~ April 2015 ~
Parabólusetning (Parabolic Inoculation) by Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl
A film by Swoon (Marc Neys) for a piece by the Icelandic poet Eiríkur Örn Norðdahl, the first of three (so far) in what Neys calls “my ‘videopoem journey’ along the Northern countries.” Norðdahl himself is no stranger to videopoetry, having made the wonderful Höpöhöpö Böks a few years back. He’s also a great reader/performer, so it’s no surprise that Neys used his reading of the text from Lyrikline in the soundtrack. The English translation, also from Lyrikline, is by Jonas Moody.
Neys posted some process notes to his blog. He says he wanted to try “a combination of a film composition with text on screen and a ‘regular videopoem’ with audible poetry.”
I had two distinctive parts in mind for the video;
A film composition (with text on screen) at slow pace
with the hectic and almost frantic reading combined with a whirlpool of images in the middle.
It occurs to me on second viewing that the highly symmetrical structure of the video mirrors the shape of the poem on the page, where every line is centered and where the final lines come back to a similar image as the opening ones, parabola-like.
Sonnet 58 by William Shakespeare
Mary Ann Walsh shines as a bartender with attitude in this spoken-word interpretation of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 58. Directed by Olivier Bertin for The Sonnet Project, where the film’s page notes the poem’s intended subject: “an emotionally enslaved lover, the object of his affections behaving wantonly while he quietly suffers, unquestioning.” But the best thing about the Sonnet Project films I’ve watched so far is the freedom with which the directors have reinterpreted the texts.
And of course the specific New York location always co-stars in the film. This time it’s the White Horse Tavern in Manhattan. As the webpage puts it,
The White Horse is perhaps most famous as the place where Dylan Thomas drank heavily, returned to the Chelsea Hotel, became ill, and died a few days later of unrelated causes. Other famous patrons include James Baldwin, Bob Dylan, Richard Farina, Norman Mailer, Jim Morrison, Delmore Schwartz, Hunter S. Thompson, and Mary Travers.
Another of the White Horse’s famous patrons is Jack Kerouac, who was bounced from the establishment more than once. Because of this someone scrawled on the bathroom wall: “JACK GO HOME!” At that time, Kerouac was staying in an apartment in the building located on the northwest corner of West 11th St.
About the same time, the White Horse was a gathering-place for labor members and organizers and socialists, as well. The Catholic Workers hung out here and the idea for the Village Voice was discussed here. The Village Voice original offices were within blocks of the White Horse. Much of the content was discussed here by the editors, a practice we at NYSX believe would be much approved by W. Shakespeare.
Advice Dyslexic by Lisa Vihos
https://vimeo.com/126022491
Lamp the lights
and harvest the gather.
Let no unturned go stone.
A nicely minimalist video remix by Dale Wisely of a Poetry Storehouse poem by Lisa Vihos, using Nic S.’s reading in the soundtrack. The text is delightful; some of the inverted phrases make better advice than the originals. And somehow watching moving images while hearing them helped me put them together. (Though I wonder whether a dyslexic person would have the same reaction.)
Poetry-film screenings and exhibitions in May
This is everything I have a date and link for at present. (Upcoming events for PoetryFilm also include a “PoetryFilm event at The Groucho Club, London (UK)” sometime in May.)
All month (through June 7) in Taichung, Taiwan
TYPEMOTION: Type as Image in Motion exhibition.
All month (through July 5) in Montreal
Carrefour Vidéo-poétique video installation.
May 6 in Münster
Best of ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival 2014: AUSLESE. The third of three events presented by Filmwerkstatt Münster in the Palace Theatre, compiled and moderated by the ZEBRA program director Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel.
Aus den Einsendungen des ZEBRA 2014 präsentieren wir das breite Spektrum des deutschen und internationalen Poesiefilms. Krisen, Sehnsüchte, Angst, Lust und Liebe bilden eine gelungene Mischung.
May 21 in Minneapolis
Motionpoems Season 6 World Premiere.
For season 6, we’ve partnered with VIDA: Women in Literary Arts to produce a season by incredible female poets and a diverse array of amazing independent filmmakers from around the world.
We’ll premiere them for the first time on the big screen at the Walker Art Center Cinema in Minneapolis on May 21, and you’re invited.
Two screenings: 6:00pm and 8:00pm with a half-hour panel discussion taking place after the 6 pm screening. Each screening will last less than 60 minutes and will be hosted by Motionpoems Artistic Director Todd Boss. Many featured poets and filmmakers will be on hand. It’ll be a night of great poetry brought to cinematic life!
For more information (including a list of all 20 films), see the Motionpoems news page.
