~ Nationality: United States ~

The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe

Poem by Edgar Allan Poe, video by Orville T. Clark, who says, “This was built entirely in After effects. There’s a bit of everything thrown in here, live action, photography, stop frame animation etc. All just for fun, enjoy!” Too bad he didn’t include a reading of the selections he used from the poem, I thought, but it’s still pretty cool.

The City in the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.

No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently —
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free —
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —
Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls —
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers —
Up many and many a marvelous shrine
Whose wreathéd friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in the air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol’s diamond eye —
Not the gaily-jeweled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass —
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea —
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave — there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide —
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow —
The hours are breathing faint and low —
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.

Forgetfulness by Billy Collins

This seemed an appropriate video with which to resume my now-and-then posting of the Billy Collins poetry animations, which are justly famous among fans of contemporary vidpo. How had I forgotten about them? (Hat tip to Carolee Sherwood for jogging my memory.)

See a larger, Quicktime version at Billy Collins Action Poetry.

Samurai Song by Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky recites his poem to the ceiling of an elevator for Dutch television. Here’s the text.

Two Theories by Linh Dinh

Linh Dinh’s gritty, low-tech video poems are hit or miss with me; this one was a definite hit. “From the collection Borderless Bodies (Factory School 2006).”

Losing My Religion by Ren Powell

One of my favorite animated poems by Ren Powell.

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

http://www.vimeo.com/6053847

Robert Frost’s famous poem admirably envideoed by film student Jon Mitchell. Since it’s out of copyright, here’s the text:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

There are, as one might easily imagine, skads of Robert Frost videos on the web. The problem is that almost all of them suck.

Constellations by Todd Boss

Angella Kassube animates a poem by Todd Boss. The poem can also be found in higher-quality video and text forms at the new site MotionPoems.com (no direct links available due to Flash overkill).

The Dragonfly by Louise Bogan

Louise Bogan reads her poem in this montage by Josep Porcar for the Catalan website Blocs de Lletres. Porcar took the footage from another film on Vimeo: Mary, written and directed by Mel Eslyn. For the text of the poem, see here.

Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s own reading of her poem in a video by mishima1970, who seems to specialize in Plath video poems.

The Killing of the Trees by Lucille Clifton

Lucille Clifton in a 1990 public reading, worth watching not just for the excellent reading but for the lengthy introduction as well.

Yoing by Mikki LeMoine

http://blip.tv/the-faux-press-blip-tv-division/yoing-a-film-poem-234109

A 30-second, 35-mm film by Jan McLaughlin based on a poem by Mikki LeMoine. More information at the Blip.tv page.

The Menage by Carl Rakoski

A poem by Carl Rakoski, read and illustrated by poet Anne Waldman and film artist Ed Bowes. I especially liked the sparing use of song.