~ Videopoems ~
Videopoetry, filmpoetry, cinepoetry, poetry-film… the label doesn’t matter. What matters is that text and images enter into dialogue, creating a new, poetic whole.
Afterimages by Mackenzie Duan
love everything about this animation by Evan Bode, though the first time I watched I wasn’t completely sold on the high school-aged poet Mackenzie Duan’s voiceover. On second viewing, I changed my mind, discovering, as Bode evidently did, that a youthful lack of assertiveness can code as sincerity and a kind of wisdom when one absorbs it in the overall context of the sound design, the intense colors, and most importantly the gorgeous lines of poetry. The film was created for Season 4 of the literary magazine Counterclock‘s Patchwork: Film x Poetry project,
a nine-week interdisciplinary arts fellowship open to filmmakers and poets. Filmmakers and poets are paired together to create original film-poems, or short films inspired by poetry. In the first half of the fellowship, each poet works to produce an original poem informed by both their and their partner’s creative interests; in the second half of the fellowship, each filmmaker works with their partner to adapt their partner’s poem into a short film.
Visit the film’s page at Counterclock to read the poem and bios. Here’s a snippet from the former:
Behind us, the hills
slope in brushstrokes over a lake,
soft and washed out, like the placefires go after burning.
Our bodies become stations of lightwhen the sun dips.
Crossing to Ireland by Jean Maskell
I always tend to feel that poetry animations are best at their most abstract and minimalistic—depending on the poem, of course. This animation by Rachel McMahon AKA RaeRae won the audience award at the Liverpool Celtic Animation Festival. It’s a collaboration with Jean Maskell, “a multi-disciplinary artist and writer inspired by contemporary and historic social issues and the natural world,” who provided the voiceover and text: a poem “about the conflicting emotions of feeling a part of two countries.” Perhaps it is that sense of a provisional existence that makes the kind of tentative approach to the animation—lines drawn and undrawn on white space with a paper grain—such a good fit.
Gethsemane by Toby Martinez de las Rivas
Gethsemane is one in an ongoing series of films from Jane Glennie, made in collaboration with fellow UK poet Toby Martinez de las Rivas, and Bulgarian sound artist Neda Milenova Mirova. This poem is from the collection Floodmeadow, published earlier in 2023 by Faber.
All films in the series take an experimental approach, including layered and truncated voices, gritty sound and music, and still images animated in darkly expressive ways. The three collaborators seem artistically well-matched, the writing, sound and film-making coherently meeting. Another highlight from the series is Psalm-for-the Sea, Little Sea-Psalm.
Jane Glennie currently has a solo exhibition happening over August and September in the Art at the ARB program of University of Cambridge. Gethsemane and the other films in the series form part of the exhibition, along with her award-winning Because Goddess is Never Enough.
We have previously featured several other of her films here. In addition, Jane regularly posts about film festivals and more at Moving Poems Magazine.
Cuando Fui Clandestino / When I Was Clandestine by Juan Garrido Salgado
This recent collaboration between Chilean poet Juan Garrido Salgado and Australian filmmaker Ian Gibbins incorporates other texts in the process of evoking quite different places from where the film was shot, which could’ve gone wrong in so many ways, I was astonished by how well this all works—how authentic everything feels. Ian has posted some process notes which are worth sharing in full:
Juan Garrido Salgado immigrated to Australia from Chile in 1990, fleeing the Pinochet regime that burned his poetry, imprisoned him, and tortured him for his political activism. Since then, his poetry has been widely published to acclaim, and includes eight books, anthologies and translations. His readings are renowned for their passion and dedication to social justice. His latest collection, The Dilemma of Writing a Poem, has just been published by Puncher & Wattman.
Some time ago, we decided to make a video of one of his poems. It was a hard choice, but we settled on Cuando Fui Clandestino / When I Was Clandestine from his collection of the same title, published in 2019 by Rochford Press. The poem is strongly autobiographical and refers to time he spent in Moscow as well as living under curfew in Chile.
