~ Nationality: Netherlands ~

Rue des Abeilles and No Other Way by Jan Baeke

On 11 December, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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This is Rue des Abeilles, part of an on-going collaboration between poet Jan Baeke and media artist Alfred Marseille that they call Public Thought: “Cinépoèmes – data poems – moving shorts – speculative analysis.” This was screened at the 2012 ZEBRA Poetry Festival (to whose Vimeo “likes” I’m indebted for the find). In the credits, “Idea & screenplay” are attributed to both Baeke and Marseille, while Marseille alone handled production, editing and sound. The English translation is by Willem Groenewegen.

I was especially struck by the myriad ways in which motion and energy were coaxed from still images and kinetic type animation (even to the point of making the word “motionless” pulse and tremble). The description at Vimeo reads:

One summer morning at dawn in a French town, sleepless and without a clue. Everything was breathing…

Short film based on two poems by Jan Baeke, Rue des Abeilles and No other way (10).
(first revision)

Thomas Möhlmann’s bio of Jan Baeke on Poetry International Web makes it clear that film has been a crucial influence on his work:

Besides being a poet and translator, Jan Baeke works for the Amsterdam Film Museum. In a note to his fourth collection, Groter dan de feiten (Larger than the Facts, 2007), he lists a number of people who inspired him during his writing process. This list shows that the work of international film makers such as Andrej Tarkovski, Federico Fellini, Michael Haneke and Luis Buñuel are as important to Baeke’s poetry as writing of poets like János Pilinszky, Wallace Stevens and Anne Carson. Both Baeke’s imagery and technique seem to be fuelled and formed by film and poetry alike.

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It Noarderland / The Northern Land by Durk van der Ploeg

On 7 June, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Videopoems
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Richard van der Laan‘s “visual arrangement of Frisian poetry on moving canvas.” The reading is by Siem de Vlas, a Frisian landscape architect who also appears in the film, “working in his studio and visiting the grave of the famous dutch landscape architect Lucas Pieters Roodbaard (1782 – 1851),” as the description on Vimeo puts it. Here’s the original text of Durk van der Ploeg’s poem. As someone of (distant) Frisian ancestry, I was happy to find this videopoem.

Iemand moet de tafel dekken (Somebody has to set the table) by Joke van Leeuwen

On 12 November, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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Sometimes, a videopoem is so damn good, it doesn’t matter if you can’t understand a word of it. This is one such videopoem. Lucette Braune directed.

Visiting the Cargo Vessel (Bezoek aan het Vrachtschip), Strophe 3 by Ed Leeflang

On 27 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Animation
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This strophe of the series from Revolver media is animated by Bart van Brussel. Here’s the translation included in the notes at Vimeo:

Descending inside, passing the layers
of the engine room, greasy, funereal
generators, often replaced
the steps on the iron stair are loose,
No more powerful sense of futility
than in a useless jungle of chaotic wires
unsalvageable organism, a body hanging on,
clinically dead, mummified in its scaffolding
handles and pawls to be pulled and set by creatures with knowledge
gauges for pressure, meter needles measuring longing
still someone’s longing, on board or on the shore,
Someone for whom the ship will moor when the evening falls
Where we are. We can do nothing,
as nothing obeys, we can only walk around
in the hollow echoing hold.
Flaking ladders take us to the bottom,
a cathedral of rust, an echoing grave of kings

To get a better feeling for the poet, be sure to visit the Ed Leeflang section of Poetry International Web. It might also be interesting to compare this poem with Adrienne Rich’s iconic “Diving into the Wreck.”

Visiting the Cargo Vessel (Bezoek aan het Vrachtschip), Strophe 2 by Ed Leeflang

On 26 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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One of a series of nine animations, by seven different animators, of a piece by Dutch poet Ed Leeflang (1929-2008). Six of the nine have been uploaded to Vimeo by the Revolver media production company, which also produces ads for clients such as Heineken, Bacardi and Philips. Two sections of “Visiting the Cargo Vessel” on Vimeo include an English translation in the notes, so I’ve decided to take the liberty of reproducing those translations here along with the videos (I’ll share the other one tomorrow).

The stop-motion animation for Strophe #2 is by Percy Tienhoven. You can see all six of the Vimeo uploads on a page at the Revolver media site.

This obviously isn’t a great translation, but one can still get a good sense of the meaning:

We look over the railing at the city spread wide
the moon cartwheeling over the spires and towers
The curving roof of the Central Station glistens softly,
In this theatre a ship is the last balcony on the left
Lights spread their light so capriciously
Concentric rings that dance wider in the dark water and return
Heavy pain spreads itself thus in body and spirit
wherever the secret channels are.
The Amsterdam we can hear buzzing with anger
Is not far way but is familiar.
We seem to be forgotten by our fellows
This makes us vulnerable and ready for a vision,
creatures who work on heavenly made to measure goods
In this face appear slumberers, drinkers,
Cast of the same die through poetic simplicity.
As the elm trees lining the canals are of an equal age.
We know, go shopping, go away and multiply.
And a grammar, overshadowed by clouds,
fed by rage, averse to empiricism,
Waves its cobra heads, the threat of poetry is in the air.

Tsead Bruinja, Frisian poet

On 28 December, 2009 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Documentary, interviews, Performance Poetry
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A short documentary about contemporary Frisian poet Tsead Bruinja from the German broadcasting company Deutsche Welle.

A video of Bruinja reciting one of his poems, “Darling no one knows about the previous lives,” with English subtitles. This is from Wyld Hynder (Wild Horse) films, according to the info on YouTube.

Here’s Bruinja reading a poem called “‘Sy wennet yn in baarnend hûs” — “She lives in a burning house.” This was produced by the Omrop Fryslân broadcasting company. Bruinja includes an English translation by David Colmer on the YouTube page:

she lives in a burning house
every storm takes a tile from the roof
it’s cold her teeth chatter
someone outside thinks up new rules for traffic
an old man cycles on
newspapers stuffed under his clothes
she walks out with a basket full of washing
black sheets black blankets black
pillowcase she sees the fields are burning too
no point in going out
it’s better back inside the walls
flames dancing on his portrait
letters fall unasked through the door
rustling down not reaching the mat her cat
jumps onto her lap with a vegetable desire
to be stroked she pours more meths
over the photo albums wipes
the ash from her glasses and reads
and reads and reads

Some more English translations of Bruinja’s work may be found on Poetry International Web, though according to the translators’ notes, they were based on the author’s own translations into Dutch. (Bruinja also writes and has published poetry in Dutch.)