Rise by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and Aka Niviana
Climate activists and poets, Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner and Aka Niviana, travel to the latter’s home of Greenland to recite their collaborative poem, Rise, on a melting glacier that might threaten the former’s home nation of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.
Dan Lin directed this poetry film for 350.org, which, oddly, only allows the Vimeo upload to be viewed on their website—which is unfortunate, because it includes subtitling options in Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, and Japanese. The above YouTube version, which Bill McKibben shared at The Guardian along with an accompanying essay, is unlisted but—at time of publication, at any rate—shareable. The former link includes some background by Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner:
With the last few poems I’ve written, I’ve tried to balance the piece by grounding it in some sort of legend … For this particular poem, I struggled with finding the right legend. … The legend I ultimately chose was “Ao Aorōk In Io̗kwe” a legend from Ujae that was transcribed by Heynes Jeik. The Marshallese version of the legend is below. There is no exact translation at this time, but here is my own (somewhat rough) summary:
The legend features sisters from Ujae who loved and respected each other very much. One day they decided to have a juggling competition around the entire island. They began their juggling competition – when the eldest reached a certain spot by the edge of the reef, she dropped the shells rock she was juggling, and she suddenly turned into stone. The younger sister, who was following close behind, noticed this strangely shaped rock – when she came closer, she saw that it was her sister. In her grief, she decided to drop the rock she was juggling as well, choosing to turn to stone, so she could stay by her sister’s side. The moral of the story is the love that connected the two sisters.
I asked the group I was skyping with a few questions – why did the elder sister turn into a stone at that specific spot? Was that spot magical? They weren’t sure. But one of the members from the Curriculum Assessment Team offered that she noticed we have many stories that featured the creation of stone, or people turning to stone. We reflected on this a bit, and an observation was offered that stones are permanent – they never disappear, and that stones are a part of our culture as well. After our skype session, I received a message from Heynes Jeik: “…Ij bar kakememej iok bwe ekkar nan jar ke roritto ijoke, rej ba deka ej motan manit in ad, em aolep men ko bunnid rej erom deka, ej einwot juon men eo epan jako nan indeio.” Which loosely translates to, “I just want to remind you that according to our elders, stone is a part of our culture, and everything becomes stone, it’s something that will never disappear.”
I ultimately chose this legend because it features sisters, which I felt fit nicely into the concept of me and Aka as “sisters of ice and snow/sister of ocean and sand.” I also appreciated the concept of stone – the concept of permanence against the destructive forces of climate change. My friend, Lyz Soto, who regularly edits my work, helped me think it through further “the idea of choosing stone so you can always be a part of your home.” This, ultimately, became the declaration I chose to focus on – choosing stone to always be a part of our home.
Read the whole essay at 350.org, which also includes bios of the poets and filmmakers and the full text of the poem. And here’s how McKibben’s Guardian essay begins:
I’ve spent 30 years thinking about climate change – talking with scientists, economists and politicians about emission rates and carbon taxes and treaties. But the hardest idea to get across is also the simplest: we live on a planet, and that planet is breaking. Poets, it turns out, can deliver that message.
But they don’t watch impassively. Both are climate activists, and both have raised their voices in service of their homelands. Jetnil-Kijiner, 30, has been at it for years – she’s performed her work before the United Nations General Assembly and the Vatican. Niviana is newer to activism – just 23, she recited a poem at a recent Copenhagen climate protest, where she met a well-known glaciologist, Jason Box, and he, in turn, organised the complicated logistics of this glacier expedition.
Practicing Like Water by Kate Marshall Flaherty
A new film by Lori H. Ersolmaz based on a poem by Canadian poet Kate Marshall Flaherty. Click through to Vimeo for the text.
UPDATE: Read Lori’s process notes at Moving Poems Magazine.
War by Adonis
I recently bought the award-winning translation of Adonis’ Selected Poems by Khaled Mattawa and have been enjoying it immensely. A little bit of searching turned up not only the above video, but 18 more such videos, all from a 2013 documentary about the Syrian-Lebanese poet from Oogland Film Productions, Land of Absence, directed by John Albert Jansen and supported in part by Poetry International. PI have created an album on Vimeo where you can watch Adonis recite all 19 poems with Mattawa’s translations in subtitles.
Here’s the description of Land of Absence:
A journey through the eventful life of the Syrian-Lebanese writer Adonis, one of the most eminent thinkers and writers of the Arab world. In Land of Absence he talks about his life and work, about Syria, the Arab world and Islam.
The Paris based Syrian-Lebanese poet Ali Ahmed Esber (1930), better known under his pen name Adonis, is sometimes called ‘the living legend of Arab literature’. For seventy years he has been writing poetry in which Arab identity is a central theme. His unique voice and independent mind has secured him a central role in the complex and multi-faceted Arab world.
