~ Filmpoem ~
“What Memphis Needs” by Alexis Krasilovsky
Acclaimed author and filmmaker Alexis Krasilovsky recently spoke with Moving Poems about her videopoem, “What Memphis Needs” (1991). The film offers a unique view of social inequalities prevalent in Memphis, Tennessee throughout the 1970s and 80s but feels just as relevant today. Featuring original 16mm footage taken by Krasilovsky in the 1970s while she was working on the documentary, Beale Street, she is also the author and narrator of the poem around which the film is centered.
The story behind “What Memphis Needs” reveals a small piece of videopoem history and serves as an interesting reminder of how this form has always held a close relationship with technology and continues to evolve. Editing for the videopoem took place in the early 1980s and 90’s and the work was completed and screened at the Museum of Modern Art in 1991. Krasilovsky writes, “Back in those days, I relished using sharpies and yellow grease pencil to mark off frames of 16mm soundtrack and workprint on the Moviola while figuring out the rhythmic beats and counterpoints of ‘What Memphis Needs.’” The result is a poetryfilm which serves as a snapshot of an American city at historical and social crossroads, as well as an enduring social commentary on racial tensions in the South.
When asked about the origins of the title poem, Krasilovsky’s response highlights a fascinating history:
“What Memphis Needs” is my own poem: I wrote it myself. I also included it in my chapbook, Some Women Writers Kill Themselves (A Street Agency Publication: Los Angeles, 1983) and my DVD, “Some Women Writers Kill Themselves: Selected Videopoems & Poetry by Alexis Krasilovsky” (Rafael Film: Los Angeles, 2008). However, I was inspired by Etheridge Knight and his Free People’s Poetry Workshop, which he held in Memphis, Tennessee in the late 1970’s. (I was one of the token white members of the workshop.) I later became Etheridge Knight’s West Coast poetry tour coordinator and dedicated the poetry video, “What Memphis Needs,” to him.
Described in the poetry film’s abstract as providing “a searing cross-section of Memphis history and society,” the piece also features musical acts by Harmonikeys and Roosevelt Briggs. The production of “What Memphis Needs” runs parallel the blues documentary work Krasilovsky was doing at the time for the film Beale Street (1981. black and white, sound, 28 min). The filmmaker explains that, “It was an interview-intensive documentary with over a hundred hours of B.B. King, Bobby Blue Bland, Ma Rainey II, Little Laura Dukes, Rufus Thomas, Nat D. Williams, Fred Hulbert, the Hooks Brothers, Ernest Withers, and many others who knew this 125th Street of the South, where Martin Luther King, Jr. last marched before he was assassinated. It was taking forever to complete (—although we did finally complete it: it’s available on Kanopy.com), and in the meantime, Eastman Kodak was offering free samples of a new 16mm film stock to select filmmakers to test out its color palette.” This is one reason why “What Memphis Needs” is marked not only by the rhythms and sounds of the blues but also by an iconic color palette.
Alexis Krasilovsky continues producing quality videopoems to this day, having recently collaborated with poet Rodger Kamenetz to create a film based on his poem, “Rafael,” originally published in his collection, The Missing Jew: Poems 1976-2022. The poem spoke to Krasilov on multiple levels because, as she explains, “Rodger’s poem is about the angel Rafael, but Rafael is also the name of my film company, and my middle name.” Krasilovsky continues:
I greatly enjoyed these experiences in collaborative poetry filmmaking. “Rafael” was awarded Best One-Minute Film at the Luis Buñuel Memorial Awards in Kolkata, India. “A Petal Pushed By a Breeze” won “Best Mobile Film” at the World Film Carnival in Singapore and other awards. And “Positive Thinking” won Best One-Minute Film at the Filmzen International Competition in Paris, France, as well as at the Cult Jury Film Festival in Gurgaon, India. “Positive Thinking” also won the “Free Speech” Award at the Gangtok International Film Festival in Goan, Sikkim, and was an official selection along with “A Petal Pushed by a Breeze” at the Crimean Tatar Cultural Center in Odesa, Ukraine on May 28, 2023.
