Riqueza (Riches) by Gabriela Mistral
After all my web hosting woes of late, I think it’s safe to say that this site, at least, is back on an even keel. To celebrate, I made a video for one of my favorite poems, and Nic S. was gracious enough to upload a reading I could use to Pizzicati of Hosanna. I found the music on SoundCloud: “The Foggy Dew” on tin whistle by Chris Kent. I blogged a bit more about this at Via Negativa just now.
What I Have Learned So Far by Mary Oliver
http://vimeo.com/31104514
O.K., this is something different for Moving Poems — a videopoem made to embody the mission of a university. Marquette University is a Jesuit school whose motto is “Be the Difference.” (Gotta love Jesuits!) The filmmaker is James P. O’Malley of Carnaval Pictures. Here’s what he says in the description at Vimeo:
Using Mary Oliver’s inspirational poem as a script, I created this Poem-Videoclip for the inauguration ceremony of Marquette University’s new president.
I shot all the images solo with my Canon 5D Mark2, using Nikkor and Canon lenses and available light. The sync sound day included John Egan, of Egan Audio Services, and Patrick O’Malley as assistant. Patrick composed, recorded and mastered the piano solo, and John Egan created the sound design and audio master.
The readers are Marquette University students, and all on-camera performers are “non-pro” or “real-people”.
I edited and mastered on FCP, except for the simple graphic call to action I exported from After Effects.
The result is lightly branded enough, I think, to engage Oliver fans unconnected with Marquette. I know I enjoyed it.
Fábula de la Sirena y los Borrachos (Fable of the Siren and the Drunks) by Pablo Neruda
Moving Poems’ latest production takes advantage of a new free-audio site that other filmmakers might be interested in, too: pizzicati of hosanna: dead poets’ poems read by Nic S. in English & other languages. The footage is from Blackwater Falls State Park, West Virginia. I blogged all about it at Via Negativa.
Tomas Tranströmer
This new film from Bloodaxe Books, one of Tranströmer’s English-language publishers, incorporates footage of the Nobel Prize announcement and the Tranströmers’ reaction, as well as footage of Tranströmer playing the piano which Pamela Robertson-Pearce had just shot in August. Robin Fulton’s translations appear as subtitles for the Swedish-language readings, which include “The Nightingale in Badelunda,” “Allegro,” “From the Thaw on 1966,” “The Half-Finished Heaven,” “April and Silence,” “From March 1979,” and “Tracks.” This is of course something that the film/video medium is particularly well suited for: it’s wonderful to hear the poet reading in Swedish and know (more or less) what he is saying.
Do read the extensive notes on the Vimeo page. The detail that “Swedish composers have written several left-hand piano pieces especially for him to play” speaks volumes about his status in his homeland. (Hat-tip: Teju Cole on Twitter)
No. XLII by e. e. cummings
http://vimeo.com/29969928
Another text-only videopoem, but today with a soundtrack. I’m not crazy about the font-choice — for some reason, I have trouble seeing a Cummings poem in anything but a typewriter font — but otherwise this strikes me as a highly successful re-imagining of the text.
Nic S. blogged about “using text vs voice in videopoems” the other day, and it’s sparked an interesting discussion in the comments, with videopoetry pioneer Tom Konyves weighing in.
Disillusionment of Ten O’Clock by Wallace Stevens
http://vimeo.com/26089551
A visually arresting, silent watercolor animation by Lilli Carré. The poem has its own Wikipedia page. (Hat-tip: Hannah Stephenson)
Everything Simple Becomes Complex by Howie Good
http://vimeo.com/29124206
Another Swoon film for a poem by Howie Good — his seventh to date. The description at Vimeo characterizes this as “an edited, layered compilation of ‘simple’ camera-errors, to fit the jagged music and the title of the poem itself.”
Schubertiana by Tomas Tranströmer
This is A Galaxy Over There — a lavishly produced film by British director Martin Earle, illustrating excerpts from Tranströmer’s poem “Schubertiana,” as translated by Jöns Mellgren and narrated by Graham Sharpe in a kind of bedtime-stories voice. Though much of it is rather too literal for my taste, it’s hard to find fault with such beautiful filmmaking. The flying household objects in the first part seem in keeping with the spirit of Tranströmer’s “miracle speech,” and I love the scene where the landscape turns into a bed quilt. It’s also hard to see how they could’ve used anything other than a Schubert string quartet for the soundtrack!
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams
http://www.vimeo.com/28799428
Making a videopoem for a poem that was written in response to a painting is always a challenge. Nic S. used footage of a California forest fire from 1914 in what strikes me as a fairly successful pairing.
In other Nic S.-related news, she has just launched a new venture that should be of interest to anyone making poetry videos — Pizzicati of Hosanna: dead poets’ poems read by Nic S. in English & other languages. According to a note in the sidebar, “These recordings may be used for any type of creative non-commercial project. No need to ask permission.” Poets recorded so far include Stevens, Baudelaire, Quasimodo and Neruda, all in the original languages.
one moment passes by Robert Lax
German animator Susanne Wiegner made this film with audio from the late poet, who “did nothing to court publicity or expand his literary career or reputation,” according to the Wikipedia. A man after my own heart!