Making the video was a challenge. It was not possible for me to film in Russia or Chile, and, in any case, the political and social changes have been so great in each country, it was not clear what footage would be appropriate. We could have used archival footage in the public domain, but, in general, I prefer to use my own original footage in my work. Given that Juan has lived in Adelaide for many years now, we decided that I would film sites around the city that reflected the mood of his original experiences, while being clearly set in a contemporary context. All the footage was taken at night at locations I know well. A few scenes have been composited from more than one site. We went back to a key location not far from where Juan lives to film him there after dark with his poetry.
The music is an original composition, written and performed by Juan’s son, Lenin Garrido. After a small amount of editing, the structure of the music ended up being a key element in pulling together the various components of the video.
The language of the poem is complex. Although it is published in Spanish and English, we decided to have the spoken word element only in Spanish. A truly bi-lingual version would have been ideal, but we decided it was not necessary this time.
Part of the complexity of the poem relates to its references to the work of other poets: Nicanor Parra, Pablo Neruda, Vladimir Mayakovski and musician Violetta Parra. In recognition of the use of public walls for propaganda, advertising, street art and protest, excerpts from the poems referred to in Juan’s text appear on dark walls, in different languages, alongside public domain portraits of the authors. These are the poems and their sources (click on the texts for relevant links):
El Premio Nobél
Nicanor Para: Antipoems – How to Look Better and Feel Great
New Directions 2004Домой! (Homeward!)
Vladimir Mayakovsky: Maximum Access
Sensitive Skin Books 2018Oda al Hombre Sencillo
Pablo Neruda: Odas Elementales
Editorial Losada 1954
The Grains Are Rough Here by Claire Rosslyn Wilson
A poetry film in eight parts, The Grains Are Rough Here is by Australian-born writer, film-maker, researcher and editor, Claire Rosslyn Wilson. Footage and sound were collected in Melbourne, Chiang Mai, Singapore and Barcelona, the latter her current place of residence.
In the video notes she describes the film as “a suite of 8 videopoems”. Indeed, each of the eight parts could stand alone, but I find them cohesive as a single film. The intertwining of personal and political reflection is emotionally affecting. Rhythmic repetitions of words, phrases and lines deepen the sense and impact of the text. The effective editing of images and sounds suggests an experienced film-maker.
Wilson speaks her own poetry in the film, accompanied by subtitles. To some this may seem unnecessary doubling up. But I enjoyed being able to visually read the poetry at will, as well as to hear it, allowing different perspectives on the writing. The 13-minute duration invites an easy shifting of focus across each element of the film.
From the ‘About‘ section of her website:
I take an intercultural and interdisciplinary approach that explores creative ways to look closely at the world around us. This stems from my personal experience working in a number of cultures (Australia, Spain, Thailand, Singapore), which has given me an appreciation for the importance of an open and multifaceted worldview, necessary when adapting to diverse cultural contexts.
Life Sentence by Sissy Doutsiou
Moving Poems‘ own Jane Glennie, an award-winning film-maker in the UK, teams up with Greek poet and performer Sissy Doutsiou for this urgent, angry protest video titled Life Sentence.
The music by Rolvd is a key part of the piece, which in some ways resembles music video. Recording, mixing and mastering are credited to Incognito M and Pipeline Music Lab. Doutsiou’s spoken-word performance of the text is powerful in the mix.
Jane Glennie brings her signature kinetic animation style to the video. Well-chosen images and visual textures flicker in a rapid stream, meeting well with the voice and music.
Aside from her writing and performance work, Sissy Doutsiou has over the past decade been director of the International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, and editor of the more recent Film Poetry website.
Table for One by Carol Ann Palomba
Selected for the 2023 Haiku North America Haibun Film Festival. Browse the other selections.