In addition to producing videopoems, Alexis Krasilovsky is a screenwriter (member of the Writers Guild of America West) as well as the author of the book, Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling (Routledge – 2nd place winner, 2019 International Writers Awards). On an interesting note, one of her poems, “No Sex, No Violence,” which also came out of the Etheridge Knight Free People’s Poetry Workshop, is being made into a film. But, she explains, “rather than make a poetry film from my ‘No Sex, No Violence’ poem, I wrote a novel.” Krasilovsky is currently putting her expertise in screenwriting and adaptation to work as she adapts this novel, titled A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman. She explains,
I love the interfacing of visual media with written poetry,” and her recent book, Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems (Cyberwit: India – finalist, 2022 International Books Awards) “includes three short poems that are woven into the soundtrack of my 2021 poetry film, ‘The Parking Lot of Dreams,’ which is about the pandemic. The film’s visuals are collated from dozens of photocollages that I made in a deserted parking lot, which was the only safe place I could find to take walks during the early months of Covid.
For more information about Alexis Krasilovsky’s videopoems and books, please see www.alexiskrasilovsky.com and https://canyoncinema.com/catalog/filmmaker/?i=182
BIO: Alexis Krasilovsky was born in Alaska, survived sexual assault at gunpoint, and knows what it’s like to be completely deaf. After graduation from Yale and receiving an MFA at CalArts in Film/Video, Krasilovsky became an award-winning filmmaker and the author of “Great Adaptations: Screenwriting and Global Storytelling” (– 2nd Place Winner, 2019 International Writers Awards). Her recent book, “Watermelon Linguistics: New and Selected Poems,” was a finalist for the 2022 International Book Awards. She also contributed to Reclamation: A Survivors Anthology and Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence. As writer/director, her films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art and in festivals around the world. Her recent poetry films won an Outstanding Achievement Award (Experimental Film) at the Tagore International Film Festival in India and the Best Original Concept Award (Experimental Film) at the Jane Austen International Film Festival in the UK, and other awards. Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center has called her “Southern California’s poetry video diva.”
The Firth by John Glenday
The Firth is the most recent piece from the renowned moving image and poetry project, Filmpoem, founded in 2010 by artist, editor and director, Alastair Cook. As with so much of the work from Filmpoem, The Firth is a moving and beautiful piece of work. The film-making team here also includes regular collaborators, Luca Nasciuti (composer) and James William Norton (cinematographer). All three are based in Edinburgh.
The film draws on two poems by Scottish writer John Glenday, who also voices them for the film. They are from his collection, The Firth (Mariscat Press, 2020). His comments on them:
salve regina is a rebirth poem, of course, but based on the story of my brother almost getting washed out to sea on a home made raft when he was about ten or twelve. The coastguard found his raft, with his clothes on it, in the middle of the estuary, and assumed he had drowned. It’s also a poem of escape from the family, in a way. Some part of him walked home naked, another part never went home again.
dune grass in january is a portrait of my mother, who appears and reappears in The Firth, and I suppose by extension, a portrait of that typical, restrained, self-sufficient Scottish personality. Troubled, but untroubling. Approachable but prickly at times.
Moving Poems has previously shared more than 50 films from Alastair Cook, a major figure in poetry film world-wide.
The Life Breath Songs: toward a nature poem, written by the people of Scotland
In her first project as Makar (Scotland’s national poet), Kathleen Jamie invited Scots to submit lines for a trio of crowd-sourced film-poems with a clear rewilding theme, to coincide with the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow. As filmmaker Alastair Cook explains on the project’s page at Filmpoem:
The Life Breath Songs (Òrain Beò-analach) is a three film cycle from the #PeoplesPoem project supported by the Scottish Government and driven by the Makar, Kathleen Jamie –
The Life Breath Song
The Shivering River
Are We Listening?Commissioned by the Scottish Poetry Library from Alastair Cook, the triptych is called “The Life Breath Songs – toward a nature poem, written by the people of Scotland”, and is curated and arranged by Scotland’s Makar Kathleen Jamie and read by Eilidh Cormack. The cycle was directed and edited by Alastair with sound by Luca Nasciuti and cinematography by James William Norton.
