~ 2013 ~
Cherry Tree by Robert Louis Stevenson
Stevenson’s dreamy lyrics juxtaposed with footage of a woman restocking a vending machine. Emily Tumbleson notes:
Footage taken on a Canon 7D. Poem by Robert Louis Stevenson from A Child’s Garden of Verses.
I am currently exploring the relationship between desire or aspiration, childhood nostalgia, and social or cultural context.
Landing Under Water, I See Roots by Annie Finch
A beautiful and, to my mind, highly effective book trailer for Spells: New and Selected Poems by Annie Finch, due out this month from Wesleyan University Press. U.K. animator Suzie Hanna describes their creative process in a note at Vimeo:
The film was made through a Transatlantic collaborative shared process. Annie sent her voice recording to me and I responded with clips of tests and animatics which I adjusted, extended or dumped in response to her reactions.
For the text of the poem (and audio of Finch’s reading), see poets.org.
The Woods by Aina Villanger
Another of Kristian Pedersen’s abstract animations, this time with words and voice by Aina Villanger. (There’s also a version without the subtitles.)
Winner of the Bergen Public Librarys poetry competition.
Produced by Gasspedal for Bergen Offentlige Bibliotek
Kate Greenstreet’s videopoetry featured at Connotation Press
Kate Greenstreet is one of my favorite videopoets, so I was pleased to see that Erica Goss had chosen to interview Greenstreet and analyze some of her films in her “Third Form” column at Connotation Press this month. Poet-filmmakers occupy a central place in the evolution of videopoetry, and Kate’s work is especially instructive in that regard since, as Goss points out, she comes from a visual arts background (and didn’t publish her first book of poetry until the age of 57).
It’s difficult to discuss the elements of Kate’s art separately from each other. To quote her from My Own Eyes, a short film by Max Greenstreet, Kate’s husband and frequent collaborator, “it’s made of pieces.” Kate’s work mixes up and layers the senses: you can hear the landscape and see the poems. “I think my work on the page is difficult for people,” she told me. “I don’t explain it.” The poems benefit from multiple readings, just as the videos stand up to multiple viewings. […]
Kate is the sole creator of the visual as well as the written parts of her work; therefore, her aesthetic is consistent throughout. From paintings to photographs to film to words, she maintains her sensitivity to the highly specific, suggestive detail, leaving the interpretation of a connected whole to the reader or viewer.
To This Day by Shane Koyczan
Canadian performance poet Shane Koyczan headed up this collaborative project, which has its own website. The YouTube version has gone viral, with more than 5 million views in the first week. Quoting the website:
To This Day Project is a project based on a spoken word poem written by Shane Koyczan called “To This Day”, to further explore the profound and lasting impact that bullying can have on an individual.
Schools and families are in desperate need of proper tools to confront this problem. We can give them a starting point… A message that will have a far reaching and long lasting effect in confronting bullying.
Animators and motion artists brought their unique styles to 20 second segments that will thread into one fluid voice.
This collaborative volunteer effort will demonstrate what a community of caring individuals are capable of when they come together.
This was produced by Leah Nelson, Jorge R. Canedo Estrada and Alicia Katz at Giant Ant. The component 20-second clips were each posted to Vimeo by their creators, if you’d like to investigate any of them further. I’ll just reproduce the list of 86 animators and motion artists from the credits page of the website: Ryan Kothe, Mike Healey, Will Fortanbary, Brian San, Diego De la Rocha, Gizelle Manalo, Adam Plouff, Mike Wolfram, Hyun Min Bae, Oliver Sin, Viraj Ajmeri, Vishnu Ganti, Yun Wang, Boris Wilmot, Cameron Spencer, DeAndria Mackey, Matt Choi, Reimo Õun, Samantha Bjalek, Eli Treviño, Ariel Costa, Caleb Coppock, James Mabery, Samir Hamiche, Waref Abu Quba, Deo Mareza and Clara, Josh Parker, Scott Cannon, Thomas McKeen, Kaine Asika, Marcel Krumbiegel, Teresa del Pozo, Eric Paoli Infanzón, Maxwell Hathaway, Rebecca Berdel, Zach Ogilvie, Anand Mistry, Dominik Grejc, Gideon Prins, Lucy Chen, Mercedes Testa, Rickard Bengtsson, Stina Seppel, Daniel Göttling, Julio C. Kurokodile, Marilyn Cherenko, Tim Darragh, Jaime Ugarte, Joe Donaldson, Josh Beaton, Margaret Schiefer, Rodrigo Ribeiro, Ryan Kaplan, Yeimi Salazar, Daniel Bartels, Joe Donaldson, Daniel Molina, Sitji Chou, Tong Zhang, Luc Journot, Vincent Bilodeau, Amy Schmitt, Bert Beltran, Daniel Moreno Cordero, Marie Owona, Mateusz Kukla, Sean Procter, Steven Fraser, Aparajita R, Ben Chwirka, Cale Oglesby, Igor Komolov, Markus Magnusson, Remington McElhaney, Tim Howe, Agil Pandri, Jessie Tully, Sander Joon, Kumphol Ponpisute, James Waters, Chris Koelsch, Ronald Rabideau, Alessandro & Manfredi, Andrea López, and Howey Mitsakos.