Matt Mullins directs a film that we loved for its subtlety, its mastery of the poetry film genre, and its haiku spirit. In the end, it wasn’t a difficult decision to award it Best of Show. Jane Glennie found it “Carefully thought out and very subtly handled. The boiling water is utterly compelling within the stillness of the scene. The soundscape works really well, and the cuts to the haiku text powerful.” James Brush added, “I also like the very ordinariness of the shot. I imagine the speaker standing at the stove just staring and maybe not really seeing, his mind wandering. We’ve all been there, right? I guess that’s why it resonates so much for me.” As for me, I found the film grew on me the more I watched it: a minimalist masterpiece.
Director’s Statement: “Things come to a boil.”
Carol Ann Palomba has been published in anthologies and numerous journals, including Acorn, Frogpond, Haibun Today, Heron’s Nest, Mayfly, Modern Haiku, and Presence. She received third place in the 2020 Harold G. Henderson Haiku Contest and honorable mentions in Sonic Boom’s 4th annual Senryu Contest and the 2017 H. Gene Murtha Memorial Senryu Contest. Carol Ann is a member of the Haiku Poets of the Garden State and helps facilitate the New Jersey Botanical Garden’s haiku installation during Poetry Month. She’s thrilled that her haibun, “Table For One,” was chosen to be adapted into a short film and thanks the judges, the director, and Moving Poems. She enjoys playing darts and sounds much taller on the phone.
Matt Mullins makes videopoems, plays music, and writes. You can see more of his work at vimeo.com/mattmullins.
Unremembered by Marjorie Buettner
Selected for the 2023 Haiku North America Haibun Film Festival. Browse the other selections.
From Dutch director Pat van Boeckel, who honed his craft in the documentary film genre before branching out into video art. His documentaries have been broadcast on Dutch public television and showcased at festivals, covering diverse topics such as indigenous peoples and ecology, with a philosophical undercurrent. His video installations delve into the complex relationship between humanity and the natural environment, exploring contemporary life through the lens of lost values and other forgotten elements of modernization. His works are notable for their simplicity, which stands in contrast to the fast-paced and ever-changing visual culture of today. His focus on the experience of time and place is central to both his documentary and video art works.
Judges’ statement: “Some really imaginative imagery and ideas. We particularly loved the layered reflections and shadows when the finger is drawing a flower on the window, and the ‘kiss’ of the rose leaf was totally captivating. We also loved the hand within a hand within a hand of the shadows and hand holding the cast of a hand. These images had a haiku-like quality all their own.”
Marjorie Buettner is a Pushcart nominated, award winning haiku, tanka and haibun poet who has published widely throughout the U.S. and U.K. and has previously been an editor for the online journal Contemporary Haibun Online. She has taught haiku and tanka at the Loft in Minneapolis and has presented various poetry workshops throughout Minnesota. Her collection of haibun, Some Measure of Existence (published by Red Dragonfly Press, 2014), won first place in the 2015 Mildred Kanterman Merit Book Awards; it was also nominated for the Minnesota Book Awards. She has a collection of haiku and tanka published by Red Dragonfly Press: Seeing It Now, 2008. She writes book reviews for various haiku and tanka journals.
Hypnic Jerk by Alan Peat
Selected for the 2023 Haiku North America Haibun Film Festival. Browse the other selections.
An homage to Henri Rousseau by Austin-based collaborative filmmakers Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran. The password is Hypn!c
British poet Alan Peat has won top awards in the Golden Haiku Contest, the New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition, the Otoroshi Rengay Contest, the BHS Ken and Norah Jones Haibun Award, the San Francisco International Haibun Contest, the Sanford Goldstein International Tanka Contest, the Heliosparrow Semagram Contest, and the Time Haiku ekphrastic haibun contest—all since 2021. He was one of three winners in the Touchstone Awards for Individual Haibun competition (2022). He is clearly on a roll.
