~ Filmmaker: Erica Goss ~

We Have Become Children by Al Rempel

On 5 January, 2021 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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so we too open our lips
to mouth our prayers
like water over stones

This recent videopoem by Erica Goss incorporates a text by Canadian poet Al Rempel, voiced by Annelyse Gelman, herself a videopoet. As Erica’s Vimeo description notes, “This is the second collaboration between poet Al Rempel and me. […] I used some of my photographs from years ago and video I took last summer.”

Their first collaboration came out last spring: I’ve in the Rain. This new one has a certain New Year’s flavor to it, I thought — a good way to kick off 2021 at Moving Poems.

I’ve in the Rain by Al Rempel

On 27 May, 2020 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A new poetry video from Erica Goss uses text by Canadian poet Al Rempel. She told us that

Al wrote the poem, and his friend Sandro Pecchiari translated it and recorded it in Italian. Al sent me Sandro’s recording and the poem in English. I asked for the Italian translation, and when I received it, I matched it to the English poem, line by line, to get the right pacing for the video.

Some of the images in the video are mine and some are from Pexels and Videezy. My son did the music.

Erica has been part of the international videopoetry community for the better part of a decade, first as author of a monthly column on the genre for Connotation Press, then working with Belgian filmmaker Marc Neys to make one of the most ambitious videopoetry series up to that time (2013-2014), Twelve Moons. In 2016 she began making poetry films herself, taking her time with each as her skills developed. I admire this cautious, deliberate approach because it’s so different from my own slap-dash, “git ‘er done” approach of turning out a huge volume of average-quality videopoems, hoping for the occasional gem.

This is I believe Erica’s first video collaboration with another poet. For Al Rempel, this marks a return to videopoetry after a series of collaborations with filmmaker Stephen St. Laurent from 2012 to 2016.

Small Things Bind the World by Erica Goss

On 7 November, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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This author-made videopoem by Erica Goss presents haiku in a really innovative way that I haven’t seen before. It was a Showcase Selection at the 2017 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival. Erica writes:

I made this video last summer in my backyard. It’s a selection of haiku that seemed to tell a story, with big letters imposed over a glitter globe I bought at the MOMA-San Francisco gift shop. It’s somewhat nostalgic for me to watch this, as it’s one of the last art projects I did before moving from California to my new home in Eugene, Oregon.

Blue by Erica Goss

On 20 October, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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The latest author-made film from Erica Goss, who included these process notes in the description:

During the summer of 2017, my brother visited me from New York City. He wanted to get a tattoo, so we found High Priestess in Eugene, where I had just moved. I asked my brother and the tattoo artist if I could film the procedure, and they agreed. I had a poem, titled “Blue,” that I wrote in 2014 after listening to the Joni Mitchell song of the same name. The poem mentions tattoos, so I thought it would be a good fit with the subject of the video. A technical note: I did no color correction on the video except for the last scene, where I increased the light and contrast slightly. The room was fairly dark, so the spotlights show up as a bit blown out. I like the effect and didn’t want to change it.

The music is by Kevin MacLeod.

The Reason For Sleep by Erica Goss

On 14 July, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Poet Erica Goss says about her latest video:

I filmed this video poem at the Edwin Markham House in History Park in San Jose, California, during the spring of 2017. The poem and video evolved during the editing process, so much so that the poem is substantially altered from the original. In this video, the images ended up influencing the poem more than the other way around.

Encontrada by Erica Goss

On 9 June, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A new videopoem from Erica Goss, who notes on Vimeo:

This is the second video from my poetry collection titled Night Court. I filmed the whole thing at Villa Montalvo, a center for the arts in Saratoga, California, in May 2017. I spent about two weeks, on and off, editing it. “Encontrada” means “found” in Spanish.

The music is by Podington Bear; everything else is Goss’s work. See also her video for the book’s title poem, “Night Court.”

Night Court by Erica Goss

On 29 April, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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A new author-made poetry film from Erica Goss, who notes on Vimeo that

This is the first video poem from my poetry collection of the same name. Night Court is the winner of the 2016 Lyrebird Award from Glass Lyre Press. I will making more videos in the coming months.

I filmed, recorded and edited the video over a two-week period. I filmed the moon shots, beach and pier scenes, and the memorial wall a couple of years ago while on vacation in Aptos, CA. The rest of the footage I took at my home in Los Gatos, including the special appearance by Nick the cat.

Goss has been such a fixture on the videopoetry scene, first with her column in Connotation Press and then with her leadership of Media Poetry Studio and the 12 Moons series she collaborated on with Marc Neys and Kathy McTavish, it’s hard to believe that this is only her second author-made videopoem. Though given her evident perfectionism, perhaps it isn’t such a surprise after all. I’ll be looking forward to the sequels.

Telegenic by Erica Goss

On 16 September, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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It’s Long War week at Moving Poems, and (appropriately perhaps) it’s going to be an unusually long week, with videos right through the weekend. That is in part because so far we’ve heard only from men, which doesn’t seem right, given that wars disproportionately impact women. Today, the California poet and videopoetry critic Erica Goss helps us right the balance with her first author-made videopoem. But according to the description on Vimeo, it won’t be her last:

This is the first in a series of three videos based on poems I’ve written about the subject of war. The word “telegenic” was given to me from a radio broadcast I heard during the 2014 attack on Gaza. Much of the poem was influenced by an encounter I had with an Iraq war veteran at a poetry writing event in San Jose, California. The images of children, sunrise and the woman are different from the usual images one associates with war: they are intended to remind us of what is lost to violence.

The music is guitarist Sam Eigen’s interpretation of the Rite of Spring theme. Sam composed the music specifically for this video, with my guidance. The music was recorded at Keith Holland Studio in Los Gatos, California. Don Peters, my husband, is the narrator; it took us many recordings to get his voice right for the video. I wanted someone with a “normal” voice – i.e., not a “poetry voice” – to tell the story.

To find footage, I searched Video Blocks for images that seemed to create associations. The clips I chose came together in an intuitive way.

I am grateful for the feedback I received from Dave Bonta and Marc Neys (Swoon), two artists whose work I greatly respect and who have influenced me in creating my first video poem.

The poem “telegenic” was first published at New Verse News: newversenews.blogspot.com/2014/11/telegenic.html

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