~ Nationality: United States ~
“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” by Emily Dickinson
The first two stanzas of Dickinson’s poem as animated by Laura O’Brien and some collaborators (full credits at the end). The complete poem may be read at Poets.org.
Note to regular readers: I’m scaling back from five to four posts a week here (though some weeks I may still publish five posts if I happen to have the material). Locating good poetry videos is becoming a little more difficult now, and I am wary of turning what should be a joy into a chore.
Warrior Woman Pantoum
http://www.vimeo.com/8788339
You have to turn your sound up for this, but it’s worth it. The poem is “Voice,” by Lynn Thompson, and it serves as prologue to a marvelous solo dance choreographed by Anna Leo and performed by Bridget Roosa. Steve Everett composed the music (and uploaded the video to Vimeo). The poem was commissioned by the choreographer, as Thompson explains in a guest post for the Emory Dance blog:
When Anna Leo invited me to compose a poem for a solo dance entitled Warrior Woman Pantoum, I assumed the Malayan form (originally, pantun) would provide the structure for the poem. When I received the DVD of a rehearsal of the piece, however, it struck me that Anna’s choreography and Steve Everett’s feral musical score had fractured the regularized expectations that are a necessary aspect of that form. Traditionally, the pantoum is comprised of repeated, rhyming lines that create an echo in the listener’s ear; a feeling of taking four steps forward, then two back. However, Anna’s Warrior Woman earns her status by eschewing this expectation; by exploring the previously-unexplored so as to discover and establish her own way in the world. Thus, in writing “Voice,” I wanted to develop a pattern by repeating the active verb say while marrying that repetition to the dancer’s unpredictable curiosity and insistence on becoming.
A Broadway Pageant, Mannahatta, and Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman
This is Manhatta, a proto-filmpoem from the silent film era, now residing in the Internet Archive. This was a collaboration between painter Charles Sheeler and photographer Paul Strand. Pour a drink, put on some music, and expand this to full screen.
A page at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website helps place it in historical context:
In 1920 [Charles Sheeler] worked with Paul Strand on Manhatta, a short expressive film about New York City based on portions of Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.” The six-minute film spans an imaginary day in the life of New York City, beginning with footage of Staten Island ferry commuters and culminating with the sun setting over the Hudson River. It has been described as the first avant-garde film made in America. Its many brief shots and dramatic camera angles emphasize New York’s photographic nature. Sheeler exhibited Manhatta as both projected film (as seen in this section) as well as prints made from the film strips that he used like photographic negatives.
(“New York’s photographic nature”? I guess they mean photogenic. Whatever. It’s a great film.)
I Heard a … When I Died
“A contemporary interpretation of a poem written by Emily Dickinson on life/death from the perspective of the fly,” says the filmmaker, Sasha Sumner. A brilliant little short which shows that sometimes a great soundtrack is almost all you need to make your point. (For a video of the complete poem, see Lynn Tomlinson’s clay-on-glass animation.)
What Bee Did by Julie Larios
Update: video may be watched on Vimeo.
An animation by Jessica Lawheed. The text of the poem is available at The Cortland Review. Julie Larios blogs at The Drift Record.
My one criticism of the animation is that it shows a honeybee entering a paper wasp nest — why not a hive box or a skep? Then again, it also depicts a bee making love to a human being, so perhaps I shouldn’t get too literal.
The Dead by Billy Collins (McDonalds remix)
Lauren Adolfsen spliced together some footage from old McDonald’s commercials to make a new video for Billy Collins’ poem. This uses the same audio as the animation by Juan Delcan, which was one of the 11 videopoems authorized by the poet. I am not sure he’d approve of this one, but it definitely changes the way I think of the poem.
Family Group Day by Radames Ortiz
“Video Poem written and performed by poet Radames Ortiz featuring music by Trills, graphic design artist Alberto Capetillo and videographer Gilbert Camargo.” See the rest of the YouTube info bar for the text of the poem.
Ortiz blogs as the amplified bard.
Dust of Snow by Robert Frost
http://youtu.be/3PIZzPGdMa0
I’m not always big on typographic animations, especially ones with no sound, but this one has just enough graphic elements to be interesting. Plus, it’s seasonal. Erik A. Baker created it “for Ben Van Dyke’s typography class at the University at Buffalo Fall semester 2007.” (I’d say at least half the videos on Moving Poems were student projects.)
“A word made Flesh…” by Emily Dickinson
A fascinating linguistic deconstruction of the poet’s lines just uploaded to Vimeo yesterday, by one Eliza Fitzhugh, for Dickinson’s 179th birthday. The multiple accents should remind us that now more than ever, with the advent of the web, Dickinson’s poetry belongs to the world. I spend some time yesterday looking up favorite Dickinson poems on popular poem-sharing sites and reading appreciative comments from places like Iran, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan — the traditional Sufi heartland. I had always thought her work would translate well to an audience weaned on Hafiz, Rumi, and Khayyam.
Here’s the text from R. W. Franklin’s variorum edition (the video repeats lines 9-10 for a conclusion):
A Word made Flesh is seldom
And tremblingly partook
Nor then perhaps reported
But have I not mistook
Each one of us has tasted
With ecstasies of stealth
The very food debated
To our specific strength –A Word that breathes distinctly
Has not the power to die
Cohesive as the Spirit
It may expire if He –
“Made Flesh and dwelt among us”
Could condescension be
Like this consent of Language
This loved Philology.
Poet’s Work by Lorine Niedecker
Excerpt from a documentary called Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker, by Cathy C. Cook, which won a Jury Award from the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival. Cook reproduces the official blurb on her blog:
In this unconventional documentary, filmmaker Cathy Cook takes cues from Niedecker’s work and the Wisconsin heritage they share to explore the poetry and life of Lorine Niedecker (1903 – 1970). The poetry and film subjects included are: nature, history, ecology, gender, domesticity, work, culture, family and social politics. Cook gives new voice and visibility to the extraordinary works of this very private poet that some literary critics have described as the 20th century’s Emily Dickinson.
There’s a review and an interesting discussion of possible omissions from the film at The Irascible Poet.
For more on Niedecker, see the website for the poet from the Friends of Lorine Niedecker, Inc. Here’s another video, featuring Wisconsin Poet Laureate Marilyn Taylor discussing and reading from Niedecker’s work, part of the Dead Poets Society of America’s 2009 cross-country gravesite tour.
http://www.vimeo.com/8077295
