~ Nationality: United States ~
114 & Lenox, 4AM by Molly Murphy
A Vimeo find. I don’t know anything more than this:
Director of Photography Jordan Chlapecka
Performed & Read by Molly Murphy
Shadows by Langston Hughes
I suppose this is technically a music video rather than a videopoem, but it strikes me as much closer to the latter genre to the former — save for the fact that the poem takes the form of a very beautiful art song.
Composed by Lior Rosner
Soprano: Janai Brugger
Directed and After Effects by Tal Rosner
DoP: Adam Woodhall
Dancers: Cameron McMillan, Fiona MerzAbout the project:
One of America’s greatest poets, Langston Hughes was a social activist and early innovator of jazz poetry. Hughes distilled the experience of his generation of African Americans into poems that sang in his clear and unapologetic voice. In “In Time of Silver Rain: Seven Poems by Langston Hughes,” composer Lior Rosner uses his music to liberate Hughes’ words from the boundaries of historical context. Rosner’s modern settings challenge us to consider the contemporary relevance of Hughes’ frank and often searing meditations on the universal themes of oppression, loss, frustration and love. While the emotions captured in these songs are indeed timeless, beneath the undeniable modernity of Rosner’s music, there are subtle harmonic nods to the jazz that provided the sonic backdrop for the Harlem Renaissance.
Pets by Vickie Vertiz
A mash-up of public-domain footage from the Internet Archive by Kenji Liu.
Poet Vickie Vertiz reads the poem “Pets” from her book Swallows (Finishing Line Press, 2013), available at tinyurl.com/swallowsbook
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
This is O wild goose da muller by Carmen PG Granxeiro:
Videoarte. Tres formas de escoitar. Tres formas de entender.
Videoart. Three ways to listen. Three ways to understand.
Videoarte. Tres formas de escuchar. Tres formas de entender.
Oliver’s most famous poem has been made into numerous videos for the web, most of them dreck. But I shared one other that I liked, a film by Justin DeWaard, back in 2010.
Ode to My Body by Scott Parson’s 12th Grade Class
This collaboratively written poem comes from Scott Parson’s 12th Grade Class at the Maplewood Career Center in Ravenna, Ohio. It was animated by Adam Rechtenwald from a design by Eric Stearns, and is part of the 2009-2010 edition — Peace Stanzas — of the Wick Poetry Center’s Traveling Stanzas program.
Landing Under Water, I See Roots by Annie Finch
A beautiful and, to my mind, highly effective book trailer for Spells: New and Selected Poems by Annie Finch, due out this month from Wesleyan University Press. U.K. animator Suzie Hanna describes their creative process in a note at Vimeo:
The film was made through a Transatlantic collaborative shared process. Annie sent her voice recording to me and I responded with clips of tests and animatics which I adjusted, extended or dumped in response to her reactions.
For the text of the poem (and audio of Finch’s reading), see poets.org.
So Be It by Kenneth Patchen
This experimental film, Sperma Mundi III Introduction by Wild Worm Web, includes a recording of Patchen reciting his poem in the soundtrack. (To read the text, see Google Books.)
Found Footage :
Jack Smith + Paul Sharits + Hy Hirsh + Otto Mühl
Poem by Kenneth Patchen
Music Vivid Tribe Of Psychics (Yoshiwaku + Parrhesia Sound System)
soundcloud.com/vivid-tribe-of-psychics
Things That Have No Name by the Psychiatric Intensive Outpatient Therapy Group
An outstanding collaborative poem credited to the Psychiatric Intensive Outpatient Therapy Group, Summa Health Systems. Alex McClelland made this film based on a poster design by fellow Kent State University student Nate Mucha. Poster and animation are part of the Healing Stanzas project. (Here are the poster and the text.)
best parts of you by Kathleen Roberts
This hypnotic combination of kinetic text, video and sound art represents a collaboration between Duluth, Minnesota-based poet Kathleen Roberts (text, reading) and musician/artist Kathy McTavish (music and images) for the Wildwood River micropress.
America by Allen Ginsberg
An impressive videopoem apparently made for a high school English class. I particularly like how the young filmmaker asserts herself as a kind of alternate-history author of the poem. It seems in keeping with the poem’s own speculative interests.
poem “America” by Allen Ginsberg
directed by Sydney Gross
starring Sydney Gross
special thanks to Sabah Light and Ashley Langley
project for Mr. Locke’s class
something I remember by Robert Lax
The third in a trilogy of animations for Robert Lax poems by the German architect and artist Susanne Wiegner.
“something I remember” is a poem by Robert Lax that describes a certain moment outside of time and space during a rainy night. For the film the letters of the poem are divided in a large amount of layers. These layers become spaces, streets and the falling rain.
And at the end … “there is nothing particular about it to recall.”