For the texts of the poems, go to the Scottish Poetry Library. From the same source, here’s a good bio of Kathleen Jamie.
Never Say Never Say Never by Patrick James Errington
From British director Adele Myers, a film based on a poem by Patrick James Errington. Here’s the description from Vimeo:
Savouring their last moments, a couple struggle with letting go. They must, but breaking up is hard to do.
This short film is based on an original poem written by Patrick Errington. The poem was commended in the National Poetry Competition 2016, Poetry Society (UK). This film was commissioned by FilmPoem and original adaptation was produced entirely in Fujairah UAE.
The actors are Layla Al Khouri and Sanoop Din. For a full list of credits, see Poetry Film Live.
The Desktop Metaphor by Caleb Parkin
The Desktop Metaphor is a film by Helmie Stil of Caleb Parkin’s second placed poem in the National Poetry Competition 2016, commissioned by Alastair Cook of Filmpoem in partnership with the Poetry Society.
Dutch filmmaker Helmie Stil is also the organizer of Filmpoem Festival 2017 at the Depot in Lewes on October 28, which will include a screening of all ten of the films made for the 2016 winners of the UK Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition.
Caleb Parkin is a “poet, performer, artist, facilitator and educator, based in Bristol.” His poem on the page takes an interesting diptych-like form as the words echo back and forth from one line to the next.
Filmpoem Festival 2017 program released
The Filmpoem Festival slated for Saturday, 28 October in Lewes, UK has released a very full and innovative program.
Some of the UK’s best spoken word poets come together to perform live, integrated with films inspired by poetry. Depot screens film poems from around the world and shows some fantastic national poetry competition films. And then it’s your turn – we round the evening off with an open mic session.
Helmie Stil, organiser of this year’s festival and filmmaker, created this trailer mainly from footage of the new 10 National Poetry Competition Films which will be shown at the festival. Original music by Lennert Busch.
The events include:
- Première of two short animation films made by children during the Depot workshop, inspired by a poem by Colin West
- Live poetry performances by Louisa Campbell, Maria Jastrzębska and Siân Thomas
- Dean Atta will perform his poetry live, show his own poetry films, and also present three of his favorite poetry films from the South East
- Filmpoem and The Poetry Society present the 10 National Poetry Competition 2016 winners realized as poetry-film
- Madi Maxwell-Libby performs her poetry live, followed by a screening of the documentary We Belong, featuring Madi and seven other UK poets and spoken word artists on ‘state of the nation’ themes
- Ross Sutherland’s live performance of Stand-By For Tape Back-Up, his well-reviewed videopoem about memory, death and re-runs
- Open Competition winners presentation and screening
- Matt Abbott performs his poetry live and shows his poetry films
- Salena Godden, one of UK’s best spoken word poets, will perform exciting new work live, and will show, amongst other short films, her newest film poem RED, written and filmed in response to the tampon tax and period poverty
- Open mic
A hearty congratulations to the organizers for such an exciting line-up! Book your tickets today.
Call for submissions: Filmpoem Festival 2017 at Depot, Lewes
Filmpoem, the artists’ moving image project founded by British artist Alastair Cook in 2010, is at long last sponsoring another poetry-film festival and competition, this time partnering with Depot in Lewes, East Sussex and the UK’s Poetry Society. Submissions are open through September 8th, and the festival will be held on Saturday, October 28th.
