~ Nationality: United States ~

Relearning the Alphabet (excerpt) by Denise Levertov

On 26 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation, Videopoems
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In this Moving Poems production, a quote from Denise Levertov’s “Relearning the Alphabet” anchors a brief epistemological meditation. Or as I’ve been describing it on Facebook, this is basically a videopoem about videopoetry. The text animation, live footage and audio were all released to the public domain by their shy and selfless creators. (The poem is of course under copyright, but I think using a short quote—the “U” section—combined with what the law would probably consider a transformative use—the videopoetic treatment—would qualify this as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law.)

Lush by Deniz Zeynep

On 25 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Deniz Zeynep supplies the text, voiceover and music for this brilliant videopoem directed and photographed by Christine Stoddard for Quail Bell Productions, with editing and graphics by David Fuchs. It began as a “photo tale” in Quail Bell Magazine.

New Orleans by Matt Dennison

On 23 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Musical settings, Videopoems
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This is Have Made It, a 2013 film by Michael Dickes using a text by Matt Dennison. It’s kind of a videopoem-music video hybrid, with Dickes’ music taking central stage half-way through.

Have Made It appears in the most recent issue of Gnarled Oak, an online literary magazine distinguished by, among other things, its willingness to include previously published/uploaded poetry videos. Their next issue is open for submissions through March 31.

Exercise in the Face of Divorce by David Campos

On 16 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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https://vimeo.com/205827531

California poet David Campos calls this “A narrative video poem about utilizing exercise to deal with the pain of divorce.” It was the first example of contemporary videopoetry examined by Ruben Quesada in his article in Ploughshares last week. As the quotes in the article make clear, however, Campos prefers to think of his work as part of the film tradition, and describes his composition process as follows:

Sound can carry an image…. In “Exercise in the Face of Divorce,” I focused on capturing sound in the shots—this enhanced the poem. All the film criticism I’ve read came into play while shooting and editing the video. I framed and composed shots from the beginning to add meaning. I was conscious of the color while shooting and editing. I edited the footage down to their essential parts. Most importantly, I added sound from the shots themselves. These projects are not “video poems.” They’re short films and they must be treated this way. It is why I use a story board and a rough script from the beginning. The same care I would exhibit in creating a poem on the page must be taken through its production into a film.

Read the rest of the article, if you haven’t already, and check out more of Campos’ work on Vimeo.

Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX) by Edna St. Vincent Millay

On 15 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A recording of Millay reciting her poem is paired with a McCoy Tyner track to good effect in this new film by London-based filmmaker Sidney Sonnerberg. Daleya Marohn is the actor.

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Wasp’s Honey by Martha McCollough

On 14 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation, Author-made videopoems
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Martha McCollough’s latest animated poem appeared in Atticus Review on March 3, along with this artist’s statement:

Bees have many associations with death—they are sacred to Persephone and when there is a death in the beekeeper’s household they must be told and allowed to mourn. Through honey, they have associations with creativity—it is a Greek folk belief that if a bee touches the lips of a sleeping child, the child will be a singer or a poet. I wanted to keep this elegy simple and direct, so there is no voiceover, only visual text. The soundtrack was composed using the p22 text-to-music generator. Sections of the text were used to create a midi file, freely edited in Logic.

Click through for the bio, and watch more of McCollough’s stand-out poetry videos on Vimeo.

The Robots Are Coming by Kyle Dargan

On 10 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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A film by Minneapolis-based animator Julia Iverson for Motionpoems — their latest episode, in partnership with Cave Canem. I love the poem by Kyle Dargan, from his 2015 collection Honest Engine.

Like Breath, Like Air by Mari Pack

On 8 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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From Quail Bell Magazine, here’s a video by Christine Stoddard and David Fuchs featuring a poem by poet, essayist, copywriter, and radio producer Mari Pack. According to a piece in the Huffington Post back in January,

The day after the women’s marches in Washington, D.C., New York, and other cities around the world, Brooklyn-based artist Christine Stoddard photographed feminist poet Mari Pack. She wanted to capture a strong woman caught in a vulnerable time. After Stoddard produced a set of photo collages from the shoot, Pack paired one of the collages with one of her poems. The rest of the photo collages will appear in a poetry film written and narrated by Pack and edited by David Fuchs.

