Posts By Dave Bonta
Nothing as Quiet as a House by Sarah Hymas
This film by Maya Chowdhry is “a lyrical exploration of a poem by Sarah Hymas.” The voiceover is by Beth Allen, and the director of photography is Mark Rickitt. For more of Sarah Hymas’ writing, visit her blog Echo Soundings.
Uite cum ne mai rotunjim / See how we complete ourselves by Doina Ioanid
Marc Neys (A.K.A. Swoon) writes in a blog post about this video that it grew out of a face-to-face meeting with the author, Romanian poet Doina Ioanid, at the Felix Poetry Festival in Antwerp earlier this year.
After the festival I asked her and her translator Jan Mysjkin if I could make a video for one of my favourites of her performance […] The images of this piece were taken from ‘Lost landscapes of Detroit’ (Prelinger Archives) and I re-edited them, adding an extra layer of colour and light.
The result is a short (moody) piece.
The reading is by the author, the English translation is by Jan H. Mysjkin, and there are two other versions, one with Dutch titling and one with French.
To me, the ability to present a poem in multiple languages is one of the best and most under-appreciated uses for videopoetry/filmpoetry, which is itself already something of a translation. I’ve always loved bilingual editions of poetry with the original language on the facing page, but it’s so much better to be able to hear the original while seeing an English version, the two linked and in some ways brought closer together by a filmmaker’s vision (usually including a good soundtrack, as here).
Ice Hotel by Gaia Holmes
James Starkie directs. “Created as part of a collaboration between Bokeh Yeah! and Comma Press, based on a poem by Gaia Holmes.”
Take Me to the City by Lucy English
A film by Jon Conway of immprint graphic design, who notes [in a description for a version of the film at Vimeo, subsequently removed]:
The poem, to me is a description of memories of a ‘City.’ As I read I felt as though the poet was conversing directly with me about her experiences. I tried to visualise what I saw, and how the words themselves impacted the poem. By combining colours, imagery, typography and audio spectrums, the piece reacts with the words of the poem, creating new colours, and visuals. I like to think that what the piece looks like is similar to the imagery our mind creates when we listen to a story for the first time.
Performance poet and novelist Lucy English, a Reader in Creative Writing at Bath-Spa University, is co-organizer of the Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival.
Poem (“The spirit/ likes to dress up like this”) by Mary Oliver
Directed by Chloe Stites; shot and edited by Travis Stewart. According to the credits, this was made for “a special presentation by Denise Stewart at Bay Arts” — I’m guessing July’s show “The Dress Says It All“: “Women artists give tribute to ‘the dress’ in works of art that come alive through words of their own.”
How to replace a video at Vimeo without changing the link
In the past two days, two different filmmakers have contacted me to let me know that they’ve changed the Vimeo links for their films in the Moving Poems archive. On the one hand, I’m grateful to them for letting me know. I do sometimes comb the archives here for dead links, but not nearly often enough, and I appreciate hearing from users of the site when a video has disappeared. On the other hand, they wouldn’t have needed to switch URLs just to replace the video with a new version; they could’ve simply swapped in a new file. This is actually one of Vimeo’s most under-appreciated killer features, in my opinion. (And the fact that you can’t do this at YouTube is a good reason not to use it.) From the FAQs:
Can I replace a video and keep the URL, Stats, comments, etc?
You sure can!
From your video page, click Settings below the video player. From there, head to the Video File tab and click “Replace this video.” This allows you to upload a new video file while keeping the video URL, comments, Stats, likes, tags, and all the other information associated with the video.
During the replacement process, the original video will remain viewable while the new one is uploaded. Once the replacement video finishes uploading and begins conversion, the original video will no longer be viewable, and will soon be replaced.
So there will be just a short time during which the video isn’t viewable (a few minutes if you have a Plus or Pro account, longer if you have a free account and are uploading during a busy time of the day).
Poetry film festivals and screenings in October
October is definitely the biggest month on the calendar for fans of videopoetry/filmpoetry, cinepoetry and animated poetry, with at least six seven major events on both sides of the Atlantic. Here’s a brief rundown:
Canada
- Vancouver, Oct. 12: Visible Verse 2013 Festival
“The 2013 festival will be selected from more than 200 entries received from artists around the world. As well, we are happy to host Colorado poet and filmmaker R.W. Perkins, who will give an artist’s talk on video poetry and filmmaking.”