Judges’ statement: “We loved this one in the way that one loves a children’s book even as an adult and can’t wait to share it with one’s own kids. It has a warm and playful feeling of familiarity, excitement, fun and fast-paced adventure. The idea of the moving layers of jungle and animations within, and the cuts to the paintings in a gallery are fabulous. Can poetry be a lighthearted and fun action movie? Yes, it can!”
Directors’ statement:
Hooked by the mention of Rosseau’s jungle in the first line of Allen Peat’s evocative and mysterious Haibun, “Hypnic Jerk,” we wondered if we could create a wholly imaginary world cut from the cloth of Rousseau’s fantastical paintings and the dream illogic of Peat’s brilliantly fragmented, hypnic poetic strategy. We had previously tried something with a similar kind of logic, when making a film based on Wallace Stevens’ out-of-copyright “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” another anything-goes kind of videopoetry project, where our method was to capture the startling images his words evoked for us using whatever crazy means necessary, and to manipulate those images in unexpected and visually poetic ways. Very early in the pre-production stages, we thought we might need to supplement Rousseau’s painted imagery with video of jungle plants shot in public conservatories and gardens in Illinois and Texas, which could be collaged to create a virtual jungle backdrop for the poem’s action. Then we we reviewed Rousseau’s body of paintings, which included a substantial number that we hadn’t seen before, and we realized we could go whole hog and construct an entirely imaginary Rousseau world by animating and collaging his painted imagery, coupled with an evocative soundscape score composed almost entirely from natural sounds.
The Longest Journey by Bob Lucky
Selected for the 2023 Haiku North America Haibun Film Festival. Browse the other selections.
Pete Johnston’s other contribution to the festival, along with The Gone Missing. He says: “I loved reading through the haibun, a format that was new to me, and I was immediately struck by these two poems because I could think of a way in. I have a large collection of train video from my personal archive, from different journeys I’ve taken—on the east coast and through the UK, and any time I get to use my vast collection of largely useless video I will jump at it. I just loved the sardonic tone in Bob’s work—it put a smile on my face and I loved working with the words and images to create the piece.”
Jane Glennie: “Great audio reading of the text and careful typography of the haiku text on screen. Good positioning and delicate without needing extra help to be legible against the background.”
Bob Lucky is the author of Ethiopian Time (Red Bird Chapbooks, 2014), Conversation Starters in a Language No One Speaks (SurVision Books, 2018), and My Thology: Not Always True But Always Truth (Cyberwit, 2019). His work has appeared in Rattle, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Otoliths, Die Leere Mitte, SurVision Magazine, and other journals. He lives in Portugal.
The Gone Missing by Joseph Aversano (Beate Gördes)
Selected for the 2023 Haiku North America Haibun Film Festival. Browse the other selections.
From German director Beate Gördes, who was born in 1961 in Germany, and currently lives and works in Cologne. She studied Fine Arts at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne. Since 2006, her main focus has been on video compositions combined with electroacoustic sounds. She has participated in exhibitions both nationally and internationally since 1985, including most recently the 2023 COLLAGE ON SCREEN Kolaj Fest New Orleans, USA; 2023 INTERNATIONAL POETRY FILM FESTIVAL OF THURINGIA, Weimar, Germany; 2022 HIER NICHT HIER (with Dagmar Lutz) TENRI Japanese-German Cultural Workshop Cologne, Germany; and 2022 ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, Germany.
Judges’ statement: “Bewitched and glitchy—a mesmerizing film with strong use of layout and a graphic image. Great sound choice, eerie but not too dominating.”
Joseph Salvatore Aversano is a native New Yorker currently living on the Central Anatolian steppe with his wife Asu. His poems have been published in numerous journals and some have been awarded or anthologized. He is the founding curator of Half Day Moon Press and editor of Half Day Moon Journal. We chose five different films that used his haibun, “The Gone Missing,” intrigued that so many filmmakers chose to work with it, and eager to show the variety of approaches that poetry filmmakers can take.
