Latest additions to the video library
“wherelings whenlings” by e.e. cummings as interpreted by John Cage
A beautifully filmed rendition of John Cage’s composition Forever and Sunsmell, performed by Dorothy Gal, Christopher Salvito, and Jessica Tsang and filmed and recorded by Christopher Salvito.
The title and text of Forever and Sunsmell are from 26, one of 50 poems (1940) by e.e. cummings. Some lines and words have been omitted, others have been repeated or used in an order other than that of the original. The humming and vocalise (not part of the poem) are an interpolation.
That’s from the video description. There’s a longer analysis of the piece at allmusic.com that talks about its place in Cage’s artistic development. For the complete text of the original poem, click through to Vimeo.
Offertory / Ofertorio by Amado Nervo
Spanish director Eduardo Yagüe‘s stunning interpretation of a poem by the early 20th century Mexican poet Amado Nervo, for which I was pleased to be able to contribute the English translation. Pablo Barrangán and Gabriella Roy act. The music is by archiv ev noise.
Eduardo shared some notes on his process:
This year it was my intention to challenge myself to make at least one video with text on the screen. That might be seen as a slight challenge, but not for me. I consider it very difficult to insert the text on the screen at the same time that one is watching the images and not feel lost with the sense of the poem and the images. This is my first video with the text on the screen since Green Stones in the House of Night, where the poems appeared in a very different way.
My inspiration for inserting the text here is the style that Marc Neys (aka Swoon) uses in his videos—neat, clean, precise. I also wanted to maintain the rhythm of the reading in order to not lose the sense of the poem, so here I tried to make a slow but continuous reading of the poem by Amado Nervo. The reason I didn’t use the periods, commas and exclamation marks from the original text is that I felt that they would disturb the cleanness I was looking for, after consulting with Dave Bonta, the translator. I consider this a poetic license.
Thanks to Dave for suggesting I pick one of the translations that he and many others talented translators are making of great poets from Latin America in the Facebook group Poetry from the Other Americas and on Via Negativa. I chose the poem by Amado Nervo in the first place because I prefer to work with short texts now, and also because I found in “Ofertorio” a way of continuing my investigations of religious symbols and themes that I started in my video Consideraciones sobre la luz, based on a poem by Laura M. Kaminski.
I am not obsessed with Catholic imagery but I find it interesting, and I tried to make suggestions with it, trying to renew my vision of it, not being sexually explicit as that could be the easy way. I don’t know if I hit my target, but that was my goal. As inspiration, I used what in Spain are called “Estampas de la Virgen”—those little pictures of the Virgin Mary with a prayer in them.
Other thing I wanted to do in this video was include both texts, English and Spanish, in the same video, rather than making two different videos as I have been doing with my remixes from The Poetry Storehouse, and divide the video into two related parts, using an actor and an actress. I always imagine big scenes while I am preparing the recordings, but I know that at the end I have to adjust my wishes of a grand production to what I actually can do, and that is a beautiful process of searching for simplicity.
I hope you enjoy the result.
2 Degrees by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CaZXCNfa04
Marshallese poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner‘s impassioned poem about climate change in a video from CNN, part of their correspondent John D. Sutter’s two degrees series. It aired in late June. Jonathan “jot” Reyes, the creative director of video development at CNN, included half a minute of motion graphics in a film that otherwise hews closely to the standard TV formula for poetry: shots of the poet alternating with a collage of complementary footage, more or less illustrative of the text. For a dash of irony, you can watch this on the CNN website, where it’s preceded by an automobile ad. But a longer, interactive web feature on Sutter’s visit to the Marshall Islands also includes the video poem (which is the term he uses for it), along with some prefatory text:
During my brief time in the islands, I met people like Angie [Hepisus] who are witnessing climate change and who are trying to do what’s best for themselves and their families. By sharing their stories, they hope the rest of us might listen — might realize our actions have consequences for places we’ll never see, for people we’ll never meet. I also had the pleasure of meeting Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, a young mother and poet who has emerged as one of the country’s pre-eminent storytellers. A teacher at the College of the Marshall Islands, the 27-year-old also studies the oral stories that form the fabric of her nation and culture.
The article continues with two of Jetnil-Kijiner’s stories; click through for those. As Sutter points out, she spoke at the UN last fall, reading a different poem which was also made available as a video.
Incidentally, this isn’t jot Reyes’ first foray into videopoetry. I’ll be sharing another of his creations soon.
The Watcher (El centinela) by Jorge Luis Borges
Alastair Reid’s translation of the Borges poem is narrated by James Wykes in this filmpoem by Celia Qu. The music is by Ulises Conti and Boris Nechljudov. Qu writes:
The poet Borges stated that ‘I feel constrained to be a particular individual, living in a particular city, in a particular time’. His labyrinthian poem ‘The Watcher’ explores self reflection, confinement and split personality.
Throughout the film I aim to portray the division of the self as well as explore the theme of isolation cyclically, as the narrator deconstructs himself into numerous selves. The idea being to covey a ‘confused sense of being’ as universal, relating to everyone and everything.
The Hollow Men by T. S. Eliot
I think “The Hollow Men” has just found its ideal multimedia interpretation. I remember being utterly enthralled with Eliot’s poem at age 13, and this projection performance video from the artist duo Decomposing Pianos—Julia Krolik and Owen Fernley—brings it all back. Here’s the description:
T.S. Eliot’s 1925 poem The Hollow Men is spoken in unison by a trio of computer generated voices. Photography, code-generated video, original music and choreography are combined for performance. This work was part of Chipped Off’s wasteAWAY.
Performed: June 4th to 6th, 2015 at the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Kingston ON.
Dancers: Meredith Dault, Tracey Guptill & Helena Marks
Chipped Off: Kim Renders, Robin McDonald and Dan Vena
See Facebook for more on the Chipped Off Performance Collective.
