~ February 2015 ~
Doublebunny Press Opens Submissions for Second Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Here’s the press release:
WORCESTER, MA – Doublebunny Press announced yesterday that submissions have opened for the second Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival.
The Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival is a competition meant to highlight poetry and visual art at the intersection of film. The festival, due to take place in Worcester in October of 2015 focuses on short films that illustrate original poems, all of which are non-performance based (read: no footage of the poems being performed).
As well as a $200 prize for Best Overall Production, Rabbit Heart will be awarding $100 prizes in six other categories: Best Animated, Best Music/Sound, Best Smartphone Production, Best Under 1 Minute, Best Valentine, and the Shoots! youth prize. The gala awards ceremony and viewing party will be at Nick’s Bar in Worcester, MA on October 11th.
About Doublebunny Press
Doublebunny Press is a small independent press that serves the New England area through poetry design, layout, and production of fine books and posters. Doublebunny also supported Omnivore Magazine, a poetry and arts monthly which, during its three-year run, published poetry and articles by over 150 authors, and carried a national subscription base.
Doublebunny has a history of great spoken word events in Worcester. They combined forces with The Worcester Poets’ Asylum to present V Day to the city in 2002 and 2003, and the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2005. In 2014, Doublebunny brought the inaugural Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival to the city, and in 2015 they plan an even more exciting show for Worcester, inviting the imagination of poets and filmmakers to once again take center stage.
About Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival is one of very few outlets in the US for poetry on film, and the only festival that asks that the author of the poem participate in the making of the production. In 2014 Rabbit Heart attracted international attention, including not only European submissions, but the honor of a showcase in the CYCLOP festival in Ukraine. This year Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival has been recognized with a grant from the Worcester Arts Council. Here’s the official language: This program is administered by the Worcester Arts Council, for the Local Cultural Council – an agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Submissions are now open for the 2015 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival.
To learn more about this event, please go to doublebunnypress.com/rabbit-heart-poetry-film-festival/.
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Note also this bit from the Submissions page:
We welcome international submissions! That said, please be aware that our judges are English speakers. If your poem is not in English, subtitles that are in English will help your film along.
Eggheads by John Koethe
This is Talking Points, a film by Rob Perez for Motionpoems, based on the poem “Eggheads” by John Koethe. Perez tells a separate story in the film that intersects with the text in an interesting fashion. “Citizen journalist” Will Campbell writes about the poem and the film in some bonus materials on the Motionpoems website. Here’s an excerpt:
What drew Rob Perez to work on “Eggheads” was the challenge that came with adaptation. “I was interested in the idea and challenge of lifting a poem off the page and putting it on the screen” Perez said. That meant more than simply giving face to Koethe’s words. The film’s biggest challenge came in finding a way to preserve the quality of Koethe’s language while still making a film that uplifted the poem itself.
Perez’s solution to this dilemma was ambitious to say the least: let the poem speak for itself—supported, that is, by a narrative. His film adaptation of “Eggheads” combines a cool, crisp reading of the poem with jazz-tracked footage of a couple moving through the charmed humdrum of ordinary life. Their words are muted, leaving only their actions and something like “Take Five” to tell what they’re up to while in the background “Eggheads,” read by a separate narrator, gives meaning to the pair and their everyday world.
For Perez, the challenge of the film became finding just the right amount of narrative to support the poem without overburdening it. After all, “the poem is good enough to stand alone—otherwise it wouldn’t live like that. Therefore, my job is to find a story—of moving pictures—that allow the poem to say the same thing in a new medium. The screenplay, the actors, the frame, the score, sound effects, etc. are all tools to lift the poem off the page and onto the screen.”
For Zachary by Mary Jo Balistreri
A black-and-white film by Marc Neys AKA Swoon for a poem by Mary Jo Balistreri in The Poetry Storehouse. Marc posted some process notes to his blog:
A very beautiful poem. Heartfelt.