In Land of Absence Adonis, in his Paris apartment, talks about his life, about Syria, about the Arab world and Islam. In his old age he is still as lucid and sharp and obstinate as ever. But first and foremost he is a great poet, who covers not only his own land, Syria, but a whole continent. ‘From writing in Arabic, you only learn that your homeland is not a place, that it can nowhere be found,’ he writes.
The DVD is still available for order.
Call for work: 7th International Video Poetry Festival 2018
The +Institute [for Experimental Arts] and Void Network are pleased to announce that submissions are open for the 2018 International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece. The annual festival will be held at the free, self-organized theatre EMBROS this winter, with the precise dates yet to be determined. Approximately 1200 people attended the festival last year.
The 7th International Video Poetry Festival will run for two days in two different zones. The first day will be the Show Room Video Poetry, a unique zone that will include video poems, visual poems, short film poems and cinematic poetry by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa). The second day will be the Live Improvisation Zone with multimedia poetry readings, concerts with experimental music, and performances.
We are inviting artists – poets, video artists, directors, producers – who want to visit the festival to present their art project at the Theatre. We can provide accommodation for three days (one day before the festival, during the festival and one day afterwards).
The International Video Poetry Festival 2018 attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry.
It is very important to note that this festival is a part of the counter-culture activities of Void Network and +the Institute [for Experimental Arts] and will be a non-sponsored, free entrance, non-commercial and nonprofit event. The festival will cover the costs (2000 posters, 15.000 flyers, high quality technical equipment) from the income of the bar of the festival. All the participating artists and the organizing groups will participate on a volunteer basis.
The Institute [for Experimental Arts] invites the artists and creators of video poems to participate from their side in our effort to cover the expenses of the festival without private or state sponsorship. For this reason we propose to the artists the suggested donation of 5 euros for the submission of their video poems.
Void Network began organizing multimedia poetry nights in 1990. Void Network and +the Institute [for Experimental Arts] believe that multimedia poetry nights and video poetry shows can vibrate in the heart of the metropolis, bring new audiences in contact with contemporary poetry, and open new creative dimensions for this ancient art. To achieve this, we respect the aspirations and the objectives of the artists and create high-quality, self-organized exhibition areas and show rooms. We work with professional technicians, and we offer meeting points and fields of expression for artists and people that tend to stand antagonistically to the mainstream culture.
APPLICATION FORM at Google Docs
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: no later than November 20, 2018 (date of postmark)
HOW TO SUBMIT
1. Click here to download and complete the application form
2. Your participation is FREE. Please you can add the suggested donation of 5 Euro (or more) to the following bank account:
National Bank of Greece 04664860451 Iban GR2101100460000004664860451 Swift (BIC) ETHNGRAA
3. Please, send the submission material via email as following:
+++ via email:
your video poems in mp4 or mov file, definition (720 x 576, 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080)
the submission form and photos in .jpg file
(all these in a single wetransfer file)
Email: theinstitutecontact [at] gmail.com
*please replace [at] with @ symbol to send email
You can use wetransfer.com or any other FREE SERVICE to send us big files.
4. It is very important to name your files (videos and still images, photos) as it is shown below:
Title of video poem
Artist’s name
Country
5. Be careful, you have to send only one email with the application form, the link to download, the video poems or the video poems archives, the still images of the video poems and any website of your art work projects
6. We recommend you add English or Greek subtitles to your video poems even if the spoken language is in English as it will be easier for people outside the English spoken world to understand it.
We recommend you send your video poems over the internet. But if you prefer, you can also mail your DVD file to the following address:
INTERNATIONAL VIDEO POETRY FESTIVAL
TASOS SAGRIS
159 KREONTOS
SEPOLIA ATHENS
GREECE 10443
Please post it no later than November 20, 2018 (date of postmark) to the International Film Poetry Festival, Athens.
+ the Institute [for Experimental Arts] will inform you about your participation in early December 2018.
In memory of Ren Hang
The 7th International Video Poetry Festival is dedicated to photographer and poet Ren Hang (1987–2017), one of the leading lights of the new generation of Chinese photographers. Ren Hang was arrested many times for his sexually explicit, joyously celebratory photography. Although he was globally renowned, he never gained the recognition he deserved in his home country, in part because he was repeatedly denied the opportunity to display his work in Beijing and throughout China. Read more about Ren Hang.
In his compositions of bodies among forestry, jungles and mountains, he intended to capture nothing more than the moment itself without attachment to political or sexual gestures. The process to create these moments, he once said, is both spontaneous and specific to the time and to the subject.
Photographic documentation of previous events
International Video Poetry Festival photos
Photos of previous poetry nights organized by Void Network and + the Institute [for Experimental Arts]:
http://voidnetwork.gr/2/5th-international-video-poetry-festival-sat
http://voidnetwork.gr/2015/10/20/speak-no-evil-poetry-even
You’re Dead, America by Danez Smith
https://vimeo.com/284108166
If you liked This is America, the Childish Gambino rap video by Hiro Murai, you’ll be riveted by this latest film from Motionpoems. Serbian-American director Jovan Todorovic‘s interpretation of a Danez Smith poem is surely one of the most searing and impactful poetry films in Motionpoems’ history. See Todorovich’s website for the full credits.
