~ Filmmaker: Marc Neys ~
You Are Here to Receive This Prophecy by Hannah Stephenson
http://vimeo.com/44861361
The poem by Hannah Stephenson appeared in qarrtsiluni‘s Worship issue (whence the reading in the soundtrack). Swoon notes in his blog post about the film,
For me, the videopoem had to have a seventies-summer-childhood-anything-is-possible-nostalgia feel…
I wanted to say thanks to my father and mother who gave me a good childhood…But I also wanted to recycle.
Recently I had an interesting talk about recycling parts of ones own creations.
Writers can use the same words, phrases even…so why not try to create a new videopoem with exisiting and used material
(exept for the poem, I hadn’t used that before)
The music is a remix of a very short track I made for a commissioned one minute-film.The images I shot myself (from a train, through the trees, into the sun) were also the base for this videopoem (although for that one I abstracted those images, but the basis is the same)
The footage of the boy trying to climb the fence (thanks to an old family film of the Harris Family from 1975) comes from the same youtube video I used images from for this videopoem.
The blips and cuts from the sculpted head (of my father) and the hands holding it (my mother’s) were also used in this videopoem.
So, I think I was able to create a new videopoem (thanks to a poem and a reading I hadn’t used before, I do realise that) with bricks and mortar that I used elsewhere before.
For more of Stephenson’s work, visit her daily ekphrastic poetry blog, The Storialist.
Jaguar: poems by Ryan W. Bradley and David Tomaloff
Swoon notes,
Jaguar is a journey through a city. Underground and in the open air.
Imminent danger, a city full of people, unaware.
The poems are read by the authors. They include, in order of presentation, “You Are Jaguar,” by David Tomaloff; “Surfacing,” by Ryan W. Bradley; “You are the sound of sleepwalk waking,” by Tomaloff; and “You Are Jaguar” by Bradley. The poems are found in a recent book from Artistically Declined Press, You Are Jaguar.
Swoon blogged a bit about the film. He quotes Tomaloff on the making of the chapbook:
We wrote the poems 2 lines at a time without exception and very little discussion on where it was going. Then we edited all of the work separately, putting our own personal touches to work that was not wholly our own. Then we set the book up something like a bi-lingual book (side to side), signifying that each poem (left and right) are, in very real ways, translations of each other. In the end, I feel the reader makes the two manuscripts one. It’s one of those collaborations where NONE of it would have happened without two people; I know I couldn’t have written it myself!
Faites vos jeux by Marleen de Crée
Update 7/19/12: Swoon informs me that there’s a volume of Marleen de Crée poetry translated into English by Annmarie Sauer due out later this year. And note that Swoon’s two earlier subtitled films for de Crée poems have been re-done with Sauer’s translations.
Marleen de Crée is one of Belgium’s most prominent living poets, with 15 poetry collections and a number of major prizes to her name. Swoon, of course, is without a doubt the most active maker of videopoems in Belgium; this is his third video for a de Crée poem, all three available in two versions: with subtitles and without. The recitation here is by Katrijn Clemer, and the English translation is by Annmarie Sauer.
Most of the footage comes from a 1942 home movie in the Prelinger archive of ephemeral films. I love seeing videopoets make use of this kind of material.
Orphanage by Matt Hetherington
I’m pleased by my own small role in making this happen as managing editor of qarrtsiluni, where the poem first appeared in text form a month ago as the final piece in our Imitation issue, and as compiler of the podcast from which Swoon took the recording of Australian poet Matt Hetherington reading his poem. As we say in the note there, it was “inspired by the poetry of Ian McBryde, particularly his book of one-line poems, Slivers (Melbourne: Flat Chat Press, 2005).”
Swoon blogged some process notes:
I liked the poem and, even more so, his great reading of it for the podcast.
(People who follow my work know how important I think a good reading or voice is for a good videopoem)
[…]
I wanted to keep the pauses he made in his reading, so I didn’t change a thing.
Just added the right track […] and went on a search for the right footage or images. I needed empty houses and remembered a great video I once saw by someone who calls himself Tschmite. He gave me his consent to use footage of it.
I added some of my own recordings and also found amazing images in a series of films made by Graham Gilmore about Tsjernobyl.I edited all I wanted and needed for the right atmosphere. Gave the words by Matt, the space and the room they needed to unfold themselves.
(Incidentally, I wish more videopoem/filmpoem makers would post such detailed descriptions of their process. It’s really helpful for those of us who are trying to learn the craft.)
Three poems by Donna Vorreyer
http://vimeo.com/44211606
Escape (a triptych) is Swoon’s first videopoem for a text written in response to his own video prompt. Regular visitors to the Moving Poems forum (or subscribers to our weekly emails) may remember his call for submissions posted on April 24:
I am looking for a writer who is willing to let these three films inspire him/her to write three poems for them…
Look and listen…absorb…look and listen some more…and write…
I’m looking for three new poems (please use the titles of the films) written for these three videos:
Disturbance in the maze
Wailing Wall Crumbs
Ghostless Blues (The story of Vladimir K.)
A number of poets responded to the challenge, and Swoon chose the submission from Chicago-based poet Donna Vorreyer. Personally, I wasn’t surprised by the selection, having recently read Vorreyer’s chapbook Ordering the Hours — it’s terrific.