Nic S. did a poignant reading that led to this track;The visuals for this one are a combination of footage I shot during a hiking weekend last december (moody shots of trees, reflections, shadows…) alternated with the repetition of a boy falling (carefully edited out from a very lively action video by Justin Kauffman (under the Attribution license CC BY 3.0)
I think the ‘endless’ falling of the boy works well with the rest of the footage. Creating the right atmosphere for the poem and the soundtrack. There’s some comfort in this one I think.
A reminder, for any poets who might be reading this: the deadline for submissions to The Poetry Storehouse is coming up on February 28. After that it will transition to archive mode, adding new remixes (including videos) only up through September.
After Love by Roger Reeves
https://vimeo.com/119716922
A mirrored field turns into layered images of a church interior in this new videopoem from Ruben Quesada for
A poem by Roger Reeves from his debut collection of poetry, KING ME (Copper Canyon Press, 2013).
Music: “Symphony No. 5” by Gustav Mahler
For more on Reeves, see the Poetry Foundation website. Here’s King Me.
Poetry film festival news: upcoming screenings and calls for submissions
The autumn months may be the prime time for poetry film festivals, but two festivals are hosting special screenings in early March. On March 5, UK’s Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival will be reprising many of its 2014 selections in a two-hour screening called “Reflections” at The Little Theatre Cinema in Bath, as part of the Bath Literature Festival. “First shown in September at The Arnolfini, Bristol we are now including a new film from Bath Spa University students entitled Mesmorism,” says Lucy English on the Liberated Words Facebook page, which includes the full details.
Berlin’s ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is also on the road, but traveling a bit farther: “The Literaturwerkstatt Berlin will present the best poetry films of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival at the German-Russian shortfilm festival ‘Vkratze!’ in Wolgograd [Volgograd]” in Russia on March 7, says Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel on Facebook, sharing a link to the event page. It sounds like an interesting festival over-all, “dedicated to the interaction of Germany and Russia in the field of short film as well as the involvement of young filmmakers and the audience in a diversified festival context.” The ZEBRA screening will include films from all over the world, but with a particular emphasis on Germany and Russia, as I understand it.
(The ZEBRA folks are unusually active in pursuing international screening opportunities; be sure to join their Facebook page and/or group if you want to make sure to stay informed about all of their activities. I don’t always get around to linking them here.)
Yet another Facebook page, the Filmpoem group, is my source for the next tidbit: Alastair Cook posted that
Filmpoem will be doing an open call for this year’s festival and events around the UK, opening on the 1st March and closing on the 1st May. This year we’ll do a digital as well as hard copy call, you may be relieved to hear! First event? Hidden Door in Edinburgh, home turf for once! We’re on Sunday 24th May. Get your tickets sorted, this one will be big!
See the Hidden Door website for more info on that event. And if you’re a filmmaker or videopoet, get ready to submit not only to Filmpoem but also to Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival in Worcester, Massachusetts. Submissions open on 27 February—next Friday—for its 2015 festival. See the Rules page for complete details. It looks as if they’ll be continuing their unique focus on poets as active filmmakers:
The work must be the submitter’s original work: the poetry must be by the submitter, and that person should be directly involved in the process of making the video. We want you to make the video, not hire someone else to make it. This is not to say that we think asking for help is a bad thing – we think teaming up is super, actually. Just, you know, respect the spirit of this thing, and don’t buy it, make it. If you’re a filmmaker making a video for a poet, you should submit together as a team. Just make sure the poet has a part in this filmy business other than just handing you the poem, natch.
Martina Pfeiler: Ten Poetry Films for Stimulating Student Discussions
I have introduced poetry films to students for over a decade now. I am very lucky that my students never cease to surprise me with their great observations and analytic responses that unfold in our classroom discussions. Try it!
Ballad of the Skeletons
Gus Van Sant, 1996 (poem and performance by Allen Ginsberg)
Standard Oil Co.
