~ 2022 ~
The Greatest Poem by Philippa Hughes
“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.”
– Walt Whitman
The Greatest Poem is a project involving many collaborators. At the heart of it is a spirited and uplifting poem by Philippa Hughes. The film-making is a composite of many short animated pieces by different artists, brought together into a consistent whole by Elyse Kelly. A statement about the film:
“The Greatest Poem” is inspired by the words of Walt Whitman who believed that the power of poetry and democracy are derived from their capacity to make a unified whole from diverse and sometimes contradictory parts. In this spirit of diversity and unity, the film was made into a beautiful whole by a team of 20+ artists, from around the U.S. and world, posed around the question “What does it mean to be American?” – source
FULL CREDITS:
Writer: Philippa Hughes
Director: Elyse Kelly
Voice: Raechel Wong
Music & sound design: Cathead Noise & The Lunar Year
Sequence Directors (in order of appearance): Rohan McDonald, Nazli Cem, Zoë Soriano, Eric Larson, Catalina Matamoros, Cynthia Chu, Yoon Su Lee, Nijah Brown, Sofia Diaz, Mithra Krishnan, Jackson Ammenheuser, Megan Jedrysiak, Matea Losenegger, Angela Hsieh, Ana Mouyis, Sara Spink, Selina Donahue, Dena Springer, Dorca Musseb.
Additional design: Darren Enterline
The project was commissioned by Arena Stage in Washington D.C.
The More Loving One by W. H. Auden
Auden’s poem animated by Taiwanese filmmaker Liang-Hsin Huang for The Universe in Verse, “A project by Maria Popova in partnership with On Being“. Here’s Popova’s post introducing the new video. A snippet:
In what may be the single most poignant one-word alteration in the history of our species, [Auden] changed the final line of the penultimate stanza to reflect his war-annealed recognition that entropy dominates all. The original version read: “We must love one another or die” — an impassioned plea for compassion as a moral imperative, the withholding of which assures the destruction of life. But the plea had gone unanswered and eighty million lives had gone unsaved. Auden came to feel that his reach for poetic truth had been rendered “a damned lie,” later lamenting that however our ideals and idealisms may play out, “we must die anyway.”
A decade of disquiet after the end of the war, he changed the line to read: “We must love one another and die.”
The reading is by Janna Levin, and Garth Stevenson composed the music.
Աշնանացան / Autumn Sowing by Anahit Hayrapetyan
Let me turn into a song and spread in your wilderness
Let me turn into a ray of sun and by diffused in your light
Let me turn into a seed and sprout in your fields…
Moving Poems’ first film from Armenia is part videopoem, part documentary of an installation. Poet Anahit Hayrapetyan‘s lines are first shown on screen then incorporated line by line as white flags planted in a scarified landscape of furrowed fields and eroded pastureland, making a powerful statement about how land is claimed and occupied. Only in the final words is the poem’s political agenda revealed: “beloved Artsakh.”
Both installation and film are credited to Maïda Chavak and Naïri Khatchadourian, with Narek Harutyunyan as cinematographer, typography by Sargis Antonian and editing by Nina Khachatryan. The music was composed by Miqayel Voskanyan with Rafik Avagyan on blul (a type of flute). Together, they call themselves the AHA Collective. Autumn Sowing is the third part of a triptych called Hanging Garden, and is probably best seen in that context, as part of an exhibition including “objects of memory, traces of an act of emergency, historical sources of a heritage site with a status left hanging.”
[T]here is an urge to reinvent how mankind inhabits territory and heritage and what new forms can be taken by one’s sense of belonging to one’s land and language. The third space showcases such a short film and an educational program for all to practice the art of typography through wooden stamps, to write by hand to inscribe a permanent imprint.
Call for work: International Migration and Environmental Film Festival, Toronto, Canada
Still time to submit to the International Migration and Environmental Film Festival (IMEFF) – a not-for-profit cultural organization, that raises awareness about migration and environmental issues. They say that:
“IMEFF is dedicated to presenting the best of international film, documentary, photo and artwork that captures migration, trafficking, refugees, pollution, habitat loss, climate change, to educate, entertain, inform and encourage conversations, provokes debate about changes, innovation, sustainability and how to make the world a better place for every creature.”
The event takes place 10-16 October 2022 in Toronto, and last date for entries via FilmFreeway is on 31st August. There are a range of categories for entry in the festival, but includes a specific poetry category.
What Day, from “West: A Translation” by Paisley Rekdal
Salt Lake City-based filmmaker Jennilyn Merten collaborated with Utah’s former poet laureate, Paisely Rekdal, on an online video installation for Rekdal’s cycle of poems West: A Translation,
a linked collection of poems that respond to a Chinese elegy carved into the walls of the Angel Island Immigration Station where Chinese migrants to the United States were detained. “West” translates this elegy character by character through the lens of Chinese and other transcontinental railroad workers’ histories, and through the railroad’s cultural impact on America.
West connects the completion of the transcontinental railroad with another significant American historical event: the Chinese Exclusion Act, which passed thirteen years after the first transcontinental’s completion.
This is What Day, which was also featured at Terrain.org. It’s the one that works best as a stand-alone film, in my opinion. Rekdal also has a 20-minute video on YouTube of her reading from the collection.
West: A Translation is slated for publication in book form by Copper Canyon Press in May 2023.