Ireland
- Cork, October 16-20: Ó Bhéal at IndieCork
“This is Ó Bhéal’s fourth year of screening poetry-films (or video-poems), and the first year featuring a competition.” Deadline: September 15
Italy
- Rome, October 24-25: 4th DOCtorCLIP Roma Poetry Film Festival
“An international jury will select a winner of the Doctorclip Award, including a cash prize, from among the ten selected videos of the contest.”
Lithuania
- Vilnius, Oct. 9-13: International Festival of Audiovisual and Experimental Poetry (TARP)
“Get ready for new forms of poetry, ajust your sensibility and get into wildness of poetry this year!” It will include a videopoetry workshop by Marc Neys (Swoon).
U.K.
- London, Oct. 3: National Poetry Day Live at the Southbank Centre
“Several new Poetry Society commissions will also premiere at National Poetry Day Live: a new film-poem by Alice Oswald and Chana Dubinski explores water’s most transient states; while poets including Liz Berry and Ian McMillan have travelled the nation’s canal network with film-maker Alastair Cook.” - Bristol, Oct. 3: Liberated Words at Bristol Poetry Festival
“We already have a fantastic line up of international screenings – including Maciej Piatek’s ‘Words’ from the poems of Polish immigrants, making us look twice at how we live our lives in Britain.”
U.S.
- Minneapolis, Oct. 19: Co-Kisser Annual Poetry-Film Festival at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design
“The mission for the fest is to see how poets and filmmakers are defining the genre of poetry-films and to challenge and be inspired by any and all of these definitions.”
When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl by M.C. Biegner
A gently surreal, subversive and affecting film by Jim Haverkamp, with narration adapted and lightly condensed from a prose poem by M.C. Biegner. Here’s how Haverkamp describes it on the front page of his website:
Not your typical History Channel biography, When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl tells the startling, unuttered truth about America’s good gray poet. Starting out as an ordinary nine year old girl, Walt is soon catapulted into the world with her senses ablaze.
Based on a prose poem by M.C. Biegner, the film mixes drama, dance, puppetry, and oddball humor to portray the world through the eyes of a ‘sensitive kid.’ Walt awakens to the mysteries and wonder of nature, leaves her home to seek fame and adventure, is plunged into the horror of war, and finally begins to understand the unspoken poetry of childhood.
In addition to winning a raft of film festival awards, it was featured in the Summer/Fall 2013 issue of TriQuarterly.
Shaking Shells by the Filmpoem Workshop children
http://vimeo.com/84670018
I was privileged to watch the unveiling of this videopoem last month in Dunbar, immediately following its creation:
Shaking Shells is a Filmpoem Workshop film, made in a period of three hours with five children, the amazing children’s writer and poet Emily Dodd, composer Luca Nasciuti and artist Alastair Cook directing, filming and editing. This is part of the incredible new Filmpoem Festival, which was held at Dunbar Town House on 3rd and 4th August this year.
Emily Dodd goes into much more detail about the process on her blog:
Last month I led a 3-hour Filmpoem workshop with five children aged between five and ten as part of the first UK Filmpoem Festival in Dunbar.
The workshop started with exercises and games to get the children thinking like poets (I wrote a bit about it here). Then we spent the second half of the workshop writing a group poem on a poetry walk.
Each section of the walk involved a different poetry challenge and at the next stop we heard the results of the last challenge and I set the next challenge. For example when you’re walking:
- Explore the wall, touch it, smell it, describe it
- What sounds do you notice? Describe them
- Find your favourite object on the beach, if you find a better one, swap it. Describe it.
Each child worked independently during the challenge but we came together in a circle at the end of each challenge and each contributed one line to the poem.
[…]
During the walk artist Alastair Cook was capturing film and composer Luca Nasciuti recorded sounds. When we were down on the beach Donald (5) was in the process of finding his favourite object when he made a discovery….
“I’ve found a sound for the film!” he shouted. He was sitting down with a handful of mussel shells in his hands and he shook them to show me. He tipped his ear towards the shells again to make sure they sounded right. “That’s brilliant Donald” I said. “Let’s show Luca so he can record it” and I called Luca over and Donald shook his shells again.
Do click through and read the rest.
Four Years From Now, Walking With My Daughter by Stevie Ronnie
This animated film by Liam Owen for a poem by Stevie Ronnie has been shortlisted in the 2013 DepicT! award at Encounters Short Film Festival in Bristol.
