collaboration. Finally, this mixtape was an experiment for myself so I could see how these pieces fit together across time, talking to and echoing one another since I tend to carry out my personal obsessions in poetics, both on and off the page. These obsessions are namely the natural world and environmental justice issues, history, and a general fascination with language itself as a medium through which and by which we live and exist.

Because my poetryfilms are largely voice-driven, I chose to refer to this curation as a Videopoem Mixtape instead of a Videopoem Chapbook. More people outside of the literary world know what a mixtape is compared to a chapbook, and I wanted the collection to be immediately discernible to folks outside of the poetryfilm practice.

My hope is that more and more poetryfilm artists will release their own Videopoem Mixtapes online. Let’s trade these Videopoem Mixtapes back and forth with one another like we used to trade cassette mixtapes back in the day. Give your scattered videopoems a home so we can all stop by for a visit.

Patricia Killelea is a writer and poetry filmmaker living in the western Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Her poetry films have been officially selected and screened at REELpoetry International Film Festival, Det Poetiske Fonoteque: Nature & Culture Poetry Film Festival, the Ó’BĂ©al International Poetry-Film Competition, and Frame to Frames II: Your Eyes Follow for the FOTOGENIA Film Poetry & Divergent Narratives Festival. Her other poetry films have received Honorable Mention at the Midwest Video Poetry Fest and longlisted for the Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival. Patricia’s poetry films and essays on videopoetry craft have been featured at FENCE, Poetry Film Live, and Atticus Review. Her most recent poetry collection, Counterglow, was published by Urban Farmhouse Press (2019), and her poems have appeared in literary journals cream city review, Seneca Review, Quarterly West, The Common, Trampoline, Barzakh, Waxwing and elsewhere. She was Poetry Editor at Passages North from 2015-2022 and has been a Poetry Editor at FENCE since 2022. She is an Associate Professor of English at Northern Michigan University.

Immigrant Sea by Forrest Gander

On 9 June, 2024 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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A friend lent me a copy of Forrest Gander’s 2021 collection Twice Alive: An Ecology of Intimacies, and in a moment of pure serendipity last Wednesday, skimming the acknowledgements, I see a mention of poetry films, so I go to Vimeo and find this video at the top of my feed, uploaded just a few hours earlier! I’ve been following Gander’s videopoetry for years, during which time his reputation as a page poet has skyrocketed, to the point where I think it’s fair to say he’s the most prominent American poet regularly making his own poetry films. And his videopoems have grown stronger as well (though you may have to take my word for this, as his earlier films have gone missing). His choice of images used to feel a bit arbitrary at times, but I don’t get that feeling from any of his recent films, which now feel as necessary and urgent as the texts on their own.

You can read the text of the poem in Harper’s (if you haven’t already hit their paywalled limit).