~ Nationality: U.K. ~

Black Hands by Robert Minhinnick

On 13 September, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 3 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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From the Welsh environmental campaigner, essayist and poet Robert Minhinnick comes this searing example of what might be called photojournalistic poetry film, as the Vimeo description explains:

A poem by Robert Minhinnick illustrated with unique footage taken during his visit to Iraq. Visiting the notorious Amiriya bunker. Harrowing, moving and dark.

Peter Thorp edited, and the audio samples and loops were created by Peter Morgan. The film was produced (by Sonicsustain and Subjective Realities) in 2005, but refers to a horrific incident from the earlier Gulf War of 1991 — and a propaganda line about “smart bombs” that also debuted during that earlier invasion, and which went largely unchallenged by mainstream journalists in the US and UK. In fairness to them, it was difficult to gain accurate information because of the way the Pentagon severely restricted the movements of journalists on the ground, part of an ultimately successful attempt to mute public opposition to military aggression which would later find full expression during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when it was formalized under the Orwellian label embedded journalism. Reporters who refused to cooperate with the Pentagon were targeted by US missiles and tank fire. Given how dangerous the whole region has now become for journalists, and how mendacious the official justifications for warfare have always been, our need for the prophetic witness of poets is greater than ever.

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out of shadow by Amaal Said

On 9 September, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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what are you making your way out of?
maybe skin, maybe shadow.

An author-made videopoem by photographer and poet Amaal Said, featuring Annina Chirade, editor in chief of Rooted In Magazine. The About page on Said’s website gives some insight into her motivations:

I am a Danish-born Somali photographer and poet, currently based in London, UK. I’m concerned with storytelling and how best I can connect with people to document their stories. I have photographed mainly Women of Colour in an attempt to widen representation. I started with taking as many pictures of family members because I wanted to remember them, however far they were. I’m still so fascinated with the way we can use photographs to bring people closer.

The photography grew out of the writing. There were things I could photograph better than I could describe. I am a member of the Burn After Reading poetry collective and a former Barbican Young Poet. I won the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for poetry in 2015.

earth acceleration by Mark Goodwin

On 6 September, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Videopoems
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Here’s something fun and different: a collaboration between poet Mark Goodwin and filmmaker Martyn Blundell featuring Goodwin and his love of balancing on rails. He elaborates on this in a lyrical blog post for Longbarrow Press, who recently brought out his fourth collection, Steps, which “explores themes of climbing, walking and balancing,” according the post. Among other interesting observations, Goodwin says:

To walk along a handrail by the side of a footpath is to disobey. This is, I feel passionately, what poetry should be. Poetry is just next to the conventional ways (or habits) of being human … but it disobeys, which only goes to show those conventions more clearly, even celebrate them … but certainly challenge them.

Do read the rest. Goodwin has also recorded, mixed and produced a ten-track album of poems from Steps, available as a free download.

If I Could Tell You by W. H. Auden

On 1 September, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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https://vimeo.com/180747404

This is Holocene, a film by Berlin-based photographer and filmmaker Esteban Iljitsch that juxtaposes Auden’s poem (in Tom O’Bedlam’s almost too-perfect reading) with footage of Iceland for a powerful meditation on time and mutability. The Vimeo description:

It’s been two years now since we took off to Iceland with some cameras, a raincoat and a five-wheel-hooptie.
In the never ending summer days we lost sense of time and space, got dizzy walking around sulfur fields, had lobster soup next to black beaches and accidentally rejuvenated our feet in a hot spring.
There must have been reasons for all this – if we could tell you, we would let you know.

Concept: ESTEBANxILJITSCH
Director/DP/Edit: Esteban
Actor: Manuel Iljitsch
Factotum: Hannes Kleager
Colorist: Nicke Jacobsson
Sounddesigner: Moritz Staub
Voiceover: Tom O’Bedlam
Poem: „If I Could Tell You“ by W.H. Auden

Thanks to the great people involved who made this possible and Anna for pushing me to finish it!!!!

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Kumukanda by Kayo Chingonyi and Sean Graham

On 25 August, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Dance
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Coming-of-age rituals are at the center of this powerful, uniquely collaborative poetry dance film from director Fiona Melville and producer/creative director Nathalie Teitler for the Dancing Words project, featuring poet/dancer Kayo Chingonyi, poet/dancer/choreographer Sean Graham, and a composition by Gemma Weekes (who is also an accomplished British writer).

