A passage from the autobiography of Scottish-American conservationist John Muir is treated as found poetry in a filmpoem by the Dutch photographer and filmmaker Judith Dekker. She writes:
Made as a part of my residency in Dunbar, Scotland for North Light. For this film I’ve used John Muir’s words as a starting point: my film is an interpretation and carries these words to a different place. All footage was shot during my time there; the poet John Glenday was kind enough to read a passage from John Muir’s autobiography and composer Luca Nasciuti created a soundtrack which fits like a glove.
Thanks to Creative Scotland.
Another of Alastair Cook‘s filmpoems for the Poetry Society in partnership with the Canal and River Trust as part of the Canal Laureate 2013 project. See last week’s post of Lifted for more details. Jo Bell says of this one,
Liz Berry’s film is a darker narrative, shot on location as all of these films were, at the Black Delph in the Black Country. Harking back to the canal ballads of the Victorian time, this has a Dickensian tragedy about it.
For more about Liz Berry, visit her website. Her dramatic reading is set off brilliantly by Luca Nasciuti‘s soundtrack.
London Poetry Systems “came into this world when a few friends decided to put on a kind of club night mixing poetry, music and live visuals. We wanted to see poetry in a new context, one that made sense to us, that spoke of our generation.” They’ve emerged as one of the most vital spaces for contemporary filmpoetry and videopoetry screening in the UK. On February 16, they’ll mark their 5th birthday with appearances by, and live mixes from, Scottish filmpoem maker Alastair Cook and Belgian videopoet Mark Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, as well as the composer Luca Nasciuti, whose work features in the soundtracks of a number of Cook’s filmpoems. Other poets and musicians will perform as well. The location is Edel Assanti, near Hyde Park. Get the complete details from their Facebook event page, or, in a somewhat more abbreviated form, from their website.
Alastair Cook’s 18th filmpoem incorporates a text by Scottish poet Jane McKie which “won the inaugural Edwin Morgan International Poetry Competition in 2011 and was praised by the judges as ‘spare, musical and wonderfully imagined,'” Alastair tells us. Luca Nasciuti was the composer.