~ The Poetry Storehouse ~
This Long Winter by Kristin LaTour
https://vimeo.com/86794324
Another simple-but-effective Nic S. video remix of a poem from The Poetry Storehouse, this time by Kristin LaTour. Nic posted some process notes at her blog. Especially interesting are her comments on blending multiple voices, and how she collaborated with the other reader, Jonathon Lu, for the voiceover heard here.
Like poem-making, videopoetry-making is a binding/weaving process, a deliberate or serendipitous blending of disparate things (words, images, sound) that were not linked before. Since voice is for me a hugely prominent element of the process, I continue to look for ways to create voice duets, voice dialogues, voice mosaics.
“The collaborative process is enriching for everyone involved”: an interview with Marc Neys
This is the fifth in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse, a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” This interview with filmmaker Marc Neys (A.K.A. Swoon) shares a remixer’s perspective.
1. Would you briefly describe the remix work you have done based on poems from The Poetry Storehouse?
MN: If I recall correctly, both “Telegram” and “Today is your advocate” were your typical “Swoon approach”: first creating a track, getting ideas for images—”Hey, that one might fit perfectly!”— while doing so. If the track is good and the basic idea and feel of the chosen footage (originally intended for other projects in both cases) fits, they create themselves, really. I follow my gut and the flow of the poem/reading/sound to put the images right.
“Sweet Tea” was another story. I made a video (making use of an old experiment from way back) first, but it didn’t do the job. The track was right on from the beginning, but the video? It took a completely different approach—working and experimenting with photos—to make something I thought worked well.
2. How is The Poetry Storehouse different from or similar to other resources you have used for your remix work?
MN: It’s the same in the sense that there are poems (some of them I like, others not to my taste) and there are often fine readings. But it’s much easier in the sense that I don’t have to go through the whole process of finding and getting in contact with the original creators. Though sometimes I do miss that contact. Often a similar contact forms after the video is released, so that’s a good thing.
It’s a fine place to go to once in a while to check what’s new and see if anything “clicks.” I remember doing the same with the Qarrtsiluni issues…but there I had to ask the poet if it was OK to use their work for a video.
3. What specific elements do you look for when you browse offerings at The Storehouse (or, what is your advice to poets submitting to The Storehouse)?
MN: I’m very much a browser. Are there titles that jump out, certain lines that hit me? If that’s the case, I go looking and listening for a reading. I like my poetry audible, so I suggest much more “good” readings, recordings and voices! I know that not every poet is a reader, but getting their poems read out by someone else with a good voice, someone with a great (or even new) interpretation…and if they like their own reading, record them and send that together with the texts.
To me, that’s the whole idea: poetry is great, but should not exist solely in the form of words on paper. It might expand their view of their own work if poets and writers would read their works out loud more often, or get others to read and record their words.
4. Talk about how the remixing process comes together for you. For example, does your inspiration start with a poem, or with specific footage for which you then seek a poem?
MN: Both. Sometimes it’s a word, a phrase, a whole poem that makes me create a soundscape that then leads me to imagery, sometimes I have a track and images that “need” a poem…anything goes. I go with the inspiration of the moment. Take my pot of coffee, open up the computer and see where what leads me. That said, I put a lot of time into my soundscapes, and I believe they are the mortar between the bricks of words and images.
5. Is there anything about the Storehouse process or approach that you feel might with benefit be done differently?
MN: Not that I can think of right now. Well, maybe invite more “voices”—actors, poetry lovers, people with recording equipment who want to give it a try, radio people with a love for poetry—to record the poems and /or get the poets to do so themselves also…
6. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience (or anything else)?
MN: I still think it’s a great idea, and realized in a good-looking and easy-to-use site. Let it grow. Hopefully, more and more creative people will find their way to the Storehouse, and not only poets with their poems (though, without them, of course, no Storehouse :-)). Being not the greatest writer myself, I love the fact that we can create new things with these existing poems. It opens up the way I look at words, and perhaps makes the writers look differently at images and at their own writing. And in the end, the collaborative process of creating these videopoems, with and on top of creations by others, is enriching for everyone involved.
