Posts By Dave Bonta
Lunch Poem by Tracey K. Smith
Andrew Kamp claims this is the first video he ever made — seems hard to believe. Tracey K. Smith appears to have let her website’s domain expire, but there’s a good selection of her poems at the audio poetry site From the Fishouse. (Hat-tip: Cloudy Day Art)
Poem by e. e. cummings (“Buffalo Bill’s defunct”)
“An e.e. cummings poem I interpreted for my film production class. Shot on a dvx100b. Cut on Final Cut Pro,” says Jean-Paul Huang. Somewhat melodramatic, but so’s the poem. (An animation of the same poem by a different filmmaker that I posted a couple months ago has been removed from Vimeo.)
Lullaby by Anne Sexton
http://www.vimeo.com/8540818
Filmmaker TJ ODonnell says, “I added some effects to the soundtrack (whales) to further the feeling that one was slipping slowly under water.” I like the classical piano here, too, which is unusual — many times I’ve decided not to post an otherwise pretty good videopoem because of just such a soundtrack.
Hunter’s Green by Lauren Eddy
Though I’ve seen online documentaries about erasure poetry, this is the first videopoem I’ve seen that actually uses the technique as part of a stop-motion animation. It’s the result of a collaboration between the poet, Lauren Eddy and the animator and sound editor, Anne Duquennois, which Eddy clarified via email:
We came up with the concept and various visual aspects of the film together, and the animation was a collaborative process, so we credited the film with both of us as “co-creators.” The idea was to use film as a medium for commentary on the processual nature of erasure poetry and collage. We were inspired by the ways that one medium can re-interpret and re-invent another.
Anne’s production company is Broken Bike Productions — no website yet, but the address is brokenbikeproductions [at] gmail [dot] com.
La Plage by Jane McKie
Another film by Alastair Cook for the This Collection project of 100 videopoems about Edinburgh. I found the soundtrack particularly effective.
Old Astronauts by Tim Nolan
Emma Burghardt is the animator; the voice is the poet’s. Another fine production from MotionPoems.com.
Bujías/Lightbulbs by Pedro Salinas
A charming interpretation, directed and produced by Mike Movido and Hannah Kultgen in the fullest sense: Kultgen also did the translation, Movido did the music, and it’s their voices reading the poem in the soundtrack. Molvido says,
This is quite possibly my favorite video project that I did in college. The assignment was to choose a poem to interpret visually, but not literally. BREC 4275 – Advanced Production and Direction class at Marquette University.
The Threatened One, by Jorge Luis Borges
A nicely non-literal animation of the poem by Latvian filmaker Signe Baumane, from 1999. It won Silver at Worldfest – Houston Film Festival 2000, the Robbie Burns Award at Cin(e) Poetry Festival 2000, and a Jury Award at the 34th New York Exposition of Short Film and Video 2000, according to Baumane’s website. Here’s the Spanish text.
Genius by Hal Sirowitz
Produced by The Center for International Education. I’m assuming it’s by this Robert Fones, a Canadian visual artist. The poem is from Sirowitz’ best-selling book Mother Said, which I reviewed three weeks ago.
Liebhaber in allen Gestalten/Lover in All Forms by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The last two stanzas of Goethe’s poem get the silent movie treatment from some guy named Dave at Apeiron Films. The complete text, and an English translation by Emily Ezust, may be read at The Leid and Arts Songs Text Page. Here’s the portion that appears in the video:
If I were all that,
I would not begrudge you;
with princely gifts,
you should have me.
If I were all that,
I would not begrudge you.But I am just as I am;
and take me for that!
If you want something better,
then let them carve it out of you.
For I am just as I am;
and take me for that.
Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
I like the gritty take on Oliver’s most famous poem. I’m sure this won’t be the last filmic word on it, but there are so many ways this could’ve been done wrong — I’m glad Justin DeWaard steered clear of them.
Shot with a Canon 7D and edited on Final Cut. HD was lost in the compression. Filmed on location in Holland MI and at Gyxo Studio.