Every Word I Say to You by Paloma Sierra
Every Word I Say to You is a simple yet deeply touching piece by Paloma Sierra, a Puerto Rican writer, translator and film-maker. She describes the video:
The poem is inspired by my family’s experience living with Alzheimer’s. Since my grandmother’s diagnosis in 2015, my father and his siblings have dedicated themselves to ensuring my grandmother receives all the love and care she deserves. This poem is for them, my grandmother, and the many families who are living with Alzheimer’s.
Designer Supawat Vitoorapakorn, in Queensland, Australia, is credited with animation for the video. Music is by US composer, Andrew Abrahamsen.
It received funding from by City of Asylum in Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry.
Gran mosaico / Large mosaic by Juan Manuel González Zapatero
A brand new videopoem by Dutch artist Pat van Boeckel, who was in northern Spain for an installation with Karin van der Molen at EspacioArteVACA. For this videopoem, he used footage from the installation and collaborated with Spanish poet Juan Manuel González Zapatero. The text resonates with the theme of the installation; here’s what Google Translate makes of the opening paragraphs from Pat and Karin’s joint artist statement:
Can two plus two add up to five? Are there mysterious tools at our fingertips to help us change the course of the world? Can walls tell us stories?
The Dutch couple of artists formed by Karin van der Molen and Patrick van Boeckel try to liberate history and the future from its linear course with their exhibition project at EspacioArteVACA. The vernacular stables of the once self-sufficient mountain mansion located in Viniegra de Abajo invite you to create a poetic dialogue with the history of the place.
Documentary filmmaker and video artist Patrick van Boeckel breathes new life into everyday objects with subtle video interventions. Faces emerging from soapy waters or disappearing behind veils of mourning. A horse that seems to snort behind the blurry bars of his trough. Slaughter pieces that seem to rock on the sea. A wedding dress hangs in the old municipal laundry; the bride’s gloves still dripping onto the water. What will happen to him for the rest of his life? These small installations do not configure a closed history. They are simple ingredients of an amalgam with possible meanings that each visitor must compose.
There’s also a version without English subtitles. The music is by Erland Cooper.
Thoughts on Poetry & Image Symposium at MERL, Reading, UK
A month ago, in June 2022, I attended ‘Poetry & Image: a symposium’ held at the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) in Reading, UK. The event is a collaboration between the University of Reading and Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre with talks, poetry readings and discussions. It was jointly hosted by the equally welcoming Professor Steven Matthews (Reading) and Dr Niall Munro (Oxford Brookes). I attended because: a) it’s local for me, b) it’s free and c) who doesn’t still want to take every opportunity to do something in person again?
This event is coming very much from the point of view of poets and writers, so I wasn’t initially going to write anything about the event for Moving Poems. However, looking back over my notes a month later, I realised that there was one very interesting thing that I wanted to share. A common thread that ran through the presentations and discussions throughout the day was the extent to which writers are mystified by, or in awe of, images and artists. In the case of ekphrastic writing a big worry was how can a poet possibly do justice to the image/sculpture/artwork of an artist?
My response, in conversation with Niall Munro, was how all those thoughts happen the other way around as well. As a filmmaker I am thinking about how can I create something in images and am worrying about what the poet might make of what I’ve done and how dare I mess around with their work. I pass this on here because I imagine that it might help many filmmakers to realise that the poets are just as intimidated by us as image-makers as we might be by them as wordsmiths. Once we get past our fears, and in collaboration, we can create some very exciting things.
And lastly – I forget exactly how this poem was introduced on the day, but I encourage you to read ‘Why I am Not a Painter by Frank O’Hara’ As creatives we are different, but also so much the same.
Call for work: World Poetry Slam Championship – Brussels, Belgium
A big poetry slam championship is announcing that they are looking for poetry films to showcase alongside the poetry slam which takes place in Brussels, Belgium from the 26th to the 29th of September 2022. It sounds as if they are exploring a variety of ways to screen films alongside the live event in Brussels.
“… we are going to collaborate with one of the most beautiful libraries in Brussels, Muntpunt, where we will have most of our side activities and a box for projections where people can enter and watch video poetry and spoken word video performances from around the world. We also collaborate with Cine Ritcs where we will screenplay the documentaries and some of the videos selected. Moreover, we will have various points in our venues with small screens where people will be able to stop and watch the videos selected. We are still looking for more spaces to project these videos.”
More details on their website https://www.worldpoetryslam.org/open-call-video-poetry
And on the FilmFreeway submission page https://filmfreeway.com/WorldPoetrySlamChampionship
Deadline is 10th August for films of 7 minutes or less, but really important to note is the requirement for subtitles for inclusivity:
“All films should be subtitled either in English, or Dutch or French or Spanish. The film can be in any language as long as there are subtitles in one of these languages. Even the videos in English should have subtitles, as this is an inclusive festival.”
Lac du Saint Sacrament by Marilyn McCabe
Some delicious-looking wintry images in this collaboration between videopoet Marilyn McCabe and photographer Dan Scott. It was featured last February in Atticus Review, with this artist statement:
Photographer Dan Scott and poet Marilyn McCabe are old friends who share an obsession with beautiful Lake George (once known as Lac du Saint Sacrament) in upstate New York, their old stomping ground. With this collaboration, they built on each other’s visions and creative exploration. For more on Dan’s art: https://www.danscott-photography.com/ For more on Marilyn’s poetry and video: MarilynOnaRoll.wordpress.com
