Posts By Dave Bonta
Flower Moon by Erica Goss
Part 5 in the 12 Moons videopoem series from Atticus Review, and the first I think I’ve managed to post on the full moon. Credits are as usual: text by Erica Goss, recitation by Nic S., music by Kathy McTavish, and concept, music and direction by Marc Neys (Swoon). I thought I recognized some of the footage in this one, and a visit to Marc’s blog confirms it: I was present when he did the filming last August, during the first Filmpoem Festival in Dunbar, Scotland. Here’s what he says:
“Flower Moon,” where Erica Goss explores the privilege and burden of her name and all of its meanings.
A name afraid of loss.
A name the color of soil.
A name that sounds like
three small cars colliding.
These lines steered me in the direction of the footage used in this video.I started to work with certain parts of that footage (shot last summer in Dunbar).
Once I had a basic montage, I awaited Nic’s reading to work on a soundscape with musical blocks provided by Kathy.I said it before and I will say it again. Cooking’s fun and easy when you have great ingredients.
First Draft by Amy Wang
An imaginative blend of graffiti-painting and performance poetry by Duke University student Chrislyn Choo, whose description at Vimeo reads:
Spoken word poem penned and performed by Amy Wang. Thank you for partnering with me to produce this final project for my film class, Amy!
Spell Against Impermanence by Kim Addonizio
Cheryl Gross’ inimitable animations accompany Kim Addonizio’s reading.
Blackbird magazine feature on 1921 poetry film Manhatta
I’ve been known to refer to the avant-garde film Manhatta by Charles Sheeler and Paul Strand, which includes lines from Walt Whitman, as the first true film poem, but that might not be entirely accurate, according to a feature on the film in the Spring 2014 issue of Blackbird.
Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler filmed Manhatta throughout 1920, after Sheeler approached Strand. The film consists of sixty-four shots, mainly of lower Manhattan, with intertitles consisting of lines (sometimes partial or revised) from the Whitman poems “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (1856) and “Sparkles from the Wheel” (1871). It is unclear if the intertitles were integral to the filmmakers’ vision or if the Rialto imposed them.
That Strand and Sheeler hoped to explore the relationship (and the threshold) between photography and film, however, is clear. Manhatta’s shots involve a still camera focused on compositions of city architecture. While the larger elements are static, movement occurs in each shot, often from steam or people miniaturized by the cityscape.
Whether or not the intertitles were part of the original conceit, Manhatta, as it has come to us, presents tensions between text and image, as well as between movement and stillness in film, and between a city’s architecture and its inhabitants.
(Emphasis added.) Another fascinating detail of the original, 1921 screening: this silent film would not have gone unaccompanied, as a contemporary newspaper account makes clear:
Hugo Riesenfeld had the orchestra play all the old favorites like “Annie Rooney,” “Sidewalks of New York,” “She May Have Seen Better Days,” “My Mother Was a Lady,” etc. Two minutes more of it and there would have been community singing—a few intrepid souls were tuning up, as it was.
The feature includes a review from 1921 by Robert Allerton Parker, as well as an embed of the film itself.
At Ruby’s diner by Sherry O’Keefe
https://vimeo.com/92974203
Montana-based poet Sherry O’Keefe has long been one of my favorite bloggers, so I was chuffed to see this video adaptation by Nic S. of one of O’Keefe’s poems in The Poetry Storehouse. She used landscape imagery and a soundtrack from a freesound.org user (Eric Hopton) to very good effect, I thought.
(If) Grief (were) Briefly (to) Disappear by Stevie Ronnie
This new collaboration between filmmaker Marc Neys (Swoon) and poet Stevie Ronnie is the result of a unique writing contest at Awkword Paper Cut, which challenged submitters to write a new poem (or re-purpose an old one) in response to footage that Neys provided. Ronnie’s winning poem was one of seven finalists chosen by a distinguished panel of seven judges. The contest results page includes some process notes from Neys:
Footage: The woman in the video is my mother, holding a bust made by my sister of my dead father. Originally, the footage was shot for a video about ‘Roots’ (Heimat). I had made shots of my mother in places that were significant in my youth – our old driveway, my favorite forest, the place I secretly smoked my first cigarette, my first school, etc.
Soundscape: It’s a re-edit of a scape I made inspired after reading James Salter’s All That Is, about an older man looking back on his life and (lost) loves.
There’s also a full-length interview with the poet. Here’s a snippet:
The words were written in direct response to Swoon’s video. I watched it several times without writing anything down at all and then lines began to appear. The poem went through several iterations before falling into its final form. My approach is such that I tend to write without putting too much thought into the intended result but it did feel important to start with the video. I was also conscious of the need to avoid being overly descriptive; to leave some slack between the video and the text for the viewer’s imagination to slip into. I can see the advantages of starting with the images and soundtrack and I’d be keen to work in this way again. I think starting with the video forces me to let go of some of the control that I would usually have when writing a poem. Because I could sense the emotional weight that the video would bring to the final piece I was layering onto that as opposed to inventing the entire world of the poem with my words alone.
