~ Filmmaker: Marc Neys ~
The Lights Are On In The Museum by David Tomaloff
This comprises the second panel of Propolis, the videopoem triptych produced by Swoon Bildos, Whale Sound (Nic S.) and Cello Dreams (Kathy McTavish). Here’s the contributor’s note about David Tomaloff:
David Tomaloff (b. 1972) is a writer, photographer, musician, and all around bad influence. His work has appeared in fine publications such as Mud Luscious, >kill author, Thunderclap!, HOUSEFIRE, Prick of the Spindle, DOGZPLOT, elimae, and many more. He is the author of the chapbooks, A SOFT THAT TOUCHES DOWN &REMOVES ITSELF (NAP) Olifaunt (The Red Ceilings Press), EXIT STRATEGIES (Gold Wake Press) and MESCAL NON-PALINDROME CINEMA (Ten Pages Press). He resides in the form of ones and zeros here.
Visit the Propolis site for the text of the poem.
Sunday Services by Lisa J. Cihlar
This comprises the third panel of Propolis, the videopoem triptych produced by Swoon Bildos, Whale Sound (Nic S.) and Cello Dreams (Kathy McTavish). Here’s their contributor’s note about Lisa Cihlar:
Lisa J. Cihlar‘s poems have been published in The Pedestal Magazine, Green Mountains Review, In Posse Review, Bluestem, and The Prose-Poem Project. One of her poems was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She lives in rural Southern Wisconsin.
Visit Propolis to read the text of the poem.
Tom Kessler, Stockton Island, 1887 by Kenneth Pobo
A videopoem made to double as a video trailer for the winner of qarrtsiluni magazine’s 2011 chapbook contest: Ice and Gaywings, by Kenneth Pobo, forthcoming from Phoenicia Publishing in Montreal. See our post about the video at the magazine for more. (I was responsible for commissioning this film from Swoon in my capacity as qarrtsiluni co-Managing Editor, and helped shape the content a little, but the main ideas and final decisions were Swoon’s.)
The Sights and Sounds of Arctic Birds by Helen Vitoria
A film called Flight, showcasing the collaborative efforts of Swoon (video editing, production, etc.), Nic S. of Whale Sound (voice), and Kathy McTavish of Cello Dreams (music). This was the dry run for their new collaborative videopoem project announced in a call for submissions last week (which was soon answered).
Pennsylvania poet Helen Vitoria is the editor of THRUSH Poetry Journal. The text of “The Sights and Sounds of Arctic Birds” is available as a PDF from Gold Mark Press.
The video features footage of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial by Ira Mowen. Swoon states in the description at Vimeo that it is “dedicated to Vladek & Anja Spiegelman, the main characters in Maus by Art Spiegelman.”
This Was Supposed to Be About Karl, But It Didn’t End Up That Way, by Sherry O’Keefe
A film called “Nightvision” by Swoon Bildos, which he blogged about (in Dutch) here. Fortunately for us English speakers, though — and for everyone who’s been following Swoon’s work — the poet, Sherry O’Keefe, blogged a conversation with him about the process of making this video, how he got into videopoetry and more.
The poem originally appeared in PANK, and was recorded by Nic S. for Whale Sound. The video includes some camera work by Kristoffer Jansson and Keith Marcel.
The Universe by Neil Ellman
Swoon Bildos’s latest videopoem credits
McDonsco, Double Jack Black, Citizen Exeptional for their images.
Respect for the people of Sandy River Lolo Pass, St. George and all the other places that get flooded these times.
The reading by Nic S. was produced for Whale Sound, and the poem may be read at its original site of online publication, Bolts of Silk. According to the bio at Whale Sound,
Neil Ellman is a retired educator living and writing in New Jersey. His poetry appears in numerous national and international print and online journals, in addition to four ekphrastic chapbooks.
Swoon blogged (in Dutch) about the making of this video here. Originally, he said, he thought of using imagery of the northern lights over snow and ice, but slowly shifted to the idea of a storm moving through trees. I’m pleased he went with his second thought and not the first, which would’ve been much too obvious a match with the poem, I think. It takes a lot of guts to try to envideo a poem called “The Universe.” I thought the closing image was especially effective.
Welcome to Hard Times by Howie Good
http://www.vimeo.com/27002489
“Between the waves and the fog, we haven’t got a clue of what might be ahead of us,” Swoon writes about his latest film based on a poem from Howie Good’s Whale Sound audio chapbook, Threatening Weather. He credits Matthew Augustus for some of the images, and of course Nic S. for the reading.
On Edward Hopper’s Automat by H.K. Hummel
A poem from H.K. Hummel’s online chapbook Handmade Boats, read by Nic S., gets the Swoon Bildos treatment (with additional camera work by David Michaud and Jason Kempnich).
Making a film for a poem about a painting represents a unique challenge for videopoets, I think. How to reference the mood or spirit of the original visual inspiration without resorting to out-right (and probably hopeless) imitation? In his Dutch-language blog, Swoon described his approach as follows (according to Google Translate):
Departed from night lights gliding images of cars and urban night life as background, I tried to tell the story of what (who) you do not see in the picture.
Is she really alone? Who sees it? She knows that people look at her?
What can happen after all the poem. After the painting.
An armed man lurks in ambush by Howie Good
Swoon’s latest in his series of videos for poems by Howie Good is something a bit different: a short called “Not Again (Pripyat),” using footage of the abandoned city in the Chernobyl evacuation zone, with Howie’s text appropriated for a kind of surreal documentary. Let me quote the description on Vimeo for the credits and such:
The images in the film are footage from a film about Pripyat (credit to Golden Movies Productions,2009)
Images before the disaster at the nuclear plant, images of the evacuation of the town, images of the ghost town now. Hence the title of the film, Not Again.
Although the poem by Howie is about other things and places, I wanted the images from Pripyat [to] add another dimension to the story, the poem, the atmosphere of the whole film.
Words: Howie Good
Voice: Nic S. for Whale Sound
Concept, videotreats, editing and music: Swoon
“An armed man lurks in ambush” is the title poem of a full-length collection forthcoming from Despertanto (who also published Howie’s third book, Everything Reminds Me of Me, back in March). The text of the poem may be read on a site Swoon has set up for the texts used in all his videopoems to date, as well as in the Whale Sound audio chapbook, Threatening Weather, in which it originally appeared.
The Stockholm Syndrome by Howie Good
For his fourth film for a Howie Good poem, Swoon enlisted the help of a couple of other cameramen. Here are the credits as given in the film description on Vimeo:
Words and voice: Howie Good
Camera: Diego Diaz, Anthony Jackson and Swoon
Treats, editing and music: SwoonCredit and many thanks to: Diego Diaz (woman in shower) and Anthony Jackson (man on balcony) for their footage and great camerawork.
Howie sounds especially sinister slowed down like this. The stark black-and-white imagery and unusual wide-screen format are also a great fit with the poem, I thought.
The poem may be read online at Threatening Weather, the audio chapbook from Whale Sound.
My Father’s Advice by Howie Good
http://www.vimeo.com/24165960
A film called Parental Guidance by Belgian artist and composer Swoon, his third for a poem by Howie Good.
Dog Star Man by Howie Good
Update: Video has been made private.
Swoon‘s second film for a poem by Howie Good (look for the third here next week). I think the fugal structure works really well with this poem, especially in light of the last sentence:
You can hear if you really listen
the common names for things
weeping noisily beneath the music.
The poem appears in Lovesick from Press Americana (2009). Here’s a review.
