~ Nationality: United States ~
Litany by Billy Collins
A three-year-old recites Billy Collins — another reminder that YouTube is still a vast repository of wonderfulness if you can only find it among all the dross. Fortunately, this one has gone viral. The mother says in a comment,
Billy Collins did see this and wrote a letter to my son and I. We feel very honored.
Thank you all for your kind comments. We are working on a few new poems I hope to have up very soon. If there are any suggestions as to poems you think might be good ones for him to memorize, let me know! I will consider them, if he likes them too.
Here’s Collins himself introducing and reading the poem, in a selection from Fora.TV:
drylung by Clayton T. Michaels
This is the video my co-editor Beth Adams and I commissioned at qarrtsiluni in support of the soon-to-be-released winner of our 2010 poetry chapbook contest, Watermark by Clayton T. Michaels. James Brush wrote about why he elected to envideo this poem, and what influenced his choice of imagery, at his blog Coyote Mercury.
Watermark was chosen by the noted nonfiction author and naturalist Ken Lamberton, who was impressed by the “wonderfully controlled surreal and mesmerizing quality” of the poems. The print edition is already available for ordering ahead of the official launch on Monday, August 30, when we’ll also unveil online and podcast versions. We’re also running a series of poems from the other ten finalists at qarrtsiluni between now and then, hoping in part to interest other micropublishers in snatching up some of these terrific manuscripts (would that we could publish and release videopoems for every one of them!).
To the Hand and To a Coming Extinction by W. S. Merwin
The two poems that comprise the closing section of Men Think They Are Better Than Grass, the Deborah Slater Dance Theatre production based on poems by W. S. Merwin. “To the Hand” is read by Ellen Sebastian Chang and “To a Coming Extinction” by Peter Coyote — an excellent, if terrifying, choice of a final poem. This is also the only one of the videos uploaded to Vimeo that gives a good impression of the film playing behind the stage during the production.
Bluebird by Charles Bukowski
This is the first time I’ve ever posted a video that doesn’t include the text of the poem in some way, either as type, as subtitles, or in the soundtrack, but this animation by Monika Umba was simply too gorgeous to ignore. The accompanying information at YouTube includes the text of the poem, but here’s another video that incorporates it in the soundtrack, a trailer for a documentary on the poet by Diego Jose Baud:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dynMZa4a_d4
Baud mentions in a comment that the reading is his. I couldn’t find anything to indicate whether this documentary has in fact been released yet. The trailer was posted to YouTube a year ago.
The Arithmetic of Nurses by Veneta Masson
Liz Dubelman directed and Paca Thomas provided the animation and score for this VidLit-produced piece. (See VidLit’s “Who We Are” page for bios of Dubelman and Thomas.) Vaneta Masson is the author of two books of poetry based in part on her 35 years as a family nurse practitioner in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Here’s a bio. She doesn’t appear to have a website, but in her Amazon profile, she says:
You can read about my clinic years in two books. The first, a collection of poems (come on you skeptics, give poetry a chance!), is ‘Rehab at the Florida Avenue Grill.’ The second, ‘Ninth Street Notebook–Voice of a Nurse in the City’ contains stories, lessons and reflections from the ragged edge of the real world of nursing and health care.
In 2008, I published a new collection of poems, “Clinician’s Guide to the Soul,” modeled on the pocket-size guides to lab values, drug doses, and treatment protocols I used to rely on during my clinic years. These poems about nursing, medicine, illness and life are meant for professional and family caregivers and all who care about the art and science of healing.
Unknown Bird and Calling a Distant Animal by W. S. Merwin
Another two poems from the production Men Think They Are Better Than Grass by the Deborah Slater Dance Theatre, based on poems by W. S. Merwin. “Unknown Bird” is sung and composed by Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi. “Calling a Distant Animal” is read by Brenda Wong Aoki. The two featured dancers are Travis Rowland and Wendy Rein.
Reunion by Joseph Yaeger
The film is “Union,” “An experiment in backward moment suspension” by Sam Molleur, from the This is What We Imagine art and video collective.
Molleur goes into more detail at his blog:
Made this LITTLE SHORT with my dear friend Joseph Yaeger (who lent his words and likeness for this project), the increasingly sunburned walking prophet you can see in this video.
An experiment in “backward moment suspension” that I’ve been dreaming about exploring for quite some time now. It starts with having an entire, linear narrative being played out in a repeating, suspended moment. In this instance, it’s a poem read aloud by Joe. I wanted to make it more dynamic by not just replaying that tiny moment over and over, but actually create a contrasting, reverse effect. Where the linear narrative moves forward along with Joe’s movement, yet his displacement keeps moving him backwards. The effect can be a bit mesmerizing at times, especially if executed just right. I look forward to embarking on another attempt in the future to perfect this and apply it to a much, much longer and more dynamic endeavor.
It’s difficult to wrap your head around at first – but you can check out more of the logistics of how it works HERE. For those who like the mysterious nature of things, sorry. Instead of keeping the process secret, I’d rather share it.
They shot one syllable a time, three times each. Wow.
Haiku: The Art of The Short Poem (trailer)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YjSTwOA-po
Poet Tazuo Yamaguchi has made what looks like a marvelous film on English-language haiku, available from Brooks Books:
Brooks Books is pleased to announce the publication of HAIKU: The Art of the Short Poem, a film by Tazuo Yamaguchi. The haiku cited or read in the film are published in this book/DVD combo as a haiku anthology featuring contemporary English-language haiku writers.
In August 2007 Tazuo attended the Haiku North America conference, where he filmed over 50 hours of interviews and events with contemporary haiku poets, concluding with the HNA head-to-head haiku competition. As Taz writes in the introduction to this book/DVD: “Each poet brought me their wealth of passion, information and knowledge, and timeless insights from their snowball stash they had collected through their life’s sleigh ride of love and interest in haiku.”
How Smokes the Smolder by Todd Boss
A Todd Boss poem directed and edited by Greg Mattern with sculptures by Angie Hagen. Uploaded to Vimeo by the cameraman, Jeff Saunders, who notes that the footage was originally filmed for something else and repurposed by Mattern.
Air by W. S. Merwin
Another section from the production Men Think They Are Better Than Grass by the Deborah Slater Dance Theatre, based on poems by W. S. Merwin. “Air” is read by Anne Galjour.