This I presume is that film. Incidentally, in addition to their in-house productions, Quail Bell Magazine does appear to consider others’ multimedia productions as well — see their guidelines for submission. I rather like their mission statement.

1700% Project: Mistaken for Muslim by Anida Yoeu Ali

On 7 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Performance Poetry
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Made seven years ago, this collaboration between Cambodian-American performance artist and poet Anida Yoeu Ali and Japanese-American filmmaker Masahiro Sugano is, sadly, more relevant than ever, with hate crimes against Muslims (and those erroneously assumed to be Muslim) escalating in the U.S. under an administration that has embraced a white Christian supremacist ideology. This was the Film of the Month for January at Poetryfilmkanal. See the 1700% Project website for much more information about the film, including bios of the collaborators and the text of the poem, a cento based on hate crimes committed shortly after 9/11. The video description reads:

In this video, narratives collide with music, poetry and politics to create a complex and layered experience. A poet, dancer, angel, prisoner converge with members of the Muslim community to speak, deflect, and intervene against racial profiling and hate crimes. This convergence exemplifies a spirit of defiance and resistance from communities of people who refuse to end in violence.

This spoken word video is a collaboration between artist Anida Yoeu Ali and filmmaker Masahiro Sugano with over 50 diverse volunteers, participants and community members in the Chicagoland area. It is part of an ongoing project that engages art as a form of intervention against the racial profiling of Muslims in a post 9/11 era. The larger project titled “The 1700% Project” uses a multi-faceted artistic approach to educate the wider public about the diversity within the Muslim community. The number 1700% refers to the exponential percentage increase of hate crimes against Arabs, Muslims and those perceived to be Arab or Muslim since the events of September 11, 2001.

As the article in Poetryfilmkanal notes, the lack of didacticism makes this film more powerful and provocative than most political poetry. Ali says in her artist’s statement:

The project acknowledges that politically driven works are complex and layered thus often requiring a multitude of ways for expression and encounter. … My work continues to investigate the residual stain of performance and how the live body completes the experience for both audience and performer. Performing narratives is an act of social storytelling that contributes to collective healing. For me, performance and storytelling become ways of bridging the interior and exterior space of self as well as initiate critical dialogues between communities and institutions.

Quadrant by Matt Dennison

On 2 March, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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A 2015 video by Marie Craven, remixing old footage from the Prelinger Archives with a poem and voiceover by Matt Dennison and music by Dementio13.

Night on Klamath River by Patricia Killelea

On 28 February, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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A videopoem by poet, teacher and musician Patricia Killelea using a text from her collection Counterglow. In an interview with Passages North, where she’s now the poetry editor, Killelea talked about the impetus behind her poetry videos:

I carry a video camera with me wherever I go—I think of it as my visual notebook. For a long time I theorized my poetry mostly in terms of sound and silence, but the more I started thinking about the relationship between my body and language, the more I wanted to create a multi-sensorial experience. We don’t experience language merely through sound or even visually on the page, but everywhere we go. I walk through the woods and I’m reminded of a story told to me by Oneida beadwork artist Karen Ann Hoffman, or I’m watching my bandmate Aubrey Hess cradle a jug of wine and it reminds me of thirst and insatiable longing. I think in terms of interwoven networks between words and images, sounds and movement and so my video poems are an attempt-in-progress to capture both my associative writing process as well as to situate my poetry in the actual, physical world of things.

Woke Up Asleep by Meghan McDonald

On 23 February, 2017 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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A new videopoem from Meghan McDonald, a New York-based “Sound experimenter, visual poet, micro filmmaker and absurdist,” not to mention master of the succinct Twitter bio. Here’s the YouTube description:

“Woke Up Asleep” is a poetry video about awakening from the daily routines that seem to put us all in a fear-stricken daze. “The gutless” go on silently in order, but those who choose to step out of line are seen as mad.