~ August 2018 ~
Practicing Like Water
A state of the luminal…
I recently realized filmpoetry provides an escape for me. In nearly forty years of creating I have never been one to pressure myself. My professional and personal creativity always flowed organically. Then, suddenly my creativity stopped. There was just no time, nor feeling for it. In early 2017 I was working on a large client project, going through a separation and then divorce, sold a home and moved to another state. It was overwhelming and a joyful creative outlet ended, just like that.
Shortly after I moved, I slowly began to film and photograph whenever I felt emotionally moved, curious or inspired. At times I even experimented. Then, this past February, Donna, a friend and mentor who owns a spiritual center spent a few days with me in my new home. While I was at my emotional worst, she provided support, spiritual growth and compassion. We share a love of the beach and ironically when we were together symbolic events would magically appear right in front of our eyes. A turtle circled our beach chairs, a gigantic 3-foot jellyfish came ashore and as seen in “Practicing Like Water,” an island-like sandbar appeared in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, where at least a hundred birds were peacefully hanging out. Donna walked gently through the bird oasis so as not to disturb their well-being and the birds simply moved aside with her every step forward. This went on for some time until eventually the sandbar was about to disappear and fall into the water. Suddenly the birds were spooked and flew upwards. In another scene, Donna, beautiful in a white bathing suit and hat floats like an angel. I filmed both scenes with my iPhone 6s Plus. It was the perfect tool for the spontaneity of those moments in the water. For months the experience stuck with me because I would look for the little sandbar every time I visited that particular beach, but I never saw it again.
Sometime during the summer I felt as if I needed to go back to my roots—when I first began creating filmpoetry. I listened to narrated audio for poems I saved from the now closed-down Poetry Storehouse website, a wonderful place where poets, filmmakers and remixers collaborated. The beautiful voice which first spoke to me in 2013 was also the impetus five years later which led me back to creating this piece. When I read Kate Marshall Flaherty’s poem (see below), it immediately resonated with me and I knew I had footage which would work well for the piece. Still I wasn’t ready and the printed poem sat on my desk for months.
While I hadn’t been editing projects in the past year, I was producing content. More importantly, I spent time on innerwork and participated in an online course and forum conducted by the Centre of Applied Jungian Studies in South Africa. Carl Jung’s theories are concentrated on the conscious and unconscious mind, archetypes, dreams, synchronicity and symbolism. In fact, I’ve also been keeping a dream journal and analyzing them on occasion. These are the ways in which I found my way back to my authentic self, my personal journey and living a life of joy and gratefulness. It’s all a practice, along with tools like meditation and mindfulness.
Suddenly one day in June, out of nowhere I felt compelled to organize footage for the poem and put together some sequences in a stream of consciousness manner. I knew I was missing imagery and sought some stock footage to fill in additional tone. Then I left it unfinished for at least a month. When I looked at the sequence again I was quite surprised to find that I had it in pretty good shape. The final edit took me about eight hours to complete. The original image sequences were not changed in any way. I added in stock fashion imagery from the Creative Commons and made color refinements. I didn’t labor on it, I knew exactly when it was complete. I remember wondering if I could pick up on creating quality filmpoetry where I last left off. I feel this filmpoem is consistent with my other work in the genre.
When I look back I realize I allowed myself time to absorb the poem into my unconscious mind. I saw it sitting on my desk everyday. Everything came together working with Kate Marshall Flaherty’s poem in a semi-conscious dream-like way. It’s almost as if I worked on it with my eyes closed. Ironically, when I asked Kate to add comments to this writing (she knew little about my thoughts), she replied,
I’ve always been fascinated with dreams, and I actually have several poetry dream sequences. I also give guided meditations, where we relax and go into that luminal state—that amazing threshold between sleep and waking—that place of the unconscious, of dreams and symbols. When I do my Stillpoint writing workshops, I always start with the meditation so that we can drag up some of those riches from the subconscious and alpha brain wave state and let it pour into our writing. Some will say that state is where we encounter the true self. It’s also a state biblically and throughout religious texts that angels and the divine appear.
I was floored to read what she said because of course this totally resonates with me and I didn’t know any of it when I chose the poem.
