~ Nationality: United States ~

When at a Certain Party in NYC by Erin Belieu

On 2 February, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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Motionpoems’ latest animation. (See the comments to that post for a quote on the process by animator Amy Schmitt, as well as the poet’s reaction to the finished piece.) This is another of the films produced in collaboration with Best American Poetry 2011.

Flames by Billy Collins

On 30 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Animation
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A new film by Brandon Dziokonski blends animation with recycled footage from old Smokey the Bear public service anouncements.

dollhouse by Shabnam Piryaei

On 17 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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It’s not often you see such roles as Key Grip, Script Supervisor and Gaffer in the credits of a poetry film! Even better, it still goes in the author-made videopoem category, as Iranian-American poet Shabnam Piryaei is credited as both writer and main director. According to the bio on her website, her print publication credits are as impressive as her film credits. It’s always heartening to see a poet working in film at such a high level of professional expertise.

Profile by R.W. Perkins

On 13 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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“Profile is a stream of consciousness combination of poetry and prose. The visuals of the film were intended to represent the chaos of thought.” This would be a mesmerizing piece even without R.W. Perkins’ very interesting and detailed process notes on Vimeo and at his website (q.v.). Last Friday at VidPoFilm, Brenda Clews captured the essence of the excitement that many of us in the online videopoetry community feel about this film:

R.W. Perkins has it all in this video. When I saw it I felt it was a marker of our era. That surely many films of this type will follow, but his was the first. Identity in the twenty-first century is shaped by social media sites. Your life is not contained in your private diaries and photo albums anymore; it’s all on-line now. The notion of who we are has never been more global or more revealing.

One’s Facebook profile updates and photo albums provide many snapshots of a life. R.W. Perkins has captured that sense of a collided life, a life of snapshots and home videos and snatches of writing. It is a fast-paced life. We describe ourselves to each other. There are millions of us. Facebook is approaching 1/7th of the world’s population. It is a social media site that is creating a twenty-first sense of self.

Put it all together and you get, PROFILE. On his website, R.W. Perkins offers his essay on his videopoem, Profiles, as his Profile.

Read the rest (and if you have any interest in the videopoem/filmpoem genre, don’t miss a post at VidPoFilm).

It Wasn’t the Flu by Ren Powell

On 12 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation, Author-made videopoems
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Norway-based American poet Ren Powell writes,

I saw a website called fiverr. People will do/make things for 5 bucks. Nathan is making play doh stop motion animations with his kids: 15 seconds for 5.

The result is something of an exquisite corpse… with kids.

It Wasn’t the Flu (From Mercy Island. Phoenicia Publishing, 2011).

I find the result really delightful and satisfying — more so than many more sophisticated poetry animations I’ve seen.

The Genius of the Crowd by Charles Bukowski

On 10 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Another Bukowski videopoem by the graphic design company immprint. This one includes the poet’s own reading, and “the soundtrack is by immprint with most of the footage shot in New York.”

I’m not sure about the repurposing of this poem for an environmental message, but I do like the device of counting up the total human population as the film rolls, and the soundtrack is damn near perfect.

Just As, After a Point, Job Cried Out by K.A. Hays

On 6 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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Motionpoems are releasing their 2012 crop of animations one a month; this is the first — an animation by Emma Burghardt of a poem by K.A. Hays. Please see the post at the Motionpoems website for the text of the poem and its full publication history.

By the way, if you like what Motionpoems are doing to bring great American poems to the big and small screen (including, hopefully, cable TV), please consider donating to their current fundraising campaign. Unfortunately, they were locked out of a major state arts grant this year due to a little-publicized change in the application process, so their need for donations is especially acute right now.

Piece Work by Robert Peake

On 3 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Poet Robert Peake’s first venture into the genre arose spontaneously and in collaboration with his wife, Valerie Kampmeier, who provided the music and the idea, as she describes on her blog:

This afternoon was the last day of the Christmas holidays, unexpectedly sunny, crisp and breezy. After the departure of some visitors, Robert and I were about to go out for a walk and some tea and cake, when he suddenly pointed to a patch of light on the wall behind me. The reflections from the garden of waving branches and the wrought iron of a clothes post were casting flickering shadows onto the wall in an astonishing fashion, almost like a silent movie. Robert grabbed his iPhone and captured some video. “You could use that for a poem-film, “ I remarked, thinking about the beautiful short videos some friends had made recently.

When we got home from our walk, I began improvising to the footage on the piano, while Robert listened and wrote. Within twenty minutes we both had something. Remarkably, when Robert read his poem aloud, it was exactly the right length. He recorded it, synchronized it with the video, and then I recorded my part on top onto a different track so that we could experiment with individual volume and colour.

Read the rest (and visit Robert’s blog for the text). It’s always exciting to see a new poet entering the videopoem/film-poem genre, and the high quality and organic process here bodes well for Peake and Kampmeier’s future efforts.

Howie Good: three poems from Dreaming in Red

On 2 January, 2012 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Swoon Bildos combined three poems — “Blue Territory,” “Ghost Train,” and “The Theory of Meaningful Coinicidence” — for a videopoem in support of Howie Good‘s new collection, Dreaming in Red. Profits from the sale of the book go to the Crisis Center in Birmingham, Alabama, which works on suicide prevention and provides services to victims of sexual assault, day treatment for the indigent mentally ill, and other services.

Something by Charles Bukowski

On 29 December, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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“A short poem by Charles Bukowski illustrated by film, texture and stills. Original soundtrack by immprint.” It’s worth noting, however, that the London-based graphic design company used the same soundtrack in another video, for William Blake’s poem “The Sick Rose.” This is one of three Bukowski videopoems they’ve uploaded to Vimeo so far. It’s not clear who commissioned them.

The Call by Michelle Bitting

On 28 December, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Videopoems
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Michelle Bitting‘s latest poem film.

Was it I by Sheila Packa

On 27 December, 2011 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Kinestasis
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It’s been too long since I last featured one of Kathy McTavish‘s lovely pieces of cello-accompanied video art for a poem by her regular collaborator, poet Sheila Packa. This is a piece from Packa’s new collection, Cloud Birds.

Most of the time, videos that consist only of still images don’t seem like a good fit for a site called Moving Poems, but McTavish’s videos are too full of life and movement to exclude.