Note that the rules are a bit stricter than for most poetry-film festivals: submission is by physical artifact (USB stick or DVD) only, and explicit permission, rather than simply the blanket permission granted by a Creative Commons licence, must be obtained for all copyrighted material such as music used in the film. UPDATE: Digital submissions and CC licences are now permitted. See the complete guidelines on the Filmpoem website.
While you’re there, be sure to read the essay on the About page, which appears to have been recently augmented with new material, for a better understanding of what Alastair means by filmpoetry.
Nicknames by William Richardson
This is a great example of how a good soundtrack (here, the work of Luca Nasciuti, with voiceover by Alastair Cook) can really make a poetry film work. It’s from a new-to-me-project:
The fitba, the teams, the love for the game. Nicknames was written by William Richardson, read by Alastair Cook and filmed by Jane Groves. Nicknames was made as part of Luminate Festival’s Well Versed project. Workshops with Craigshill Good Neighbour Network were led by poet Rachel McCrum and filmmaker Alastair Cook. Nicknames was edited by Alastair Cook.
Scotland’s creative ageing festival, is held from 1st to 31st October across Scotland each year. The festival brings together older people and those from across the generations to celebrate our creativity as we age, share stories of ageing and explore what growing older means to all of us. Each year, there are activities all over Scotland – from art workshops and dance classes to music performances and authors’ events – and you will find Luminate in theatres, galleries, community halls, care homes and lunch clubs, as well as events online that take us to audiences everywhere.
The Well Versed screening was held last Saturday, apparently. The videos are now all online in the video gallery of the Luminate website.
Great introduction to film poetry… on the radio
I just listened to an excellent, 45-minute program on BBC Radio 3 called “Crossing the Border – Poetry and Film.” Though understandably UK-centric, its survey of the history of poetry films and film poetry gave due credit to early Soviet filmmakers and other international influences, and talked in some detail about the earlier conception of a film poem as simply a non-linear, lyric film. The highlight of the program for me was hearing Tony Harrison and Peter Symes explain the collaborative working process for their ground-breaking poetry films of the 1980s, articulating ideals strongly reminiscent of those of videopoetry pioneer Tom Konyves from the other side of the Atlantic. I liked the attention paid to the link between poetry film and propaganda or advertising, which is a connection I don’t see spelled out very often. And I appreciated Alastair Cook’s positive assessment of what the democratization of access to filmmaking tools in the digital age has meant to the genre and those who practice it.
The program is now available on the website (and at iPlayer), though if I’m not mistaken BBC will block access to any IPs not originating in the UK, so international listeners may have to connect through a proxy. It’s well worth the hassle. Here’s the show description:
Right from the birth of cinema, film-makers have experimented with poetry in film. Matthew Sweet explores this overlooked history.
The Russian pioneer film-maker Dziga Vertov developed his celebrated montage technique out of Mayakovsky’s poetry and the GPO Film Unit’s ‘Night Mail’ with W H Auden’s closing poem owes a good deal to these Russian experimentalists. Starting at the unlikely site of the studio where scenes from ‘Night Mail’ were shot and recorded eighty years ago, Matthew establishes this iconic film as an important blueprint for poets and film-makers since.
In recent times, the poets Tony Harrison and Simon Armitage have both made documentary films where their poems replaced conventional commentaries. Matthew hosts a reunion between Tony Harrison and his collaborator, the film director Peter Symes, as they relive the powerful moment of filming of the exhumation of a body in a Neapolitan necropolis. This moment poses core questions about film poems: what does the viewer hear and see, how do word and image relate to each other? With Simon Armitage, Matthew learns how his poetry on film gives a voice to the marginalized. Now, a burgeoning movement of experimental film-makers are creating a new space for the production, curation and distribution of film poems in festivals and in digital media, so as the mainstream media fragment, film poetry is returning to its avant garde roots as was exemplified by early film poem makers such as Germaine Dulac and Maya Deren.
Producer: Emma-Louise Williams
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3.