The film debuted online not at Motionpoems but at Nowness, which included this quote from the director:
America and the American dream is an emotion, and it used to be an attainable dream. This sentiment is quickly dissolving. My wish is to address this despair purely on an emotional level. This is a poetic short film that explores what has happened to the idea of the American Dream… a visceral meditation on the idea of death and decay… and finally, rebirth.
They go on to interview Todorovich “about social sickness, alienation, and poetry’s relationship to film.” It’s worth reading in full; I’ll just quote the last bit:
NOWNESS: A poem is such a mercurial, elusive thing. What was it like turning a poem into a film?
Jovan: It was an exciting and specific process for me precisely because the inspiration was a poem. Because this poem creates feelings through the juxtaposition of very sensory pictures, scenes and moments I was inspired to construct the film similarly. Rather than writing by consciously building meaning I turned to some of my dreams and built the script and scenes around what I feel about the world today. This kind of ‘open’ process of building scenes allowed me to work with all authors on the film in a way where they would have space to put their own experiences and feelings about the theme while staying in line with the emotional tone and context that I’ve initially based the scenes upon.
The poem originally appeared in Buzzfeed on November 9, 2016—the day after the election of Donald Trump—and was reprinted in Smith’s celebrated 2017 collection Don’t Call Us Dead. It’s the latest episode in Motionpoems’ Season 8, “Dear Mr. President,” which has been pretty sensational so far. Kudos all around.
The Opposites Game by Brendan Constantine
This film of Brendan Constantine‘s brilliant anti-gun poem (click through for the text) kicked off a promising new YouTube channel called Blank Verse Films, the work of L.A.-based filmmaker Mike Gioia. He described his modus operandi in an email: “I travel around filming poets, and then edit the recitations into little films.” He added,
Making the videos is much more challenging and exciting than I originally anticipated. I’m trying lots of different approaches but still don’t feel like I’ve “cracked the code” of how to film poetry. Later this month I’m going to try some experiments with dramatic reenactments of poems that will use actors who speak the lines of poetry.
Do consider subscribing to his channel and (of course) watching the other films. There’s also a Facebook page.
Dear Robot 2018 by Cecelia Chapman and Jeff Crouch
A new videopoem from Cecelia Chapman and Jeff Crouch. Chapman wrote in an email,
Dear Robot 2018 is a mail collaboration with Jeff Crouch and Diana Magallon music. A personal housebot goes rogue on an emergency disaster relief mission. Jeff and I have spent YEARS emailing each other links and articles about AI and robots and speculation about behavior.
In Between Words by Lilian Mehrel
This is the first in a projected series of City Odes directed, shot and edited by Sheldon Chau, in collaboration with poet Lilian Mehrel (herself also an award-winning filmmaker), actor Achiaa Prempeh, who helped inspire the text, and composer John Corlis. Here’s the description:
A woman looks for her place in New York City as she contemplates the meaning of the word, “home.”
The City Odes Project is a passion project in which my composer and I will collaborate with a poet and an actor to create a humanist, emotional, and visual story amidst the backdrop of a particularly city. “In Between Words” is the first of many to come, and kicks off this series in the city I currently reside in – New York City. The narrative was birthed out of an eagerness to collaborate with Achiaa, my actress, who now lives in New York and is originally from Ghana. In speaking with her, I decided to pursue a story about someone searching for home; a woman who is figuring out if NYC is the place for her, who is coming to terms that she is 5,000 miles away from her original home in West Africa, and thus easing out tensions with her mother, who of course wants her to return. The final result here features the work of Lilian Mehrel – a fellow filmmaker and classmate of mine back at NYU Grad Film school – who captures these feelings through her words, and my frequent collaborator John Corlis – an LA-based musician and composer – who complements the poetry with his mixture of piano and strings.
Please, enjoy this short poetry video and my ode to New York City.
Go to Vimeo for the complete credits and text.
The large moth that flew in by Claudia Serea
Australian filmmaker Jutta Pryor (film and sound production) collaborated with Romanian American poet Claudia Serea (text and voice). There’s also a version without the titling, but I think this one’s better for savoring the poem’s unusual vocabulary: the etymology of “moth,” plus some of the more bizarre names of actual moth species.
To me, though, the most impressive thing about this filmpoem is its successful use of pretty literal imagery—footage of a moth—without in any way seeming to reduce or pin down the text. If anything, I think it leaves it more open. Why this succeeds, when so many similar efforts by lesser filmmakers fail, I’m not entirely sure. I love how the camera seems to adopt a moth’s erratic flight toward the end.