DJ Kadagian, 2004 (poem by Pablo Neruda)
1700% Mistaken for Muslim
Masahiro Sugano, 2010 (poem and performance by Anida Yoeu Ali)
A Finger, Two Dots Then Me
David and Daniel Holecheck, 2011 (poem by Derrick Brown)
Why I Write
Masahiro Sugano, 2012 (poem and performance by Kosal Khiev)
The Dice Player
Nissmah Roshdy, 2013 (poem and reading by Mahmoud Darwish)
Forgotten Memory
Siobhan MacMahon, 2014 (poem by Siobhan MacMahon)
In the Circus of You
Cheryl Gross, 2014 (poem by Nicelle Davis)
I Can’t Breathe (Eric Garner)
Brandon Victor Dixon and Warren Adams, 2014 (poem and performance by Daniel J. Watts)
Indefinite Animals
Martha McCollough, 2015 (poem and film by Martha McCollough)
Call for submissions: Canadian poetry films for the Envoi Poetry Festival
Filmmaker Cecilia Araneda writes:
I am currently accepting submissions for a program of short poetry films for the Envoi Poetry Festival, to be screened in Wednesday, June 3 in Winnipeg.
New films by Canadian directors, under 20 minutes in length and which incorporate poetry or spoken word, can be considered.
Please send submissions in the form of a link in an e-mail to cecilia@ceciliaaraneda.ca, using the subject line “poetry film submission.”
In this e-mail, please also confirm the nationality of the film’s director. Finally, please do not include any attachments within your e-mail.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, March 6.
Artist fees will be paid by the Envoi Poetry Festival for selected works.
This is part of a growing trend, I think, for regular poetry festivals to include a screening of poetry films. Good to see! In this case, it appears to have been a bit of an afterthought, as the regular call-out for poets had a deadline of January 5. Cecilia Araneda is an author and filmmaker with ten short films under her belt “which have won awards and screened in festivals, curated programs and art house cinemas internationally.”
Amorosa Anticipación / Anticipation of Love by Jorge Luis Borges
This nearly 14-minute videopoem was conceived, shot and edited by Sva Li Levy, AKA syncopath. Initially I wondered how it was going to hold my attention for so long, especially considering that Borges’ original poem is fairly short, but I needn’t have worried: I found it mesmerizing, a brilliant concept beautifully executed. How better, indeed, to anticipate love than by going through a soapy car-wash, Coltrane’s “Love Supreme” playing on the radio? And then playing around with the radio dial and finding Borges’ poem mysteriously transmitted in different languages: Hebrew (read by Yitzhak Hyzkia), Spanish (Julio Martinez Mezansa), English (Yonatan Kunda, reading the Alastair Reid translation), Portuguese (Martha Rieger) and French (Ravit Hanan).
Including the text of a poem in the soundtrack of a poetry film or videopoem has by now become so standard a move that I think I’ve been hungry for a new twist. And Levy’s treatment feels right in part because the poem could so easily be made to seem sententious, and instead he brings out the undercurrent of humor and the provisional quality found in so much of Borges’ writing.
Erica Goss: Video Poetry Summer Camp for Girls & San Francisco Writers Conference
I hope to light some creative fires this summer at Media Poetry Studio, a camp for teenaged girls I’m running with David Perez, the Poet Laureate of Santa Clara County, and Jennifer Swanton Brown, the Poet Laureate of Cupertino. Here’s the video from our IndieGoGo campaign:
Getting girls to participate more fully in technology and expressive writing
The camp is the result of a brainstorm between David Perez and me. I ran a poetry-writing summer camp in 2013 in San Jose, and I wanted to do something like that again, but with video poetry. I was aware that Alastair Cook and Marc Neys had taught video poetry to children, with very successful results. Since I’ve taught mostly teens, I imagined a camp for students of that age group. David took it a step further: why not run a camp for teen girls? It would combine art, writing and technology, and serve an audience that might otherwise not have this kind of experience.
Studies show that girls generally outperform boys academically until middle school, when they fall behind. This is exactly the same time that boys leap ahead of girls, exploring, taking risks, and experimenting with technology. We wanted to do something about that, using video poetry as our medium. Video poetry, a blend of art, writing, and technology, will teach our students many new skills: filming, photography, editing, story-boarding, and how to envision their poem as visual art. They will also be able to share the films they make with their friends and family.