For those who haven’t seen Night Mail, here’s a YouTube upload.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkLoDg7e_ns
Arctica: three poems by Stevie Ronnie
https://vimeo.com/146147123
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https://vimeo.com/146160092
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https://vimeo.com/146166630
To make up for my prolonged absence (I’ve been relocating to the UK for the winter), here’s a whole triptych of filmpoems from Filmpoem itself: the crack team of filmmaker Alastair Cook and composer Luca Nasciuti, working in commission for a fascinating project from Northumberland-based poet Stevie Ronnie.
In July 2013 writer and multidisciplinary artist Stevie Ronnie visited the High Arctic as part of the Arctic Circle international residency programme. Arctica is a year-long series of interlinked artworks on the subject of climate change that Stevie has made in response to that experience.
These works are interdisciplinary in nature encompassing literature, performance, photography, artist’s books, film and a public art installation.
That’s from the Arctica website. A dedicated page on the Filmpoem website includes descriptions of each film:
[…] The films also feature Arctic footage shot by US-based artist Michael Eckblad alongside found footage from Alastair’s collection.
‘What I Should Have Said’ is the first Filmpoem of the Arctica triptych. It takes us into the air as we settle in to listen – then brings us back to ground in the Arctic. This is a love poem to the family that Stevie left behind, originally composed shortly before he set off on his Arctic journey. ‘What I Should Have Said’ appears in Stevie’s collection of poetry ‘Manifestations’ (Red Squirrel Press).
‘Time and the Two Year Old’s Hands’ is the is the second Filmpoem of the Arctica triptych. It reaches the midway point of the triptych and turns back on itself, the hourglass turning over, injecting an urgency into this plaintive call for the survival of our children. The poem ‘Time and the Two Year Old’s Hands’ was composed as a creative response to the IPCC report on Climate Change that was commissioned by Tipping Point, the Free Word Centre and Spread the Word for the publication ‘Weatherfronts: Climate Change and the Stories We Tell’.
‘From Arctica’ is the is the third Filmpoem of the Arctica triptych. It brings us back from the Arctic to Northumberland and was originally composed in response to the tragic and unexpected death of a child in Stevie’s local community. This difficult and moving ending to the tryptich is about the about the acceptance of the unspeakable, the unthinkable and those things that are around us that we choose not to see. ‘From Arctica’ is an extract from a yet to be published poetic narrative that explores climate change, light, dark and our relationship with death against the backdrop of the Arctic landscape.
Watching them back to back, there’s a definite gestalt effect for me. Also, these filmpoems certainly put my own difficulties adjusting to a more northern latitude (London! Yowza) in perspective.
After the Calm by Paul Nemser
A film by James William Norton in collaboration with Filmpoem. The poem by Paul Nemser was commended in the 2014 National Poetry Competition from the Poetry Society, who commissioned the film as part of a series of NPC 2014 filmpoems. NPC judge Roddy Lumsden said of the poem:
‘After the Calm’ is a mix of deliciously frothy language and mysterious narrative. It is angsty and slippery. It tempts us to solve that restricted narrative but keeps our attention. It shifts between straightforward lines and unusual phrasing (‘dizzily companionable wane’, ‘angels powdering the breezes’). Intriguing, somewhat disturbing, it impresses with its dark charm.
Cat on the Tracks by Mark Pajak
This filmpoem by Katie Garrett is an excellent demonstration of how to stay close to the imagery of a poem without merely illustrating it and diminishing both film and text in the process. The text, by Mark Pajak, is a Commended poem from the Poetry Society’s National Poetry Competition 2014. Judge Zoë Skoulding’s remarks on the poem already seem to anticipate the filmpoem:
The ingenious structure of ‘Cat on the Tracks’ produces an eerie sense of inevitability, where the lines of both poem and the train hurtle on their collision course. The filmic detail of the cat’s eyes’ slow blink draws us into a parallel world in which physical laws seem – just for a moment – suspended.