May 24 in Edinburgh
Filmpoem Festival Fifteen at Hidden Door.
Filmpoem Festival 15 will be an open-ended series of events and screenings. After our successful Antwerp festival in 2014, we are working this year with The Poetry Society and a series of universities and poetry festivals, presenting Filmpoem’s established mix of poetryfilm, live film performance, poets, filmmakers, and discussions.
Deadlines approach for Filmpoem Festival, ‘Bring a Poem to Life’ competition, and Rabbit Heart
Two calls for work previously announced here are closing in early May, while a third stays open until July 1, allowing a little more time for procrastinators (in whose company I proudly include myself). Those submission deadlines:
- May 1: Filmpoem Festival Fifteen
- May 5: “Bring a Poem to Life” competition for UK secondary school students
- July 1: 2015 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
In the much longer term, submissions to Carbon Culture‘s $1000 poetry film prize are open until January 1. But there’s been a little more information about it since I originally posted their call:
Zata Kitowski, director of PoetryFilm, will pick the grand prize winner and finalists. The winning entry will receive $1,000.00. The top five entries will receive high-profile placements across a number of networks, note in a one page ad alongside honorable mentions in our newsstand print and device editions. All entries are considered for sponsored entry to our list of film festivals and poetry film festivals.
And speaking of Zata Banks (née Kitowski), it’s worth pointing out that submissions to PoetryFilm never close — there’s no deadline whatsoever. Which does put us procrastinators in a bit of a bind.
Registrations open for videopoetry workshop with Swoon at Annikki Poetry Festival
From the Anniki Poetry Festival website:
A free video poetry workshop will be organized on Friday, June 5, 2015 from 9.30 AM to 4 PM. The workshop will be held by Swoon, a.k.a. Marc Neys from Belgium, who is one of the world’s most renowned video poets. Attendance is free of charge, but requires a binding advance registration. The workshop is part of the Annikki OFF program and is organized by the Annikki Poetry Festival and the Sampola library.
WorkshopThe workshop will be held in English. Attendees are asked to bring along a laptop and/or digital camera. Smart phone cameras are also allowed. While laptop computers are not obligatory, they will enable participants to engage in writing the texts for the video poems. This is a hands-on workshop that will teach participants through first-hand experiences. During the workshop day attendees will compose one finished video poem, which will be presented the next day during the international video poetry showcase at the Annikki Poetry Festival.
RegistrationPlease direct all queries and sign-ups to simo.ollila(a)gmail.com. The workshop group is limited to the first 16 participants.
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Speaking of workshops, the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in Washington, D.C. would be an ideal venue for a videopoetry workshop, I think. Check out their call for proposals (deadline: June 30).
Everything But the Sky: poems by David Tomaloff and Meg Tuite
If I post a lot of films by Marc Neys A.K.A. Swoon (while still failing to quite keep up with his output), it’s because he’s continually trying new things and not falling into a groove. This is an especially good example of that, blending two poems by two different poets, Meg Tuite and David Tomaloff, into a new whole, and taking its title from an unpublished chapbook they’ve co-authored, Everything But the Sky. It appeared at Gnarled Oak on April 10, along with some explanatory text:
Poem “No Code” & voice by David Tomaloff
Poem “I am walking beside me” by Meg TuiteEssentially, EVERYTHING BUT THE SKY explores the way that dream logic and interpretation often work in context to ordinary events taking place within our daily lives. Think of it as reverse dream interpretation–each of David Tomaloff’s poems is a dream poem whose images might have been the manifestation of the thoughts, emotions, and events that each of Meg Tuite’s flash pieces describe before it. In this way, each pair of poems is a complete set, and, likely, one could begin to see a greater narrative as one begins joining these sets. –David Tomaloff
I created a soundtrack around David’s own narration of his poem and presented that scape with a (horizontal split screen) film composition with Meg’s poem appearing as text on screen. –Swoon
Having one text appear on-screen while another is delivered via voiceover is an interesting and I think effective way to translate a collaborative poetry project into film. There are some additional process notes on Swoon’s blog, as well as the text of both poems.
Los Nadies (The Nobodies) by Eduardo Galeano
Spanish director and designer Carlos Salgado made this film for the NGO Africa Directo, evidence of the nearly universal appeal of Eduardo Galeano‘s writing. (Judging at least from my Facebook feed, Galeano’s death on April 13 occasioned much more widespread mourning than the death the same day of the Nobel prizewinner Günter Grass.) “Los Nadies” appears in Galeano’s 1989 collection El libro de los abrazos, translated by Cedric Belfrage and Mark Schafer as The Book of Embraces and described by Library Journal as a “literary scrapbook, mixing memoir, documentary, essay, and prose poem, [which] defies clear-cut genre classification.”