Swoon Films 11 Flemish Poets
[press release — feel free to reproduce in whole or in part]
How to make a film based on 11 Dutch-language poems? A fair question. Video artist Swoon has made the poetry short ‘Circle’, in which poems by Leonard Nolens, Stefan Hertmans, Delphine Lecompte, Charles Ducal, Michaël Vandebril, Lies Van Gasse, Xavier Roelens, Jan Lauwereyns, Marleen de Crée, Stijn Vranken and Yannick Dangre tell the story of someone’s life. The poems were recorded by three well-known Flemish actors: Vic De Wachter, Michaël Pas and Karlijn Sileghem.
An extended trailer can be seen on Vimeo.
The Flemish poetry film will premiere on Sunday 10 March at the Scottish international poetry festival StAnza. With this international presentation in mind, all poems were translated by professional poetry translator Willem Groenewegen.
The Belgian premiere will be held on 13 June at the Felix Poetry Festival in Antwerp.
‘Circle’ is a Vonk & Zonen production and was realised with the support of the Flemish Literature Fund and the City of Antwerp. Vonk & Zonen is a new literary organisation focusing on new ways to showcase literature. Recent projects include the ‘Lonely Funeral’ programme, ‘NewsPoem’ in the De Morgen newspaper and the ‘Working Title’ evenings. The poetry film ‘Circle’ is an excellent way to familiarise a wider audience with poetry in an innovative and accessible way.
Swoon (a.k.a. Marc Neys, *1968) has more than 90 videopoems to his name, based on texts by, amongst others, Bernard Dewulf, Johan de Boose, Michaël Vandebril and Jan Lauwereyns. His videopoems were shown at a lot of international festivals, such as those in Berlin (ZEBRA), Vancouver (Visible Verse) and New York (International Literary Filmfestival). This year, Swoon has been asked to co-curate the first Filmpoem Festival (2-4/8/13, Dunbar, Scotland) alongside Alastair Cook, Luca Nasciuti and Dave Bonta.
Editor’s note: We will share the full-length film on Moving Poems as soon as it becomes available. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer (and attend StAnza or the Felix Poetry Festival if you can). See also Swoon’s post mortem of last year’s Felix Poetry Festival here at the forum.
So Be It by Kenneth Patchen
This experimental film, Sperma Mundi III Introduction by Wild Worm Web, includes a recording of Patchen reciting his poem in the soundtrack. (To read the text, see Google Books.)
Found Footage :
Jack Smith + Paul Sharits + Hy Hirsh + Otto Mühl
Poem by Kenneth Patchen
Music Vivid Tribe Of Psychics (Yoshiwaku + Parrhesia Sound System)
soundcloud.com/vivid-tribe-of-psychics
from Tabacaria (The Tobacconist’s) by Álvaro de Campos (Fernando Pessoa)
This is Azulejo ou l’illusion visuelle, an “animated film by Kolja Saksida made in the two week workshop in Lisbon, Portugal,” according to the description on Vimeo from ZVVIKS, the Slovenian Institute for Film and Audiovisual Production. A note at the end of the film adds that it was inspired by a painting on tiles representing Lisbon before the great earthquake of 1755.
The film includes just the first four lines of the poem in the soundtrack, with a French translation in titling. Here’s the English translation given in the description:
I am nothing.
I’ll never be anything.
I can not want to be anything.
Apart from this, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
This is one of the poems Pessoa wrote under the “heteronym” of Álvaro de Campos. Here’s the complete, much longer text and here’s one blogger’s attempt at a translation.
