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Seven-Year-Old Finds Her Murdered Mother’s Naked Body by Lyn Lifshin

On 1 March, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Videopoems
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Bob Borgatti (editor of Slipstream) says,

This is a segment from the film “in/word/out” by Robert Borgatti and Paul Lamont. It is a visualization of the poem “Seven-Year-Old Finds Her Murdered Mother’s Naked Body” by Lyn Lifshin. Lifshin performs the voice-over narration for the piece.

Check out Lifshin’s website for her bio and abundant links.

The Jump by Susan Balboni

On 23 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Videopoems
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If the author is the same Susan Balboni who is an established voice-over actor for American television (and also a writer), it’s kind of surprising that the reading is by someone else. A fine videopoem nevertheless. Alan Marino says,

A piece I put together for the Lstudio.com Imaginings series produced and directed by Intelligent Life Productions’ Ron Qurashi. Ron presented me with a poem written by Susan Balboni which he wanted me to marry somehow to this Phantom camera 1000 fps footage of a horse clearing a jump. Got the idea of isolating the horse and placing it in a timelapse cloudscape with poetry reading and music by my friend, Kevin Sullivan. Compositing was painstakingly executed by SFX artist Austin Wallender.

Suitcase by Jane Hirshfield

On 22 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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Animation by John Eickholt for MotionPoems.com (see also their YouTube channel).

Five ( Dramatic Pauses ) by Brendan Bell

On 18 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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A found-poetry masterpiece comprised entirely of phrases from the NBC Nightly News between July 2008 and February 2009. Brendan Bell credits himself with “imagery, music, and language reconfiguation,” with additional film footage by Lester Bell. He also singles out NBC anchor Brian Williams as a specific source of some of the language. The description on the Vimeo page is worth quoting in full:

We let the television news into the perceived safety of our lives on a daily basis. Even without direct contact, the language of the medium connects with us via background noise, internet blips, and watercooler small-talk. It has a distinct, and often overlooked, authority over the way we think and feel.

The nightly half-hour national news format attempts to condense the state of the world into easily digestible soundbites. My intention is to release these soundbites, inherent powers intact, realign them and force them to interact in unintended ways.

For seven months, I watched NBC Nightly News, recording phrases that piqued my interest. I focused on this single media outlet to give the project a specific voice and began reconfiguring the phrases into what can best be described as collage poems. Poetry, like the news media, uses evocative language to provide insight into the inner workings of the world. However, poetry allows subtleties and subtext to take center stage. The resulting collage poems highlight the ambiguous spaces between language and life, exposing the vagaries of the ostensibly concrete world around us.

The term (Dramatic Pause) implies a brief deviation from an intended script, or a small crack in real time, where things that are normally hidden become visible. It is based on instructions written for news broadcasters on their teleprompters.

Doña Josefina Counsels Doña Concepción Before Entering Sears by Maurice Kilwein Guevara

On 16 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Animation
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Best bilingual poem ever? Well, maybe not, but the last line is perfect.

For background on Guevara, see the Poetry Foundation site.

won’t you celebrate with me by Lucille Clifton

On 14 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Performance Poetry
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Rest in peace, Lucille Clifton.

“Leave Your Sleep”: Natalie Merchant interview and performance of a Charles Causley poem

On 11 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - interviews, Musical settings
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Natalie Merchant talks about her new album Leave Your Sleep, which uses children’s poems and nursery rhymes for lyrics, in an interview with Ellah Allfrey of Granta.

Here’s a live performance of one of the pieces included on the album, from the September 2009 Grand Opening of Poet’s House in New York. This is by British poet Charles Causley: “Nursery Rhyme of Innocence and Experience,” the opening track of the two-disc set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-yc3UN_BZg

Watch more live performances of songs off Leave Your Sleep at BBC Radio Scotland.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey

On 10 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Videopoems
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Edward Gorey’s macabre alphabet is brought to life by Wayland Bell and a bunch of other people.

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

On 8 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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Another of Josep Porcar’s videopoems for the Catalan literary site Blocs de Lletres. Stevens’ poem is now in the public domain, so here’s the text:

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
and, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

me’s-an-abyme by Michelle Lovegrove Thomson

On 2 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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http://www.vimeo.com/9115622

A collage of images and voices of women poets that succeeds brilliantly, both as a tribute to the women whose words are borrowed and as an original videopoem. Michelle Lovegrave Thomson is the editor, cinematographer and hand-processor of the Super8mm film.

Night Flight Turbulence by Franz Wright

On 1 February, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Musical settings, Videopoems
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Pete Shanel is the videographer for this track, released as a promo for the CD Readings From Wheeling Motel, a collaboration between Franz Wright and the folk-pop group Ill Lit.

Walking Out, Part 1 by Tyler Flynn Dorholt

On 28 January, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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http://vimeo.com/9050492

“Part I in a series of poems called ‘Walking Out,'” says Mr. Dorholt.