Congratulations to Stevie Ronnie, to the other finalists — and to Awkword Paper Cut for a successful and well-executed outcome to this innovative contest.
شتوي Shatwi/Shitwi (Wintry) by Youssef Rakha
Mariam Ferjani’s “Screen adaptation/reinterpretation of the short poem by Youssef Rakha,” an Egyptian writer and photographer. The description on Vimeo includes a translation, which I’m guessing is by the author:
Woman wants eternity
Man wants heaven
And sometimes, not often
In the meeting of their desires
They become a cloud
And sometimes, even less often
They actually die
Before it rains
So that the world stays dry
And everything is alright
Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy
A lot of student work shows up on Vimeo this time of year, and I’m guessing that’s what this is, though you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell from the quality, which is very high indeed. Marge Piercy’s biting poem is dished out one line at a time in this videopoem by Leah Witton, who notes:
This is my final cut of the words in motion piece. The piece is based on the poem Barbie Doll by Marge Piercy and the style was inspired from Vito Acconci.
Address to the Amsterdam ReVersed Poetry Film Festival Symposium by Tom Konyves
As the founding father of videopoetry, Tom Konyves is often asked to present at conferences and symposiums, but the ReVersed Poetry Film Festival in Amsterdam last month was the first to ask him to do so with reference to his own life and works. The film that he and Alex Konyves put together in response blends theory with reminiscences of some fascinating moments in avant-garde history, and includes a number of excerpts from Tom’s videopoems, some not otherwise available on the web — which is why I decided to share this here on the main site. Tom also provided the text of his talk at my request, which we’ve posted over at the forum (with added links to the full-length versions of a few of the referenced videopoems).
My favorite part is the bit about the role of chance, illustrated by a videopoem composed using the I Ching. Echoing Louis Pasteur (“Chance favors only the prepared mind”), Konyves says:
One has to be open and prepared for chance events to occur. On a perfect summer day, I decided to bring my equipment to nearby St. Helen’s Island. I found a spot to set up and began searching for an image that in retrospect I would call having a collaborative property, or at least collaborative potential. After about an hour of shooting windsurfers, I found three sailboats floating on the water. It was like a picture postcard. Suddenly I realized that behind the sailboats and a land mass there was a large ship moving across the screen.
“Collaborative potential”: yes. The world can be like that sometimes.
Anyway, the talk is full of such stories and insights. Enjoy.
Call for entries: Liberated Words III poetry film festival
Somehow I missed this back on April 1 (I blame my feed reader), but the deadline isn’t until July 30th, so there’s plenty of time to get a submission in:
Liberated Words III poetry film festival
September 2014, Bristol Poetry Festival
Call for poetry films
MEMORY
Following the success of Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival at Bristol Poetry Festival in October 2013 festival organisers poetry filmmaker and writer Sarah Tremlett and performance poet Lucy English welcome poetry films of 3 minutes or less to be screened at Arnolfini, Bristol as part of Bristol Poetry Festival 2014 (15–21 September 2014), with a projected further two screenings at Komedia and The Little Theatre Cinema in Bath in February 2015.
Whilst still in the process of finalising the programme (including a surprise international guest) we are pleased to announce that this year, as well as welcoming our returning US music judges Rich Ferguson and Mark Wilkinson and screening the best films from Argentina and Vancouver from our partners VideoBardo and Visible Verse, some of the events we will be showcasing are: a groundbreaking poetry film from Action on Hearing Loss and the best of young local talent through a schools’ poetry film project with last year’s prize winners Helen Moore and Howard Vause – currently featuring St Gregory’s Catholic College in Bath and St Brendan’s Sixth Form College in Bristol; providing a workshop with the international poetry filmmaker Marc Neys, and supporting commemorative events for the 1914–18 war we will also be hosting a panel discussion on the legacy of Dada and Surrealism in poetry film today.
We will also be requesting submissions for two categories:
1 Open Call on the theme of Memory
2 Commemorating the anniversary of the 1914–1918 war we are also requesting poems in response to a poet of the time – to be announced.
All accepted entries will be screened and archived on Liberated Words website. We will be presenting awards for the best editing for poetic effect and best music throughout the festival.
Submission deadline 30th July 2013. Please send to l.english@bathspa.ac.uk
Entry forms
To enter your films please download and read the Rules and Regulations then download and fill in the Entry Form and Release Form and email your submission to l.english@bathspa.ac.uk
Liberated Words CIC Rules and Regulations 2014 (click to download)
Liberated Words CIC poetry film festival release form 2014 (click to download)
Liberated Words CIC open call memory entry form 2014 (click to download)
Visit the Liberated Words website for more, including examples of films screened at last year’s festival.