Sandburg and Photograph by Lennart Lundh
https://vimeo.com/84858997
A simple but effective videopoem. Nic S. used a text from The Poetry Storehouse contributed by Illinois-based writer and photographer Lennart Lundh, but as she notes at her blog, the video imagery came first.
For this one, I started with the footage and then searched for the poem.
One of the challenges for a videopoem maker not yet handy with his or her own camera (that would be me) is finding video footage that a) works and b) is copyright-free and c) is either free or inexpensive. There are a few sites (eg Motion Elements or OrangeHD) that put up video clips for free use, and I trawl them regularly, downloading and saving footage against future need. The clip subjects are super-odd and almost comically random and nearly always fall in the ‘you never know’ category.
In this case, I found a series of shots taken of and through the side rear view mirror of a car. They struck me as metaphorically powerful and I went back through the Storehouse poems, deliberately looking for one which would match the metaphor. Lennart’s elegantly tragic simple/complicated piece, with its telescoping rearward/forward depiction of time and space jumped out at me very quickly.
Telegram by Amy MacLennan
For all you lovers, here’s a videopoem by the indefatigable Belgian filmmaker Swoon (Marc Neys).
Since the beginning of The Poetry Storehouse last year, a gentle stream of new arrivals and voices filled up the shelves. It was about time I went shopping for words again.
It’s such a fun place to nose. Different styles, themes, voices and ideas… This time the poem ‘Telegram’ by Amy MacLennan caught my eye. […]The images came fairly easy. I wanted a very subtle, understated almost, scenery. slow movements, details of bodyparts and a slow veil of colour…
The video practically made itself…it felt right from the start. A good sign.
The poem first appeared online in Linebreak, and in print in MacLennan’s chapbook Weathering (Uttered Chaos Press, 2012).
Nic S. (who provided the reading used in the soundtrack) interviewed Amy MacLennan for our ongoing series of interviews at the Moving Poems Forum with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse. Here’s what MacLennan had to say about “Telegram”:
I never expected to hear that kind of music, see that kind of video, hear that kind of voice merged into something that I had provided words for. The pacing was crazy interesting for me. I saw other things in my own poem that I wouldn’t have thought before because I was too attached to the rhythms of “Telegram.” I watch this now and think, “Wow. My words were the beginning to THIS? Oh my goodness!”
“It was good to know I’d have no control”: an interview with Amy MacLennan
This is the fourth in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse — a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” Anyone who submits to the Storehouse has to think through the question of creative control — how important is it to you, what do you gain or lose by holding on to or releasing control? Our fourth interview is with Amy MacLennan.
1. Submitting to The Poetry Storehouse means taking a step back from a focus on oneself as individual creator and opening up one’s work to a new set of creative possibilities. Talk about your relationship to your work and how you view this sort of control relinquishment.
AM: This has been very scary and unexpected and wonderful for me. I’ve had a half dozen poems paired with a graphic. I’ve had a few poems recorded with another person reading. This is the first time I’ve been part of a true collaborative project. While it was really scary, it was good to know I’d have no control — EVERYTHING out of my hands. Whatever it became, I wouldn’t have to edit edit edit like my other projects.
2. There is never any telling whether one will love or hate the remixes that result when a poet permits remixing of his or her work by others. Please describe the remixes that have resulted for your work at the Storehouse and your own reactions to them.
AM: It. Was. Weird. I never expected to hear that kind of music, see that kind of video, hear that kind of voice merged into something that I had provided words for. The pacing was crazy interesting for me. I saw other things in my own poem that I wouldn’t have thought before because I was too attached to the rhythms of “Telegram.” I watch this now and think, “Wow. My words were the beginning to THIS? Oh my goodness!”
3. Would you do this again? What is your advice to other poets who might be considering submitting to The Poetry Storehouse?
AM: I would definitely do this again. It expanded my creative brain. I think other poets would adore being involved in this kind of thing with others accepting a piece and taking it to a resolution completely beyond you.
4. Is there anything about the Storehouse process or approach that you feel might with benefit be done differently?
AM: Nope.
5. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience?
AM: This has made me a different writer. I’m excited to try and find other collaborative partners.
