Parler seul / Speech Alone
A poem by the great Jean Follain, read by Nic S. for Pizzicati of Hosanna. The translation by W.S. Merwin is from his book-length selection of Follain poems, Transparence of the World, which belongs on every poetry lover’s bookshelf.
I don’t make any great claims for this video; I just wanted some Follain here at Moving Poems and no one else was envideoing him in English.
The Art of Drowning
This film by Diego Maclean is currently one of the most popular poetry videos on Vimeo, with 3,294 likes and 97 laudatory comments. Though the rotoscopy succeeds in mimicking the effect of a graphic novel, assuming that was the intent, I personally find it less interesting as a video interpretation of the poem than the student film by Lindsey Butler which I shared two years ago.
According to Jason Sondhi at Short of the Week, this too was a student production:
Maclean created this short film as his graduation film from the Emily Carr Institute in 2009, and it has wrapped up an impressive festival run, playing at Sundance, Annecy and SXSW among others.
Three poems by Donna Vorreyer
http://vimeo.com/44211606
Escape (a triptych) is Swoon’s first videopoem for a text written in response to his own video prompt. Regular visitors to the Moving Poems forum (or subscribers to our weekly emails) may remember his call for submissions posted on April 24:
I am looking for a writer who is willing to let these three films inspire him/her to write three poems for them…
Look and listen…absorb…look and listen some more…and write…
I’m looking for three new poems (please use the titles of the films) written for these three videos:
Disturbance in the maze
Wailing Wall Crumbs
Ghostless Blues (The story of Vladimir K.)
A number of poets responded to the challenge, and Swoon chose the submission from Chicago-based poet Donna Vorreyer. Personally, I wasn’t surprised by the selection, having recently read Vorreyer’s chapbook Ordering the Hours — it’s terrific.
Swoon blogged a bit about the experiment:
I wanted to turn my working method around. See what came out of it.
Very aware I was, of the fact that these three films were experimental, for the fact the titles could have been a guide for some an obstacle for others. It was an experiment.I received a lot of questions about what I was looking for in particular, a few questions about timing, a fair amount of poems that were written earlier, not for the three films (though some of them might have worked). […]
I knew Donna from the Propolis Project last year.
Her three poems did exactly what I was hoping for when I put out the call.
She was the first one whose poems gave me the feel that they somehow belonged to the images.
I really had the sense that she reacted to the films and gave them content and a story.Her poems give these three films a less experimental character, and that was exactly what I was hoping for.
She recorded them for me, so I could start the editing process.Her words made it fairly easy; I only added a few images or made additional cuts according to the reading of the poem. I did put in some new footage in all three as a leitmotiv, a storyline.
Read the rest (including the texts of the poems). Incidentally, Swoon’s personal website has just been thoroughly revamped to foreground his videopoetry and soundscapes. Check it out.
I Lost You by Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown
Alastair Cook says about his 21st filmpoem:
Guinevere Glasfurd-Brown’s I Lost You is a letter to her father, who was killed when he was 29. This film is for our fathers, and yours.
Cook continues to surprise, eschewing his usual abstraction for an extreme simplicity, which, for me, enhances the emotional appeal of the text.
Nijinsky – Echopraxia by Kate Ruse
http://vimeo.com/40766091
The “dance” category here at Moving Poems, though small, includes some of the most interesting and watchable poetry videos on the site, and this is a very worthy addition to their number. The filming, editing and soundtrack are all the work of Kish Patel, “a 20 year old graphic, web and sound designer from London, UK.”
This is one of several video interpretations of Kate Ruse’s poems about the dancer Nijinsky to have been made into a video, according to her website. Annie Robinson is both dancer and choreographer. See the description at Vimeo for the text of the poem.
Days by Philip Larkin
An interesting contrast with the Dave Lee film posted yesterday. Yes, this is nothing but a YouTube mash-up of a Philip Larkin reading with footage of soldiers on LSD (presumably in the public domain), posted in 2006. The maker, David Quantrick, didn’t even bother to add credits — he apparently just viewed it as an expeditious way to share the poem. And yes, the video quality is low. But I find the combination of footage and text inspired and delightful. Unlike Bridge for the Living, this video is greater than the sum of its parts.
Bridge For The Living by Philip Larkin
The high quality of this poem-film as a film convinced me it deserves a place here, despite the (to my taste) rather too literal correspondence of film image to textual image. Actually, as a commemorative work for the bridge itself, it’s hard to see how the film could’ve avoided such literalism — and it’s not as if the choice of shots and camera angles doesn’t exercise the viewer’s imagination, too. At any rate, here’s the description at Vimeo (edited slightly to remove typos):
Written to commemorate the opening of the Humber Bridge, ‘Bridge For The Living’ finds Philip Larkin ruminating both on the effect he believed the bridge would have on the city of Hull and its environs but also on the nature of man’s need for connectivity.
This film returns to the poem during the 30th anniversary year of the Humber Bridge and illustrates and explores Larkin’s sentiments. The read is supplied by Hull-born Oscar-nominated acting legend Sir Tom Courtenay and is the second time he has completed a film based on a Larkin poem with Yorkshire film-maker Dave Lee, their previous collaboration being a multi-award nominated adaptation of ‘Here’.
‘Bridge For The Living’ has been made for the 2011 Humber Mouth Literary Festival with support from Hull City Council and the National Lottery.
It won an award at Glimmer 2011: The Hull International Short Film Festival. The Jury said: “Dave Lee has created a mesmerizing film with a timeless feel. Bridge for the Living is stunning; a wonderful use of time-lapse, fantastic camera angles and flawless editing, this work perfectly compliments the Philip Larkin poem with its beautiful cinematography, all complimented by Sir Tom Courtney’s voice over.”
The Humber Mouth website is here.
Aan Het Water / On the Water by Bernard Dewulf
Two films commissioned by the Felix Poetry Festival for a poem by Antwerp’s City Poet, Bernard Dewulf. The filmmakers, Alastair Cook and Swoon Bildos (Marc Neys), are of course no strangers to Moving Poems. See Swoon’s write-up on the festival at the discussion blog.
The Return by Edna St. Vincent Millay
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLNkl5UqY4g
Voice and editing by Nic S., using public-domain footage from the Hubble space telescope.
