~ Poet: Kristy Bowen ~

sex & violence #4 : what’s inside a girl? by Kristy Bowen

On 21 October, 2022 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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I’ve featured a few of Chicago-based poet and publisher Kristy Bowen’s video poetry book trailers, but not this one yet, which was made in support of her 2020 collection with Black Lawrence Press, sex & violence. It might be my favorite of hers to date. Nobody knows better that the poet herself what kind of mood she was trying to create, and if she happens to have the graphic design skills and technical know-how to bring that to life in video form, as Bowen does, the results can be wonderful (even if, as here, also super creepy). She resurfaced the video recently on her blog as part of an annual #31daysofhalloween series.

As always, visit her YouTube channel for more. The latest trailers are in support of a collection due out on Halloween called Automagic.

Memoir in Bone & Ink (#1) by Kristy Bowen

On 6 July, 2022 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Book trailers, Videopoems
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The first in a projected series of author-made videopoems for Kristy Bowen’s upcoming collection Memoir in Bone & Ink. As a publisher herself (dancing girl press), Bowen’s relationship with books is more hands-on than the average poet’s, and that’s what drew me to this videopoem: the bibliocentric images and text come from a place of deep knowledge. The result is a poetry book trailer that feels like a commentary on book promotion generally, the author trying to coax a book out from under the covers.

Here’s the bio Bowen used for the YouTube description:

A writer and book artist working in both text and image, Kristy Bowen creates a regular series of chapbook, zine, and artist book projects. Since 2005, she has blogged about writing, art, and other creative pursuits at dulcetly: notes on a bookish life. She is the author of eleven full-length collections of poetry/prose/hybrid work, including the recent SEX & VIOLENCE (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), and the self-issued ANIMAL, VEGETABLE, MONSTER; DARK COUNTRY; and FEED.

swallow #8 by Kristy Bowen

On 6 November, 2020 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Videopoems
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Kristy Bowen‘s most recent video is the eighth and possibly final installment in a collection called swallow. In a brief blog post debuting the series back on August 26, she wrote,

Over the course of the next month, I’ll be making a series of video poems of my swallow series. Think of it like a chapbook, but in video form! Enjoy!

In fact it took closer to two months, but that’s still damn impressive, given how many things Bowen seems to be working on at any given time, and the fact that she only starting learning how to make videopoems a few months ago. She’s organized all the swallow videos into a YouTube playlist, matter-of-factly described as “a video poem chapbook.”

sex & violence #2 | honey machine by Kristy Bowen

On 25 July, 2020 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems, Book trailers
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It’s always great to see a poet making her own book trailers — I mean, it’s even better to see poetry presses doing that for their poets, but for most, that’s not part of the deal, I guess. What’s cool about Kristy Bowen is that she’s also a publisher, running the chapbook press Dancing Girl Press, and skills she’s honed there as an artist and graphic designer stand her in very good stead on her first foray into videopoetry production. Let me just paste in the YouTube description:

sex & violence
by Kristy Bowen
(Black Lawrence Press, 2020)
https://blacklawrencepress.com/books/

A writer and book artist working in both text and image, Kristy Bowen is the author of a number of chapbook, zine, and artists book projects, as well as several full-length collections of poetry/prose/hybrid work, including the recent salvage (Black Lawrence Press, 2016), major characters in minor films (Sundress Publications, 2015) and girl show (Black Lawrence, 2014). She lives in Chicago, where she runs dancing girl press & studio

This is the second of three videos so far that Kristy has made based on excerpts from sex & violence; you can watch them all on her YouTube channel. As she noted in her blog, for honey machine, “I’ve been playing a bit more with public domain footage and my own words..this time, a little more text oriented and without the distraction of my own voice.”