Letting our children go: an interview with Eric Blanchard
This is the third in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse — a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” Anyone who submits to the Storehouse has to think through the question of creative control — how important is it to you, what do you gain or lose by holding on to or releasing control? Our third interview is with Eric Blanchard.
1. Submitting to The Poetry Storehouse means taking a step back from a focus on oneself as individual creator and opening up one’s work to a new set of creative possibilities. Talk about your relationship to your work and how you view this sort of control relinquishment.
EB: There was a time where I considered my poems to be my children. Thus, I was very protective of them. Maybe I still feel that way, a little. Even so, there comes a time when one’s children must be released into the world to make their own impact, great or small. Our children develop lives of their own. We have little say as to what their impact might be, other than the foundation onto which they are born. Why should a poem have only one chance at making an artistic impression?
On the other hand, being the impetus, or even just basic source material, for other artists’ work in various forms is strangely satisfying… maybe it’s somewhat like being an organ donor. I have yet to regret it.
2. There is never any telling whether one will love or hate the remixes that result when a poet permits remixing of his or her work by others. Please describe the remixes that have resulted for your work at the Storehouse and your own reactions to them.
EB: Being a bit of a control freak, especially as it pertains to my artist image, it can be hard to let go. Perhaps it is fortunate none of my poems have been dissected and/or rearranged yet. Still, I have had to accept that possibility.
So far, the provocative reading by Nic S., the soundscape by Swoon, and the videos founded on my poem “Sweet Tea” have all been both interesting and rewarding, if not representative of the original intent and flavor of the poem.
3. Would you do this again? What is your advice to other poets who might be considering submitting to The Poetry Storehouse?
EB: Yes, I would.
My advice to other poets would be to accept that you are part of an artistic community and that if your work inspires, gives an artistic spark to, or provides raw material for another artist’s work, then it is doing its job. Besides, anyone who ever stumbles across your poems, wherever they might be published, might be borrowing from them, remixing them, or setting them to music in the privacy of their own abode. At The Poetry Storehouse it is simply done in an open forum. And your poem continues to live on the forum in its original form, notwithstanding what other artistic forms might be attached to it.
4. Is there anything about the Storehouse process or approach that you feel might with benefit be done differently?
EB: I really don’t know. I am just a simple poet. I do wish I had other talents that I could use to be a more active part of the Storehouse … so, if you could change that little thing, it would be great. Thanks.
5. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience?
EB: To be honest, my initial motivation for submitting my previously published poems to The Poetry Storehouse was to get them republished online. The audience for print publications is relatively small, and the chance of anyone reading work published in them, after the initial distribution, is pretty slim. The Storehouse provides the opportunity for print only poems to have new life and reach a greater, on-going audience whether or not the poem get chosen for remix or video presentation. Of course, the window of possibility remains open as long as the work stays on the internet.
Thanks again to Nic and all the other collaborators who make The Poetry Storehouse such an interesting and exciting artistic forum.
Need by Bill Yarrow
https://vimeo.com/83938341
A videopoem remix of a text at The Poetry Storehouse. Nic S. used footage from NASA and the Prelinger Archives, music by Matt Samolis, and her own reading of the poem by Bill Yarrow.
Todd Boss’ “Arrivals and Departures,” The Poetry Storehouse, and “12 Moons” featured at Connotation Press
Erica Goss‘ monthly column on videopoetry at Connotation Press, The Third Form, focuses this month on “three video poetry projects … that demonstrate how talent, collaboration and the DIY spirit continue to expand this art form.”
Viewers will see poetry films projected on the gigantic backdrop of St. Paul’s Union Depot train station. Todd Boss, poet, co-founder of Motionpoems and public artist, has embarked on an ambitious project called Arrivals and Departures. The historic Union Depot, saved from demolition and now the focus of a $243 million project, will get the video poetry treatment from Todd and his crew beginning in early October.
[…]
The Poetry Storehouse is Nic S.’s latest venture. Well-known for her vocal interpretations of poetry and for her innovations in the world of video poetry and poetry publishing via the nanopress, Nic said that “the idea came about through a couple of conversations I had about poetry, collaboration and influences.” One of those conversations, with poet and rabbi Rachel Barenblat, got Nic thinking about a place where people could contribute their poetry with the specific agreement that it be used in another artwork. The result was The Poetry Storehouse. Launched in October 2013, it’s already well-stocked and ready for remixing possibilities.