The three of us have worked extensively in teaching, writing and performance to students in middle and high schools. David is also a filmmaker and photographer, and has made his own video poems. (As the columnist for The Third Form, I’ve watched hundreds of video poems, and commented on many, but I’ll be teaching poetry.) Jennifer Gigantino will teach video editing, videography and special effects. Jennifer Swanton Brown, co-founder and Poet Laureate of Cupertino, has worked in the classroom teaching poetry to children since 2000 as part of California Poets in the Schools, a 50-year-old arts organization. We also have spoken-word poet Kim Johnson on board, a performer and youth poetry instructor.
We aim to get our students out shooting film and taking pictures on the first day. Our curriculum will be mostly hands-on, with demonstration and guidance from our staff. We’ll have the girls create video-haikus to start, and then longer works as they gain skill and confidence. They will be engaged in a course of study that will encourage them to participate more fully in technology and expressive writing.
When poets see video poems for the first time
Technology and expressive writing were evident on February 13, 2015, when I participated in a panel titled “Powering Up Your Poetry with Film” at the 2015 San Francisco Writers Conference. Among panel sessions with titles such as “The World of Romance Fiction” and “The Elements of Killer Thrillers,” a group of poets gave the outsider art of poetry film their full attention. I was one of three panelists. The other two, poets Joan Gelfand and Chris Cole, are well-known in the Bay Area arts scene, as is our moderator, Rebecca Foust.
Although we did not prepare as a group beforehand, Joan, Chris and I agreed to introduce our work with little explanation, letting the films speak for themselves. It’s fairly difficult to describe video poetry to someone who has never seen it before. It’s better to just show the film and answer questions later, allowing the first-time viewer his or her own discovery. And that’s how we ran the panel: a short intro, the films, and then an extended Q&A.
Chris Cole made several short films, which he calls “journal entries,” as complements to his novel, the speed at which I travel. He used still shots, his own and public domain images, combining them with narration to create highly watchable, well-edited visual collages:
http://youtu.be/hZR64UwX5WA
http://youtu.be/MhJZCPA-t_4
Joan Gelfand’s video was based on her poem, “The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics,” a poem from her 2014 book, The Long Blue Room. It is not ready for release yet, but Joan promised that it’s coming soon. A Hollywood filmmaker created the video for Joan, and it’s a compelling blend of images, both moving and still, and sound.
I showed the video poem “Arrhythmia,” which Swoon made using my poem, some film I shot of my son drawing, and Michael Dickes’ narration:
The audience for the panel leaned forward in their seats, clearly impressed and—as Rebecca, our moderator stated—“intruded upon.” In general, when poets see video poems for the first time, they are both amazed and empowered: amazed because they’ve never seen anything like a video poem before, and empowered because they immediately want to make their own (or have someone make one for them). That’s how I felt the first time I stumbled across Moving Poems a few years ago, and I recognized the combination of excitement and enthusiasm that sparks creativity.
Lilies of the Field by Laura M Kaminski
Australian artist Marie Craven‘s video remix of a poem from The Poetry Storehouse by Missouri-based poet Laura M Kaminski. Craven recently blogged some process notes on three films she’s made with Kaminski’s poems, including this one:
I met Laura on social media after the first video, and our mutual membership of the Pool creative group put us in more contact after that. I sent her a message about making something new with her writing, and asked if she would be interested in responding in poetry to four pieces of royalty-free video footage I had found at VideoBlocks. She was interested in a continued collaboration and willing to write a new poem. But her first response to the images I sent was that they reminded her of a poem she had already written, ‘Lilies of the Field’. I loved the poem, agreed there was a fit, and so went to work. I decided text on screen might be the way to go for this video. To that end, I rearranged the line breaks in the poem to better suit the screen, which Laura welcomed in the final result. In response to the poem, I also found additional video images to go with the original ones I had sent Laura. One of these – the road at night shot – is by videographer, Gene Cornelius in Alaska, whose fantastic videography is featured in some of my previous videopoems. The music in the video is Slow Blizzard by Clutter (aka Shaun Blezard in Cumbria, UK). Shaun and I have been in online contact on and off for several years and this is a track I’ve loved since I first heard it in about 2010. Once the video was completed, I contacted Nic S. at The Poetry Storehouse to ask if she might be interested in publishing the poem and video at the site. They are both now there.
