~ Nationality: United States ~
Just As, After a Point, Job Cried Out by K.A. Hays
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.
Howie Good: three poems from Dreaming in Red
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
“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
Michelle Bitting‘s latest poem film.
Was it I by Sheila Packa
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.
One Art by Elizabeth Bishop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAiik7SKXX8
Another videopoem from John Scott‘s projected feature-length documentary, Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing. See “Sandpiper” for more information and links. Jason Harrington supplied the animation here.
Odds and Ends by Joseph Harker
Joseph Harker‘s poem appeared in qarrtsiluni back in October (whence the recording of his reading). Swoon blogged (in Dutch) about the making of the video here.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to make a film for my father, who died last year. Plenty of ideas. Especially ideas about how things are definitely not allowed to look. Or sound. The epitaph could not be more than a tribute to his own simplicity.
In the poem “Odds and Ends” (Qarrtsiluni Podcast 28.10.2011) by Joseph Harker, I found the words summoned up the right atmosphere for me. I was even more excited when Joseph gave permission to use his poem.
[…]
For the images I wanted a split. 2 tracks of images. Two streams of thought.
I used footage from “And So They Live,” a documentary from 1940 by John Ferno and Julian Roffman. Simplicity and warmth were the central concepts that I was looking at in these images. I also used (self-filmed) images from the train to my hometown. The contrast of the warmth and tranquility in the nostalgic images with the blurred images of the train rushing forward to my roots is, for me, successful evocation.
(Translation by Google and guesswork)
Alone by Yvor Winters
http://vimeo.com/33484094
A recent video by Nic S. for a poem included in her online audio collection Pizzicati of Hosanna.
Sandpiper by Elizabeth Bishop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZyj3gXEUis
Filmmaker and television producer John Scott is working on a feature-length documentary called Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing, which will include a number of videos like this one illustrating her poems. He wrote about the project at length for the Elizabeth Bishop Centenary blog.
Each scene will end on a poem whose inspiration comes from the tensions of the time period being described. And thus the poetry will not only be an aesthetically pleasing and rewarding study of genius, it will deepen the emotional content of her life-story.
I learned about the project from a feature at VidPoFilm back on Nov. 18. Brenda Clews sent Scott a couple questions via email. Quoting from his answers:
I am not interested solely in being illustrative — I am interested in at times being playful with the way the visuals/sounds and the words come together in an effort to use the expressive powers of visuals and sounds. There’s lots of potential in the medium itself that I think might otherwise be lost if it is simply slaved word for word to the text. […]
I believe the beauty of Bishop’s poetry is that it is so loaded with the spirit of the moment, in the fragmentary, in the lush, in the juxtaposition of contrasting images and in the point of view of its subjects.
Do read the rest. About this videopoem in particular, Scott noted on YouTube:
“Sandpiper” is a poem that was written by Elizabeth Bishop in 1965 and it is believed that it was based on observations she made on a trip she made as an adult back to Nova Scotia. Bishop’s adult life took her in many directions and places, and she has explicitly compared herself to the sandpiper and (presumably) both of their quests to endlessly seek (enlightenment?) through careful observation.