[…]
Finally, I have had the honor to be part of a team that includes Kathy McTavish, Nic S., and Swoon (Marc Neys). 12 Moons is based on twelve poems I wrote, one for every month of the year, with vocals from Nic, music from Kathy, and video plus concept and editing from Swoon. One by one, the team members added their parts: Nic made haunting, poignant recordings of each poem, to which Kathy added the soul-stirring music of her cello. Marc took those building blocks and added his special magic: combing through the archives of public access, vintage film to choose just the right scenes, plus adding his own film, he created twelve videos that explore one person’s life, month-by-month. I blogged about this in several posts at Savvy Verse and Wit.
Housekeeping by Donna Vorreyer
https://vimeo.com/80140293
This Nic S. video remix of a poem from The Poetry Storehouse uses unexpected imagery to suggest perhaps some different things about God from what the author of the text, Donna Vorreyer, had in mind — but that’s as it should be, I think. (Vorreyer called the video “haunting.”)
“It is in our nature to share and collaborate”: an interview with Peter Ciccariello
This is the second in a series of interviews with poets and remixers who have provided or worked with material from The Poetry Storehouse — a website which collects “great contemporary poems for creative remix.” Anyone who submits to the Storehouse has to think through the question of creative control — how important is it to you, what do you gain or lose by holding on to or releasing control? Our second interview is with Peter Ciccariello.
1. Submitting to The Poetry Storehouse means taking a step back from a focus on oneself as individual creator and opening up one’s work to a new set of creative possibilities. Talk about your relationship to your work and how you view this sort of control relinquishment.
PC: I think artists and writers are by nature introspective and solitary. I work alone, thinking and creating in a quiet and controlled space, my most creative and free times are late at night, well past the hour between dog and wolf. There is an innate resistance to collaboration but there is also an allure and a fascination. Since my work is about appropriation, remixing and re-purposing, and ultimately about ownership, I think it may be easier for me to see my work altered or re-interpreted by other artists. As I have grown as an artist, I welcome the chance to actually see how others see my writing and am actually fascinated by how it can be birthed into a new form. Lately I have been reading and thinking a great deal about the idea of cooperation among animals in an evolutionary sense as opposed to individualism and “survival of the fittest.” It is in our nature to share and collaborate and it is ultimately essential to our growth as creative people and as human beings.
2. There is never any telling whether one will love or hate the remixes that result when a poet permits remixing of his or her work by others. Please describe the remixes that have resulted for your work at the Storehouse and your own reactions to them.
PC: Marc Neys (Swoon)’s video remix of my poem “Today is your advocate” (read by Nic S.) was an absolute delight to experience. My overwhelming reaction was that they actually “got it.” My work can be so removed and inaccessible at times that is truly amazes me when someone actually understands what I meant. That is not said in an elitist sense, more because my writing deals with issues like obscurantism, and free association, so at times it is not the most accessible or available use of language.
3. Would you do this again? What is your advice to other poets who might be considering submitting to The Poetry Storehouse?
PC: Absolutely! Highly recommended.
4. Is there anything about the Storehouse process or approach that you feel might with benefit be done differently?
PC: I thought that it would be interesting to see how a remixed piece would get altered being used by a number of different artists and writers over and over again. That is a major fascination in my own work. Taking a poem or a word and deconstructing it until the original context is destroyed. What is left? Where is the meaning? What is the source of a new understanding?
5. Is there anything else you would like to say about your Poetry Storehouse experience?
PC: Having other people create something new from something you have created is a marvelous concept. From the roots of Tristan Tzara pulling words out of a hat to create a poem in the 1920’s, to William Burroughs cut-ups and Creative Commons licensing, The Poetry Storehouse appears to be on the right trajectory.
Giacometti’s Pears by Donna Vorreyer
I couldn’t resist making a video for one of Donna Vorreyer‘s poems at The Poetry Storehouse myself. “Giacometti’s Pears” was originally published in Weave magazine. I blogged about my process a bit at Via Negativa last week.
