~ Visible Poetry Project ~

The Shrouding of the Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Filmmaker Devansh Agarwal and singer-songwriter Sonali Argade collaborated on a music video-like poetry film of John Webster’s 17th-century poem for the Visible Poetry Project. Argade is also the actress. Her musical interpretation appears to be a cover of the 1924 Peter Warlock composition, from his 3 Dirges of Webster, now in the public domain. Here’s a more standard performance by the Baccholian Singers of London:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzNavCXcghg

Wishes for Mom by Sojourner Ahebee

Sojourner Ahebee‘s words meet Reva Santo‘s filmmaking, with actress Alana Ogio and a score by Avila Santo, in today’s film from the Visible Poetry Project, a NYC-based initiative to produce a poetry film for every day of April. I’ve been remiss in sharing their videos here, but expect at least 75 percent of them to appear on Moving Poems eventually, because the quality has been really high so far, and they’ve been amazingly varied, as well. I also like the project’s openness to emerging as well as accomplished poets from all walks of life; they had an open call for submissions back in January.

You can watch all the videos on their website or Vimeo page, and/or attend one of the live screenings still upcoming in Brooklyn, Manhattan, upstate New York, or Beijing. Here’s how they describe the project on their About page:

The Visible Poetry Project brings together a collective of filmmakers to create a series of videos that present poems as short films. Drawing from works created by renowned poets, including Neil Gaiman and Tato Laviera, as well as emerging poets, the Visible Poetry Project strives to make poetry accessible, exploring how we can recreate and experience poems through the medium of film.

Throughout the month of April – National Poetry Month – we will release one visual poem each day at 9 AM EST. An exercise in translation and a reclamation of both poetic and film discourses, the resulting thirty videos will explore how we read, interpret, visualize, and hear poetry.

The Visible Poetry Project is no longer accepting submissions from poets and filmmakers for the 2017 series. We will reopen for 2018 submissions in December 2017. If you would like to be involved with the Visible Poetry Project, or have any questions about our organization, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at visiblepoetryproject@gmail.com.