Salgado notes, “The project came through the agency Sra Rushmore to USER T38, which was where we did the animation and post production.” The credits given in the Vimeo description include 2D Animation: Raúl Echegaray and Alberto Sánchez; Additional 2D Animators: Rubén Fernández and Raúl Monge; 3D Artist: Alex Baqué; Compositing: Ezequiel Bluvstein, Eloy Gazol and Roi Prada; Sound: Sonomedia; and Music: José Battaglio.
This take on the poem by German animator Laura Saenger was much more simply produced (“Animation in After Effects, Music editing in Logic Pro”) but is equally beautiful and imaginative, I think.
The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “When At A Certain Party In NYC”
When At A Certain Party In NYC
Poem by Erin Belieu
Animation by Amy Schmitt
View at Motionpoems
This has to be one of the most charming video poems I have seen so far.
For starters, the animation is delightful: well stylized and flawlessly (graphically) designed. I am not usually a huge fan of Adobe Illustrator (I believe that is the program Amy Schmitt used to create the artwork for the animation), but in this case the simplicity of her art complements the poem perfectly. The speed and timing with which the graphics are deployed is seamless. The imagery doesn’t overshadow the poem but brings out the poet’s sense of humor. I could go on and on about the execution of the art, but long story short, it’s great.
The dryness of the poetry and the innocence of the art combine for a perfect fit. Our main character will never be part of the New York scene. She leaves the city not necessarily defeated, but with an acquired knowledge and awareness. It’s the realization that it’s all a bunch of bullshit, so why bother?
The message is very specific in terms of coming from a place like the Midwest and going to NYC. In other words, it’s basically a reality check. Belieu points out the pretentiousness of the whole hipster-scene phenomenon, which has gotten completely out of control. As a matter of fact, as long as I can remember, every scene has gotten out of control whether it’s the hipster regime, area- or zipcode-envy. People dream of coming to a place like New York for countless reasons. Some seek stardom and others are just looking for a more accepting lifestyle, a place to fit in. When they arrive, they either feel right at home or on another planet. I myself, a native New Yorker, ironically can relate to the Midwesterner who decides not to stay. I like to take a step back sometimes and observe the people who have come to my home town, agree to pay the high rents and act out their fantasies—which may or may not include someone like me, for of a whole slew of reasons. It is this trite behavior that Belieu has exposed and pokes fun at. Her vision makes me to laugh, and I could not agree more.
The music is great and adds to the nostalgic, late 50s-early 60s, plastic backdrop. I love this video poem. It’s superbly done on every level.
Árbol de Diana (Diana’s Tree) by Alejandra Pizarnik: three poems
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Piedras Verdes en la Casa de la Noche and Green Stones in the House of Night are Spanish and English versions of the same poetry film by Spanish director Eduardo Yagüe, which includes and responds to three poems from Alejandra Pizarnik‘s brief but epoch-making collection Árbol de Diana (Diana’s Tree). I’ve just been reading and re-reading the marvelous new translation by Yvette Siegert, which was longlisted for the 2015 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. I went back and watched this film with fresh appreciation, having read the verses Yagüe includes in their original context (where they are nos. 6, 8, and 20, with a line from no. 35 supplying the title). The translations by Luis Yagüe in Green Stones in the House of Night are serviceable enough, but if you’re not fluent in Spanish, do get Siegert’s translation to experience the whole collection in its full, luminous intensity.
No volverás / You won’t come back by Alfonsina Storni
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Spanish filmmaker Hernán Talavera‘s interpretation of a text by the great 20th-century Argentinian poet Alfonsina Storni. The description for the English version reads:
“You won’t come back” starts from a poem of Alfonsina Storni, of [her] book “Poems of love” written in 1926 immediately after an unhappy love affair. In the beginning of the book, the poet warns: “These poems are simple phrases of love states written in a few days, some time ago. This small work is neither a literary work nor claims it”. After “Poems of love”, Storni kept silence during nine years.
And here’s the same description in Spanish, from Talavera’s website:
No volverás parte del poema LXVII de Alfonsina Storni extraído de su libro Poemas de amor, escrito en 1926 a raíz de una decepción amorosa. Al inicio del libro, la poeta advierte: “Estos poemas son simples frases de estados de amor escritos en pocos días hace ya algún tiempo. No es pues tan pequeño volumen obra literaria ni lo pretende”. Después de Poemas de amor, Storni estaría nueve años en silencio.
