~ Motionpoems ~
Motionpoems at the AWP book fair
A brief interview with Todd Boss, poet and co-founder of Motionpoems — the most ambitious poetry animation project in the U.S. to date, on a par with Comma Press’ film division in the U.K.
Just As, After a Point, Job Cried Out by K.A. Hays
Motionpoems are releasing their 2012 crop of animations one a month; this is the first — an animation by Emma Burghardt of a poem by K.A. Hays. Please see the post at the Motionpoems website for the text of the poem and its full publication history.
By the way, if you like what Motionpoems are doing to bring great American poems to the big and small screen (including, hopefully, cable TV), please consider donating to their current fundraising campaign. Unfortunately, they were locked out of a major state arts grant this year due to a little-publicized change in the application process, so their need for donations is especially acute right now.
Help Motionpoems animate some “Best American Poetry”
In case you missed the note to “Sea Salt” by David Motion on Monday (or the Kickstarter widget in the main site’s sidebar) let me repeat what I wrote there:
Motionpoems has some pretty exciting news: they’ve partnered with David Lehman and Scribner’s Best American Poetry 2011, and are lining up animators to produce videos for poems in the anthology. If this is the kind of thing you’d like to help support, please consider making a donation to their Kickstarter campaign. With 15 days to go, they’ve raised more than $10,000 in pledges toward the $15,000 needed. Click through for the details, including a video that tells the story of how they got started.
Here are Angella and Todd to tell their story and give their pitch:
Please note that I am not connected with Motionpoems in any way other than that I like Angella and Todd and believe they are advancing poetry animation enormously in this country, comparable to, but more ambitious than, the efforts of Comma Press in northwest England. Of course, there is some enlightened self-interest at work here: I’m eager for more quality poetry videos! But I would also encourage other poetry video makers to consider following Angella and Todd’s example and get more aggressive about fundraising — and let me know if you do, so I can promote your efforts here.
Once again, here’s the link to help Motionpoems meet their $15,000 goal. The deadline is June 15.
Sea Salt by David Mason
Amy Schmitt designed and animated this Motionpoem, with assistance from Kelly Pieklo (sound design), Emily J. Snyder (calligraphy) and Vera Mariner (reading). David Mason is the current poet laureate of Colorado. In a press release from Motion504, where she works, Schmitt says, “I was inspired by print design and other traditional media, and I wanted to create a moving illustration of the poem that was not done in a literal way.”
Motionpoems, by the way, has some pretty exciting news: they’ve partnered with David Lehman and Scribner’s Best American Poetry 2011, and are lining up animators to produce videos for poems in the anthology. If this is the kind of thing you’d like to help support, please consider making a donation to their Kickstarter campaign. With 15 days to go, they’ve raised more than $10,000 in pledges toward the $15,000 needed. Click through for the details, including a video that tells the story of how they got started.
The Angel of Duluth #2 by Madelon Sprengnether
From Motionpoems, an illustration of a piece by Madelon Sprengnether in her collection of prose poems, The Angel of Duluth (White Pine Press, 2006). Design and Animation are by Angella Kassube with HDMG Post Design Audio and Effects.
Render, Render by Thomas Lux
Good advice for anyone making a revolution. According to the note on YouTube,
This motionpoem was created by Jeff Saunders with Scott Olson, Ben Myrick, Adam Tow, Carly Zuckweiler, and Andre Durand. It was shot in Jeff’s studio. The audio is from The Academy Audio Archive POETS.org and was recorded at Poet’s House, March 29, 2004.
Inexplicably, Lux doesn’t appear to have a website or blog, though of course he’s published widely in treeflesh media.
An Elm We Lost by Marvin Bell
I’m not sure why I haven’t shared this MotionPoem before: a charming, very short poem by Marvin Bell, read by Todd Boss, with animation and music by Antonio Cicarelli.
This will be our last post of 2010. Happy New Year!
Motionpoems fundraising campaign breaks $10,000 mark
I’ve included notes about the fundraising campaign for Motionpoems in several recent posts at the main site. The donation page is now reporting that they’ve raised $5,112 from 53 donors, exceeding their goal of $5000 — but why stop there? It’s great to see poets and artists working so hard to bring compelling videopoetry to the masses, and they deserve all the support we can give them. An article at mnartists.org tells the story of how Todd Boss and Angella Kassube teamed up in 2008.
(Update) Angela tells me via email that the GiveMN fundraiser will be done next week, and pointed out that they qualified for $5,000 in matching funds — “kind of amazing that we’ve had ZERO money for 2 years and suddenly we have $10,000” to support Motionpoems! And they’ve just been accepted into the Kickstarter fundraising program, as well.
Suddenly the future is looking very bright for professionally made American poetry films.
Swimming Into Winter by Freya Manfred
Another MotionPoems production, intriguing to me because of the minimalist filming (though I liked the poem too, of course). The note on YouTube says:
A poem by Freya Manfred interpreted and filmed by Gregory Winter. Edited by Jeff Stickles and sound design and music by Tom Lecher, Ross Nelson and Echo Boys Music. Read by Freya Manfred.
How cool is it that the filmmaker’s name is Winter?! Freya Manfred is a Midwestern poet and the author of six books of poetry, a novel, and a literary memoir. According to her publisher Red Dragonfly Press, “Her half hour poem for television: ‘The Madwoman and the Mask’ appeared on KTCA-TV, Channel 2, in 1991.”
If you like what Todd Boss and Angella Kassube are doing at MotionPoems, don’t forget to send some holiday cheer their way.
The Trees—They Were Once Good Men by Todd Boss
A stunningly beautiful animation by Emma Burghardt, who also animated “Old Astronauts” by Tim Noland. (Remember to support MotionPoems with a donation, if you can.)
June (Juni) by Dag T. Straumsvåg
Robert Hedin translated the poem from Norwegian, and Jay Orff made the video for Motionpoems. See Willow Springs Literary Magazine for the text in both languages and Straumsvåg’s discussion of its origins.
MotionPoems is currently holding a fundraiser to support its video artists.
MOTIONPOEMS was co-founded in 2008 by Todd Boss (poet) and Angella Kassube (artist, animator, artistic director, and producer). Our roles are primarily curatorial. Since 2008, we’ve paired poets with video teams to develop nearly two dozen one-minute films from poems by Robert Bly, Jane Hirshfield, Marvin Bell, Freya Manfred, David Mason, and others. Over 30 artists have been involved in just the past two years alone.
[…]
BUT WE NEED YOUR HELP! We want to start paying a SMALL STIPEND to our technical and video artists. Many of them are putting more than 100 hours into these projects, outside of the 40-hour work week! We want to reward them for their passion, their creativity, and their willingness to take an artistic risk. Our video artists are our greatest asset, a key to our growing success. We’d like to show them that our community loves and supports their extensive investment in MOTIONPOEMS.
Wanting Sumptuous Heavens by Robert Bly
Another MotionPoems production, designed and animated by Angella Kassube with a reading by the poet.