My spiritual and Jungian work certainly found its way into this filmpoem. Until I began writing this I hadn’t noticed repeated images of screen symbolism. In the beginning the screens are quite dense. Looking at it metaphorically screens are a framed construction designed to divide, conceal or protect. By the end of the piece there’s still a large lanai screen. But, notice while there is framework it is open to blue sky and clouds. There are also several images of floating mirror balls. According to Carl Jung, the sphere represents a universal symbol, one that illustrates time movement and analyzing the self. For me the poem is also memory closure and brings to light an important time in my life (when I was less conscious), which I will always remember gratefully. The dark, eerie trees and lightning were shot at night out the window of my old house, not long before I left. It is relevant metaphorically because it is the last vestige of my prior life and is the only footage from there included. The shadow side is exposed by the light and is ‘filtered’ back into the cleansing fluidity of water and openness——my life now. Donna’s smile when the birds lift away clearly illustrates “…peaceful silence dissolving into one smile like water.”
Filmpoetry has been a source of meaningful self-expression which offers me the ability to be abstract, esoteric and dream-like. I clearly appreciate what Kate says:
I wrote this particular poem after a very moving dream about an encounter with a dear old love. The dream was so vivid and the feeling so real that when I awoke I was in that luminal state—not sure if I was awake or still asleep and dreaming—and the feeling was so beautiful that I thought I had been visited by an angel or some wonderful part of myself, or perhaps the spirit of that first love. The dream left me with an incredible peaceful and radiant feeling.
That space is exactly where I was as I created the visual tone for the piece. I have an affirmation by Idil Ahmed above my desk which reads in part, “What belongs to you will effortlessly flow into your life…” Surely that is what happened here.
Practicing Like Water can be perceived in many ways. For me, it simply floated into my reality and it reminds me to keep growing. Kate wrote:
Lori’s images really capture that encounter with love and with self and with that incredible lightness of being. I think the music as well enhances the idea of calm and beauty; the lifting of birds so like a spirit taking flight.
All I can say is… thank you Kate Marshall Flaherty for arousing and inspiring my creative spirit to take flight once again.
Practicing Like Water
by Kate Marshall Flaherty
I.
Crumbs of sleep in my eye.
Dream residue.
I squeeze my lids tight,
burrow deeper
into the warm blanket-folds,
wanting to go back
where I am sharing a meal with you
at a sunny pine table.
Cascade Mountain through the glass.
No need to speak,
or hold hands,
peaceful silence dissolving
into one smile like water.
II.
The weightless feeling still fluttering
in the cage of my ribs.
Why do we waken
with such longing, sometimes?
Have we been floating with angels?
Practicing for death,
in sleep?
Are we slipping into a pool
where dream and dreamer are one?
Are we each a cup of water
poured into the sea?
Practicing Like Water by Kate Marshall Flaherty
A new film by Lori H. Ersolmaz based on a poem by Canadian poet Kate Marshall Flaherty. Click through to Vimeo for the text.
UPDATE: Read Lori’s process notes at Moving Poems Magazine.
War by Adonis
I recently bought the award-winning translation of Adonis’ Selected Poems by Khaled Mattawa and have been enjoying it immensely. A little bit of searching turned up not only the above video, but 18 more such videos, all from a 2013 documentary about the Syrian-Lebanese poet from Oogland Film Productions, Land of Absence, directed by John Albert Jansen and supported in part by Poetry International. PI have created an album on Vimeo where you can watch Adonis recite all 19 poems with Mattawa’s translations in subtitles.
Here’s the description of Land of Absence:
A journey through the eventful life of the Syrian-Lebanese writer Adonis, one of the most eminent thinkers and writers of the Arab world. In Land of Absence he talks about his life and work, about Syria, the Arab world and Islam.
The Paris based Syrian-Lebanese poet Ali Ahmed Esber (1930), better known under his pen name Adonis, is sometimes called ‘the living legend of Arab literature’. For seventy years he has been writing poetry in which Arab identity is a central theme. His unique voice and independent mind has secured him a central role in the complex and multi-faceted Arab world.
In Land of Absence Adonis, in his Paris apartment, talks about his life, about Syria, about the Arab world and Islam. In his old age he is still as lucid and sharp and obstinate as ever. But first and foremost he is a great poet, who covers not only his own land, Syria, but a whole continent. ‘From writing in Arabic, you only learn that your homeland is not a place, that it can nowhere be found,’ he writes.
The DVD is still available for order.
