~ December 2009 ~
Poet’s Work by Lorine Niedecker
Excerpt from a documentary called Immortal Cupboard: In Search of Lorine Niedecker, by Cathy C. Cook, which won a Jury Award from the 2009 Wisconsin Film Festival. Cook reproduces the official blurb on her blog:
In this unconventional documentary, filmmaker Cathy Cook takes cues from Niedecker’s work and the Wisconsin heritage they share to explore the poetry and life of Lorine Niedecker (1903 – 1970). The poetry and film subjects included are: nature, history, ecology, gender, domesticity, work, culture, family and social politics. Cook gives new voice and visibility to the extraordinary works of this very private poet that some literary critics have described as the 20th century’s Emily Dickinson.
There’s a review and an interesting discussion of possible omissions from the film at The Irascible Poet.
For more on Niedecker, see the website for the poet from the Friends of Lorine Niedecker, Inc. Here’s another video, featuring Wisconsin Poet Laureate Marilyn Taylor discussing and reading from Niedecker’s work, part of the Dead Poets Society of America’s 2009 cross-country gravesite tour.
http://www.vimeo.com/8077295
Tears, Idle Tears by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Inspired by artist Eugene Atget, this student piece by Heather Kendrick and Lauren Kvedaras cleverly plays on the two meanings of “tears.” Kendrick explains:
After being given an artist and a poet at random we were asked to select a poem and use inspiration from the artist to create a motion piece under the title “Words in Motion”.
Drop’t Sonnet by Anne Carson
This is the last of six YouTube selections from Anne Carson’s Possessive Used as Drink (Me), a lecture on pronouns in the form of 15 sonnets, with three Merce Cunningham dancers and video direction by Sadie Wilcox. See playgallery.org for more on the project.
Bibliophobia by Rob Walker
http://vimeo.com/7872488
A father-son collaboration between Rob Walker, a South Australian writer and poet, and his son Ben, who blogged:
Bibliophobia is an animation I did to a poem by my father that recently won the Newcastle Poetry New Media Prize. It’s not often that you get to work on a project like this with your dad, so it was nice for it to be recognised.
Jason Nelson writes in the accompanying publication ‘The Night Road’;
“Rarely does a digital poem arrive so polished and aesthetically compelling. Using rich layering of textural and graphical imagery ‘Bibliophobia’ explores the strange place between ‘ancient’ paper and the contemporary world’s new digital story/poetic environments. Indeed the work itself seems to be directed towards the brief and portable devices, a trailer of ideas for iPhones and email sharing. Initially I was disheartened by the abrupt and all-too-soon end. But isn’t that what’s expected of media, to attract with style and mystery and ideation, then leave before interest wanes.
And like electronic candy I found myself watching this work again and again, wanting more. Perhaps what’s needed is a pause button, so readers can soak in the organic, near ‘steampunk’ visuals and archaic and experimental poetics”
The Tyger by William Blake
Joshua Casoni may not have gotten the title or all the words quite right, but this is still the most imaginative video interpretation I’ve seen of the poem. Doug Toomer stars at the homeless man. Casoni was assisted by Jake Doty on camera and sound.
“Falling ill…” by Anna Akhmatova
A 1922 poem by Akhmatova turned into an art song by Russian-Israeli composer Zlata Razdolina, who is also the singer and videographer. According to her website, “Most of her repertoire of more than six hundred romances and songs is composed of the famous Russian classical poets, A. Akhmatova, N.Gumilyov, O. Mandelstam, M. Tsvetayeva, A. Blok, I. Severyanin, S.Yesenin and others.”
The English translation used for the subtitles is by Judith Hemschemeyer.