Swoon blogged a bit about the experiment:
I wanted to turn my working method around. See what came out of it.
Very aware I was, of the fact that these three films were experimental, for the fact the titles could have been a guide for some an obstacle for others. It was an experiment.I received a lot of questions about what I was looking for in particular, a few questions about timing, a fair amount of poems that were written earlier, not for the three films (though some of them might have worked). […]
I knew Donna from the Propolis Project last year.
Her three poems did exactly what I was hoping for when I put out the call.
She was the first one whose poems gave me the feel that they somehow belonged to the images.
I really had the sense that she reacted to the films and gave them content and a story.Her poems give these three films a less experimental character, and that was exactly what I was hoping for.
She recorded them for me, so I could start the editing process.Her words made it fairly easy; I only added a few images or made additional cuts according to the reading of the poem. I did put in some new footage in all three as a leitmotiv, a storyline.
Read the rest (including the texts of the poems). Incidentally, Swoon’s personal website has just been thoroughly revamped to foreground his videopoetry and soundscapes. Check it out.
Aan Het Water / On the Water by Bernard Dewulf
Two films commissioned by the Felix Poetry Festival for a poem by Antwerp’s City Poet, Bernard Dewulf. The filmmakers, Alastair Cook and Swoon Bildos (Marc Neys), are of course no strangers to Moving Poems. See Swoon’s write-up on the festival at the discussion blog.
Nuchter zijn we langdradig / Dreary when Sober by Delphine Lecompte
Delphine Lecompte is a British expat writer living in Belgium a Belgian poet with a fondness for inventive bios (see comments). She’s responsible for both the translation and the reading here. Concept, camera, editing and sound are all the work of Swoon, who blogged:
De video werd een oefening in ‘langdradigheid’ versus ‘spanning’…een video waarin zo weinig mogelijk gebeurt tegen een klankband waarin kinderen akelig vrolijk zijn…of zoiets…
Which Google Translate renders as:
The video was an exercise in ‘wordiness’ versus ‘power’ … a video in which as little as possible is done to a soundtrack [in] which children [are] eerily cheerful … or something …
Disintegration Nation by Howie Good
A “mash-up-videopoem” by the indefatigable Swoon Bildos, focusing on “truth and fiction in the US…TV and violence…reality and fear.” The poem is from Howie Good’s Dreaming in Red. The video uses footage from Kansas City Confidential by Phil Karlson (1952) as well as CCTV from the security tapes of the fatal police beating of Kelly Thomas.
Remains of a Man / Rest van een mens by Peter Wullen
http://vimeo.com/41097136
Another Swoon film for a poem by his compatriot Peter Wullen. This one incorporates CCTV footage courtesy of ITN News. He also made a version in the original Dutch:
http://vimeo.com/41639292
According to a note on Vimeo, this was screened at ‘In de Luwte’ (Roosdaal, Belgium) from 18-20 May 2012 (kalmkunstfestival.be).
Cioran by Peter Wullen
Peter Wullen; voice: Bart Stouten; concept, camera, editing, music: Swoon. Of all the many videopoems Swoon has put together, this may well be my favorite so far.
Exit Strategies by David Tomaloff
Videopoem chapbooks are a rarity yet, and I don’t know of any others that are six videos long. Swoon Bildos completed this sequence a month ago, adapting each of the six sections of David Tomaloff‘s e-chapbook from Gold Wake Press. He added a one-word title drawn from the text to each video, and modified the over-all title just a little. Without further ado, here’s
Exit Strategies (A bloodletting)
Atticus Review also posted Exit Strategies (No. I-III), which is worth checking out for Swoon’s and Tomaloff’s notes on the chapbook. Swoon wrote, for example:
The overall ‘storyline’ I put in these videos is a personal one, but others might see or pick up different meanings. I just hope they evoke something. It doesn’t matter if it’s not what David or I intend, but that’s the fun of poetry and videopoetry.
Tomaloff describes his intention with the poems generally, and adds:
My part in the presentation was simply the recording of the poems themselves, in which I sought to unify the voices by reimagining the pieces as field notes read into a recorder by an observer who is becoming increasingly embroiled in what is being observed.
I also did a close “reading” of the videos for my personal blog, Via Negativa, as part of a month-long challenge I’ve set myself to read and blog about a different collection of poems every day. Here’s what I had to say.
Channeling Gertrude by Tom Konyves
Swoon turned the tables on the renowned videopoet Tom Konyves here, making a video with a text and reading by Konyves. “Channeling Gertrude” was published in qarrtsiluni at the end of February, as part of our Imitation issue (which is still being serialized). Konyves’ description of how the text came about is worth quoting in full, I think:
An unusual experience prompted the writing of this poem — hearing the voice of someone we have never met. For me, it was the voice of Gertrude Stein. I managed to capture only one brief statement: ‘make a name for yourself.’ What followed was a torrent of words that astonished me; it was like being caught up in a whirlwind. Almost faster than I could record them, repeated phrases — with minute modifications — swirled through my mind and onto the page. When it was done, it was as if the words had been written by another. I then truly understood Rimbaud’s famous phrase, ‘Je est un autre.’
Swoon said a little bit about his process in a blog post:
I used recordings of reflections on the window of a train in a tunnel, mixed with an excerpt of recycled images from a video I had made a half years ago.
