I have been searching for collaborations to write about. Yes, I need material, so all you video poets who are starving for publicity, please send me the links to your work. I would love see what you are up to and possibly review it.

In my quest to find the perfect partnership I stumbled upon (via a Motionpoems email) a piece called Antique Sound written by W.S. Merwin, installation and film by Evan Holm:

This particular collaboration in my opinion is exceptional. It incorporates installation with motion poetry. In the beginning of the work there is the voiceover by the poet himself, W.S. Merwin, coupled with the sound of scratches one would hear on an old L.P. The video/film is an installation of a turntable in a pool of black ink set in a forest. The L.P. seems as if it has been played to death, but is still in the process of living its life. I suppose the piece is saying just that. There is no getting away from age so let’s just continue.

I find the imagery haunting and beautiful. Holm completely engages us with his cinematographic design and then continues to captivate with the way he incorporates words, sounds and then music. There is a fair amount of noise but ironically it’s a quiet piece. This allows the viewer to be walked through and slip into a time when life was simpler. Not just to visit, but to stay. At least for a while and listen to the needle, the crickets and enjoy life as we want to remember it. This is indeed nostalgia at its best.

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Cheryl Gross

Brooklyn native Cheryl Gross is an illustrator, painter, writer and motion graphic artist living and working in the New York/New Jersey area. She is a professor at Pratt Institute.

Cheryl’s work has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, publications, and graces the walls of many corporate and museum collections including: Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, New York Times, Riverside Museum, Riverside, Ca., The Museum of The City of New York, Mississippi Museum of Art, Laforet Harajuku Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Artist-In-Residency, Kunstlerhaus, Saarbruken, Germany. Finalist Elizabeth Hulings Foundation, 2014, Artist-In-Residency Program, Dilsberg, Germany, 2015, four-time recipient Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation Residency, Jersey City, 2018-2020, Art Fair 14c 2021-2023, Competition Winner, 2015 Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Festival, Cork, Ireland.
“The work, metaphorically travels through two different forms of representation: abstract and realism, thereby creating a narrative that embraces a socio-political point of view. My narrative follows my childhood fantasies, which focuses on lifestyles that are usually viewed as male dominated.”

www.cherylgross.net/

• The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: "Streamschool (Patakiskola)"
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• The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: "It turns out"