Call for work: 7th International Video Poetry Festival 2018
The +Institute [for Experimental Arts] and Void Network are pleased to announce that submissions are open for the 2018 International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, Greece. The annual festival will be held at the free, self-organized theatre EMBROS this winter, with the precise dates yet to be determined. Approximately 1200 people attended the festival last year.
The 7th International Video Poetry Festival will run for two days in two different zones. The first day will be the Show Room Video Poetry, a unique zone that will include video poems, visual poems, short film poems and cinematic poetry by artists from all over the world (America, Asia, Europe, Africa). The second day will be the Live Improvisation Zone with multimedia poetry readings, concerts with experimental music, and performances.
We are inviting artists – poets, video artists, directors, producers – who want to visit the festival to present their art project at the Theatre. We can provide accommodation for three days (one day before the festival, during the festival and one day afterwards).
The International Video Poetry Festival 2018 attempts to create an open public space for the creative expression of all tendencies and streams of contemporary visual poetry.
It is very important to note that this festival is a part of the counter-culture activities of Void Network and +the Institute [for Experimental Arts] and will be a non-sponsored, free entrance, non-commercial and nonprofit event. The festival will cover the costs (2000 posters, 15.000 flyers, high quality technical equipment) from the income of the bar of the festival. All the participating artists and the organizing groups will participate on a volunteer basis.
The Institute [for Experimental Arts] invites the artists and creators of video poems to participate from their side in our effort to cover the expenses of the festival without private or state sponsorship. For this reason we propose to the artists the suggested donation of 5 euros for the submission of their video poems.
Void Network began organizing multimedia poetry nights in 1990. Void Network and +the Institute [for Experimental Arts] believe that multimedia poetry nights and video poetry shows can vibrate in the heart of the metropolis, bring new audiences in contact with contemporary poetry, and open new creative dimensions for this ancient art. To achieve this, we respect the aspirations and the objectives of the artists and create high-quality, self-organized exhibition areas and show rooms. We work with professional technicians, and we offer meeting points and fields of expression for artists and people that tend to stand antagonistically to the mainstream culture.
APPLICATION FORM at Google Docs
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION: no later than November 20, 2018 (date of postmark)
HOW TO SUBMIT
1. Click here to download and complete the application form
2. Your participation is FREE. Please you can add the suggested donation of 5 Euro (or more) to the following bank account:
National Bank of Greece 04664860451 Iban GR2101100460000004664860451 Swift (BIC) ETHNGRAA
3. Please, send the submission material via email as following:
+++ via email:
your video poems in mp4 or mov file, definition (720 x 576, 1280 x 720, 1920 x 1080)
the submission form and photos in .jpg file
(all these in a single wetransfer file)
Email: theinstitutecontact [at] gmail.com
*please replace [at] with @ symbol to send email
You can use wetransfer.com or any other FREE SERVICE to send us big files.
4. It is very important to name your files (videos and still images, photos) as it is shown below:
Title of video poem
Artist’s name
Country
5. Be careful, you have to send only one email with the application form, the link to download, the video poems or the video poems archives, the still images of the video poems and any website of your art work projects
6. We recommend you add English or Greek subtitles to your video poems even if the spoken language is in English as it will be easier for people outside the English spoken world to understand it.
We recommend you send your video poems over the internet. But if you prefer, you can also mail your DVD file to the following address:
INTERNATIONAL VIDEO POETRY FESTIVAL
TASOS SAGRIS
159 KREONTOS
SEPOLIA ATHENS
GREECE 10443
Please post it no later than November 20, 2018 (date of postmark) to the International Film Poetry Festival, Athens.
+ the Institute [for Experimental Arts] will inform you about your participation in early December 2018.
In memory of Ren Hang
The 7th International Video Poetry Festival is dedicated to photographer and poet Ren Hang (1987–2017), one of the leading lights of the new generation of Chinese photographers. Ren Hang was arrested many times for his sexually explicit, joyously celebratory photography. Although he was globally renowned, he never gained the recognition he deserved in his home country, in part because he was repeatedly denied the opportunity to display his work in Beijing and throughout China. Read more about Ren Hang.
In his compositions of bodies among forestry, jungles and mountains, he intended to capture nothing more than the moment itself without attachment to political or sexual gestures. The process to create these moments, he once said, is both spontaneous and specific to the time and to the subject.
