~ Nationality: United States ~

Roadtrip by Joshua Stewart

http://vimeo.com/67852968

A Vimeo find. The description reads:

Poem by Joshua Stewart.
Video by Fraser Jones.
Scenic views by The United States of America.

Jonah and the Shark by Annie Ferguson

http://vimeo.com/64472403

Another in the collaborative series of videopoems by two Evergreen College students, this one by written and directed by Annie Ferguson. All five films by Ferguson and Catherine Michaelis have also been rolled into a single video. Watch it at The Fluid Raven.

Come The Apocalypse by Catherine Alice Michaelis

A great environmental/social justice videopoem by Evergreen College student Catherine Alice Michaelis, part of a collaborative series with Annie Ferguson that grew out of “a 10 week immersive experiment with cinépoetry,” according to The Fluid Raven. Deserving of special mention here, I think, is the eerie and effective whistling by Bill Moody on the soundtrack.

Grassy Grayson by Grayson Cahal

Grayson Cahal was in the 3rd grade (in Chatham Elementary School, Lodi, Ohio), so 8 or 9 years old, when he wrote this astonishing poem. Ruth Turner did the animation, and the accompanying poster was designed by Ryan Sprowl.

This video is one in a series – part of the second Healing Edition of the Traveling Stanzas project which is a collaborative effort between the Wick Poetry Center‘s outreach program and the Glyphix design studio at Kent State University.

Learning the Letters by Robert Peake

“A film-poem by Valerie Kampmeier and Robert Peake, incorporating footage of children in Britton, South Dakota filmed by Ivan Bessie in 1939.” For the text, see Peake’s blog.

Shame by Richard Wilbur

http://vimeo.com/66795826

This film is called drawing, and its maker, Paul Mounsey, notes only that it was shot on 16mm film. The text may be found online here. The Poetry Foundation has a very good page on Richard Wilbur, along with a generous selection of his poems.

Righteous Utopian by Michael Spering

An author-made, stop-motion videopoem.

Witness by Lissa Kiernan

A film by Swoon for the poem “Witness” by Lissa Kiernan, recorded for qarrtsiluni‘s Animals in the City issue. This is Swoon’s 11th film for a qarrtsiluni poem. A couple of snippets from his blog post about it:

The track I wanted to lay this podcast in had to be a bit dreamy but also suspenseful and foreboding (with a small hint of mysteriousness) […]

The images had to be lush, but with a hint of decay. I had a vase with tulips, way past their ideal point of freshness. The petals falling gave me the idea for this video…

The first time I watched this, the images Swoon chose to accompany the text struck me as possibly a bit too random. But now they strike me as a subtle but inspired match. And the poem is, after all, directly concerned with how we might view an odd conjunction.

The Barking Horse by Patrick Sheridan

An eccentric and highly enjoyable author-made poetry video by Patrick Sheridan of Paddy Wagon Films.

If I had a white horse, I’d call him Brown Cow, just so I could ask, “How now horse Brown Cow?”

The Barking Horse is a three minute film about a dog named Horse. People have called it inspiring, awesome, confusing, brilliant, moving, and beautiful. You decide.

Paleoacoustics by Forrest Gander

http://vimeo.com/57158868

Forrest Gander‘s description at Vimeo reads: “This video is about Paleoacoustics, traces of the past in the present, poetry, imagination.”

Moon in the Window by Dorianne Laux

http://vimeo.com/66443184

Artwork (for the accompanying poster) and animation are both by Alison Farone of Glyphix design studio.

The 2013 edition of Traveling Stanzas is a collaborative project between Kent State University’s Wick Poetry Center and Glyphix design studio. This series combines the creative talents of KSU Visual Communication Design students with student writers (grades 3–12), health care providers, patients, veterans and professional writers to encourage dialogue about the connection between art and medicine, writing and healing.

Much appreciation to Dorianne Laux who graciously allowed us to us her poem “Moon in the Window” as inspiration for a poster design and poetry animation.

32 Warhol by Dena Rash Guzman

A film by Jerimiah Whitlock. Dena Rash Guzman writes in a blog post:

My poem “32 Warhol” is now a beautiful poem film. A story about childhood, art and hunger, the film was shot by filmmaker Jerimiah Whitlock, and was translated to German and narrated by Hong Kong based poet, editor, and publisher Bjorn Wahsltrom. I am awed by Jerimiah’s vision and production. The result reminds me of director Wim Wenders.

The poem itself was written on a farm in the Oregon woods, where I live, and the film itself was shot and produced in Colorado. The German translation and narration was provided by a Swede then living in Shanghai, China. The world is such a huge and tiny place.

The film made its debut at The Body Electric Film Festival in Ft. Collins, Colorado last month. We have plans to have it screened across the world.

The poem itself, previously published on Ink Node, appears under the title “Life Cycle” in my forthcoming book of poems Life Cycle from Dog On A Chain Press. That will be available in June.

In the post on Vimeo, Whitlock includes the following artist’s statement:

Poetry is traditionally disseminated by the written word or the act of the poet reading to an audience. By creating video poems that not only share the written word but illustrate it in layers of sound, visuals, vocals, and even translations to other languages, the artist hope to help put to rest the idea that poetry is dead. Indeed, it is a form or art that can live as anything from sculpture, to performance, to film. Poetry is one of our oldest known forms of structured communication. Our hope is to see it grow older by bringing it to wider audiences in modern ways. Poetry deserves the eternal life. One day we hope to see an elaborate library dedicated only to poetry in all its modern forms, including shelves and shelves of video poetry. Let no one hunger for verse.