~ 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.
the light – the shade by Robert Lax
Susanne Wiegner‘s most recent 3D animation of a poem by Robert Lax is among the films scheduled for screening this Saturday, October 17, at Visible Verse in Vancouver, North America’s longest-running videopoetry festival.
To me, this is an excellent example of how a good videopoem can open up a difficult or hermetic text. If I’d encountered Lax’s poem on the page, I doubt I would’ve given it more than ten seconds of my attention before becoming irritated or exasperated, but Wiegner’s animation is so compelling and so full of surprises, its seven minutes went by all too quickly. Here’s what she wrote in the Vimeo description:
“the light – the shade” is a poem by Robert Lax that plays with the contrasts and opposites light and shade, with bright and dark, black and white, red and blue. The film begins with a nighttime scenery in a city, moves into a room and starts watching the movement of the shadows on the wall. Finally the camera enters the screen of a laptop and goes deeper and deeper into the poem. The film becomes a journey through the realm of imagination, through spaces and pictures, through letters and words. In that way the minimal language of the poem is unfolded into unexpected pictures.
Millionaire by Mab Jones
This animation by Lauren Orme and Jordan Brookes is described by the poet, Mab Jones, as
A poem about love, in the form of a list.
Dedicated to (about) the poet Johnny Giles.
The film has just taken top honors at the 2015 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival, winning for Best Animation, Best Valentine, and Best Overall Production. It was also shortlisted in the Southbank Centre’s Shot Through The Heart poetry film competition in 2014.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91”
Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91
Poem by L. S. Klatt
Film by Tom Jacobsen
Motionpoems 2012
This delightful videopoem glides along on a journey that inescapably comes to an end with the death of the great artist, Andrew Wyeth.
Visually this film is a real treat for me. I work with the same program Tom Jacobsen uses, Adobe After Effects. Jacobsen succeeds beautifully at weaving in the software while allowing the imagery to follow the words. The images reveal aspects of Wyeth’s work, creating an exquisite statement.
Continuity is a huge issue for me. Jacobsen’s use of two very different art forms, drawing and photography, is successful: the two seamlessly overlap without distracting the viewer. There are times when an artist will throw in a photo for whatever reason, and it doesn’t always work. But in this film it helps to create a painterly rhythm. The use of abstract forms such as ink drops also adds to the flow, assisting the foreground images as they reveal the spoken words.
I love the music, and I think it’s a good fit. But however slight a criticism it may be, I could do without the sound effects. Why throw in the kitchen sink when the piece is so pleasing and pure?
ГІПНОЗ / Hypnosis by Hrytsko Chubai
A Ukrainian poetry film directed by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk with a poem by Hrytsko Chubai. Be sure to click on the CC icon for the English subtitles, translated by Iryna Vikyrchak, and see the YouTube description for additional credits. I found this thanks to the Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition shortlist for 2015. (The screening is scheduled for this very weekend, October 10-11, at the Smurfit Theatre in The Firkin Crane, Cork, Ireland.)
Seeing the Pope on TV by Maria Jastrzȩbska
This four-year-old video by Kevin Simmonds for a Maria Jastrzȩbska poem about Pope John Paul II seems, sadly, as relevant as ever. The description at Vimeo:
A poem by Maria Jastrzȩbska from Syrena (Redbeck Press, 2004) that appears in Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality, from Sibling Rivalry Press and edited by Kevin Simmonds.
That anthology has its own website, including a videos page where you can watch this and 28 other videopoems! Kudos to Simmonds. It’s rare for a poetry editor to take video seriously at all, let alone make the videos himself.
How Not to Need Resurrection by Michalle Gould
Motionpoems are really going from strength to strength these days. October’s offering is a powerful, highly effective film based on a poem by Michalle Gould. The film was directed by Diego Vazquez Lozano and Statten Roeg of Detachment East with a talented cast of actors and original music by Lozano and Claudio Aguilar Riquenes. (See Vimeo for the full list of credits.)
Motionpoems also produced a short video of Gould discussing her reaction to the film—
as well as a longer, text interview about the poem, conducted by Kevin Danielson. The whole thing is worth checking out, but I particularly liked Gould’s concluding remarks:
I really enjoyed the experience of seeing my poem made into a film. What I love about poetry is that there are so many different ways to read a poem, and having a film made out of your poem is a really unique way to view someone else’s perspective on your work and what they get out of it. Because I wrote this poem so quickly and instinctively, I’m not sure I had ever really sat down and reflected on what I actually meant by it, and I think this whole process has helped me understand it better than I did before.
Gould also blogged about the premiere of Motionpoems’ 2015 crop of films last May.
The Minute by Charles Bukowski
Even though I don’t like Charles Bukowski, I love this poetry film by Adrián Suárez, which functions in part as a demonstration of just how much can be packed into (slightly more than) one minute. The production team is pretty much the same as with Instrucciones para cantar / Instructions for Singing, including Juan Carlos Gonzáles as director of photography.
Ghazal Before Morning by Colleen Michaels
A new Swoon (Marc Neys) film using a text from The Poetry Storehouse by Massachusetts-based poet Colleen Michaels, in a voiceover by Nic S.. In a blog post, Marc notes:
I had images of jellyfish and other ‘floating creatures’ in mind for this poem/soundtrack. I found what I was looking for at Mazwai; filmed by Justin Kauffman & Randy Perry.
The music in the soundtrack is, as usual, Marc’s own composition. It’s also included on his Timorous Sounds album.