According to the Wikipedia page on the Lovale/Luvale people of Zambia and Angola,

In Zambia the Luvale people hold the ‘Makishi festival’ to mark the end of the ‘kumukanda’ (or ‘initiation’). Every 5 years or so, boys from the same age group (young teenagers) are taken into the bush for 1–2 months where they undergo several rites of passage into manhood. These involve learning certain survival skills, learning about women and how to be a good husband, learning about fatherhood, and also they are circumcised. The Luvale consider uncircumcised men to be dirty or unhygienic. It is said that in some very rural areas where the kumukanda is maintained in its strictest traditional sense that if a woman is to pass by the boy’s ‘bushcamp’ whilst they are undergoing kumukanda then she must be punished, even killed. To celebrate the boys’ completion of the kumukanda the Makishi festival welcomes them back to the village as men.

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Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

On 24 August, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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This “experimental visual poetry” directed by Katie Williamson stars Walter McCord in an imaginative riff on Lewis Carroll’s great nonsense poem. The soundtrack includes, if I’m not mistaken, a track by the Master Musicians of Jajouka.

Hammersmith by Sean O’Brien (excerpts)

On 22 July, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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This new poetry film by UK filmmaker Kate Sweeney, based on a poem by Sean O’Brien, was commissioned by the 2016 Newcastle Poetry Festival. The Vimeo description reads:

In response to extracts from Sean O’ Brien’s same-titled poem, ‘Hammersmith’ is an elegiac, hand-drawn animation sweeping through 1950’s London. drawn from the iconic cinematography from Jules Dessin’s 1950 noir film, ‘Night And The City’.

The soundtrack by Lady Caroline Mary includes a song by Bernadette Sweeney.

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On the Road to the Sea by Charlotte Mew

On 19 July, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Dance
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A wonderful dance interpretation of a poem by the early modern British writer Charlotte Mew, voiced by Alice Barclay. Zenaida Yanowski, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet in London, performs with choreography and film direction by Will Tuckett. The film represents a collaboration between Tuckett and the poetry-performing ensemble LiveCanon.

With all the dance-centered poetry films I’ve posted here over the years, I can’t remember one taking such a balletic approach before. I hope this isn’t the last.

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Can’t Sleep by Lucy English

On 13 July, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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https://vimeo.com/169616371

Kind of a horror-movie vibe to this filmpoem by James W. Norton, who writes on Vimeo,

This film is an artistic response to the wonderfully sublime and uncanny poem ‘Can’t Sleep’ written and read by Lucy English for her project ‘The Book of Hours‘. [links added]

Sweet Liquor by Malika Booker

On 28 June, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Dance
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The latest film in the Dancing Words project directed by Fiona Melville (with creative direction from Nathalie Teitler) pairs poet Malika Booker and dancer/choreographer Leon Rose. Here’s the description from the project website:

Sweet Liquor is a collaboration between renowned black British poet, Malika Booker and dancer/choreographer Leon Rose. The poem is taken from Booker’s prize winning collection Pepper Seed (Peepal Tree Press) and explores the world of the soca fete. It tells the story of a young Caribbean soldier, recently returned from war with psychological scars, who finds out that he has been re-drafted.

The piece explores a dance-poetry collaboration in which the dance centers around social dancing: its impact on the individual and the community. The aim was to make something experimental and edgy with a political message. In selecting the dancer/choreographer the goal was to find someone who would look totally natural dancing soca, as well as being a skilled professional dancer/choreographer. Latin and contemporary dancer, internationally known Leon Rose, who has twenty years of dance and choreography experience, was the perfect choice: both he and Malika have been going to Carnival since they were a few months old. Their mothers would argue that they took part in Carnival while in the womb. When the piece was being filmed, it quickly became clear that there was something magical in the way the two artists danced together; it spoke both of the relationship between the man and the woman in the poem, but also spoke to the wider relationships between genders in this part of the world. Here we see a woman as the strong voice and rock able to contain and comfort a young, damaged man. Combined with the beautiful and haunting pan music of composer Kyron Akal, (composed for this piece) the result was a piece which challenges stereotypes of soca and carnival and brings a beautiful, fierce poem to life.

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The Ugly Daughter by Warsan Shire

On 22 June, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Dance
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Dancer/choreographer Ella Mesma performs as Warsan Shire recites her poem. This was one of two dance-poetry pieces premiered at London’s Southbank Centre on October 6, 2014 under the aegis of The Complete Works II, directed by Nathalie Teitler, which gave rise to the Dancing Words project.

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Aubade by Lucy English

On 21 June, 2016 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A collaboration between Matt Mullins (audiovisual composition) and Lucy English (poem, voiceover) for English’s Book of Hours project.