The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Scalia’s Poetry Slam”
View on Vimeo or at Daily Kos (which includes the text of the found poem).
Scalia’s Poetry Slam
Animation by Mark Flore
2015
For many years I made a living poking fun at people. And why not? There was money to be made and I was good at it. I’m still pretty good at it but now I’m a bit more reluctant to parade my sarcasm and wit for fear of backlash. There are those who misinterpret humor, sarcasm, satire, etc., but as the saying goes, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.
That being said, this week’s (bi-monthly) review is an animation that pokes fun at Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia—as well as the poetry community. The creator Mark Flore takes a political stand and combines it with slam poetry. The result is hilarious.
Scalia’s Poetry Slam is well done, unpretentious and fun. It reminds me of how unassuming animation on TV used to be when I was a kid. Aside from the process being labor intensive (artists would hand-draw every movement), I assume there was a time factor involved as well. The cartoons were created for network television and clients can be demanding. The artists had to get the message across using a minimal amount of movement. This applied to some animation houses but not all (Disney had larger teams and produced multiple projects). Much like the cartoons of yesteryear, this one gets the point across without all the bells and whistles. I like to compare it to the style of humor in a New Yorker cartoon: it’s the old less-is-more theory. The piece relies on simplicity to carry the joke. Scalia’s Poetry Slam does a good job in embracing irony and helps put a smile on one’s face, reminding us not to take ourselves too seriously.
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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.”
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