Photographic documentation of previous events
International Video Poetry Festival photos
Photos of previous poetry nights organized by Void Network and + the Institute [for Experimental Arts]:
http://voidnetwork.gr/2/5th-international-video-poetry-festival-sat
http://voidnetwork.gr/2015/10/20/speak-no-evil-poetry-even
You’re Dead, America by Danez Smith
https://vimeo.com/284108166
If you liked This is America, the Childish Gambino rap video by Hiro Murai, you’ll be riveted by this latest film from Motionpoems. Serbian-American director Jovan Todorovic‘s interpretation of a Danez Smith poem is surely one of the most searing and impactful poetry films in Motionpoems’ history. See Todorovich’s website for the full credits.
The film debuted online not at Motionpoems but at Nowness, which included this quote from the director:
America and the American dream is an emotion, and it used to be an attainable dream. This sentiment is quickly dissolving. My wish is to address this despair purely on an emotional level. This is a poetic short film that explores what has happened to the idea of the American Dream… a visceral meditation on the idea of death and decay… and finally, rebirth.
They go on to interview Todorovich “about social sickness, alienation, and poetry’s relationship to film.” It’s worth reading in full; I’ll just quote the last bit:
NOWNESS: A poem is such a mercurial, elusive thing. What was it like turning a poem into a film?
Jovan: It was an exciting and specific process for me precisely because the inspiration was a poem. Because this poem creates feelings through the juxtaposition of very sensory pictures, scenes and moments I was inspired to construct the film similarly. Rather than writing by consciously building meaning I turned to some of my dreams and built the script and scenes around what I feel about the world today. This kind of ‘open’ process of building scenes allowed me to work with all authors on the film in a way where they would have space to put their own experiences and feelings about the theme while staying in line with the emotional tone and context that I’ve initially based the scenes upon.
The poem originally appeared in Buzzfeed on November 9, 2016—the day after the election of Donald Trump—and was reprinted in Smith’s celebrated 2017 collection Don’t Call Us Dead. It’s the latest episode in Motionpoems’ Season 8, “Dear Mr. President,” which has been pretty sensational so far. Kudos all around.
The Opposites Game by Brendan Constantine
This film of Brendan Constantine‘s brilliant anti-gun poem (click through for the text) kicked off a promising new YouTube channel called Blank Verse Films, the work of L.A.-based filmmaker Mike Gioia. He described his modus operandi in an email: “I travel around filming poets, and then edit the recitations into little films.” He added,
Making the videos is much more challenging and exciting than I originally anticipated. I’m trying lots of different approaches but still don’t feel like I’ve “cracked the code” of how to film poetry. Later this month I’m going to try some experiments with dramatic reenactments of poems that will use actors who speak the lines of poetry.
Do consider subscribing to his channel and (of course) watching the other films. There’s also a Facebook page.
Dear Robot 2018 by Cecelia Chapman and Jeff Crouch
A new videopoem from Cecelia Chapman and Jeff Crouch. Chapman wrote in an email,
Dear Robot 2018 is a mail collaboration with Jeff Crouch and Diana Magallon music. A personal housebot goes rogue on an emergency disaster relief mission. Jeff and I have spent YEARS emailing each other links and articles about AI and robots and speculation about behavior.
In Between Words by Lilian Mehrel
This is the first in a projected series of City Odes directed, shot and edited by Sheldon Chau, in collaboration with poet Lilian Mehrel (herself also an award-winning filmmaker), actor Achiaa Prempeh, who helped inspire the text, and composer John Corlis. Here’s the description:
A woman looks for her place in New York City as she contemplates the meaning of the word, “home.”
The City Odes Project is a passion project in which my composer and I will collaborate with a poet and an actor to create a humanist, emotional, and visual story amidst the backdrop of a particularly city. “In Between Words” is the first of many to come, and kicks off this series in the city I currently reside in – New York City. The narrative was birthed out of an eagerness to collaborate with Achiaa, my actress, who now lives in New York and is originally from Ghana. In speaking with her, I decided to pursue a story about someone searching for home; a woman who is figuring out if NYC is the place for her, who is coming to terms that she is 5,000 miles away from her original home in West Africa, and thus easing out tensions with her mother, who of course wants her to return. The final result here features the work of Lilian Mehrel – a fellow filmmaker and classmate of mine back at NYU Grad Film school – who captures these feelings through her words, and my frequent collaborator John Corlis – an LA-based musician and composer – who complements the poetry with his mixture of piano and strings.
Please, enjoy this short poetry video and my ode to New York City.
Go to Vimeo for the complete credits and text.
