Posts By Dave Bonta
Mr. Sky by Lucy English
From dawn to nightfall, the sky reflects a couple’s relationship.
(don’t forget to look for the face in the clouds)
A recent addition to Lucy English‘s Book of Hours project, this time by her collaborator at Liberated Words, Sarah Tremlett, who’s credited as photographer and director, with James Symonds as editor and music by Kevin MacLeod.
Update (30 March 2018)
Sarah sent along these process notes:
Lucy and I had two separate ideas in parallel. In terms of the visuals – I get up early and noticed the dramatic colours playing out in the winter sky. Actually a mystical orange glow appeared through the window one morning! I wanted to capture the sky at brief intervals from dawn to dusk (with a history as a painter always fascinated by changing patterns of light) and spent a day doing so. Lucy then mentioned she had a new poem – Mr Sky – which was one of those wonderful coincidences. I like to work from nature or live footage where possible and you can wait a long time for the right image to turn up, or just be too preoccupied to see it … and then you need just the right poem and soundscape!
Major competition for UK poets includes “Poetry in Film” category
It was recently brought to my attention that the Out-Spoken Prize For Poetry 2018 includes Poetry in Film among its three categories (the other two being Page Poetry and Performance Poetry).
This category is for those who wish to submit poetry films. Pieces must not exceed the ten-minute time limit and the film must include the poem either being read by a narrator or have it featured as subtitles.
Note that this contest is only open to poets residing in the UK. The deadline is March 2 and the judges are Inua Ellams, Selena Godden, Akala, Caroline Bird, and Caleb Femi. Click through for complete guidelines and a submission form.
Two poems by Hisham Bustani
Arwa’ Debaja filmed and edited this documentary-style poetry film of the Jordanian poet Hisham Bustani for the UK’s Poetry Society. Here’s their description on Vimeo, with a link added:
In this powerful film, Jordanian poet Hisham Bustani reads in Arabic his poems, ‘The Maestro’ and ‘Night’. The English translations of the poems by Thoraya El-Rayyes are shown as subtitles. The poems first appeared in the winter 2017 issue of The Poetry Review magazine from The Poetry Society, and the film was premiered at the launch of the winter issue in January 2018. Filmed and edited by Arwa’ Debaja, the project is a collaboration with The Poetry Society and Seven Mountains Media. © Hisham Bustani, Thoraya El-Rayyes, Arwa’ Debaja, Seven Mountains Media and The Poetry Society, 2017.
(I hate to preempt the Poetry Society’s possible sharing of the video on their own website, but it’s not clear whether or how often they still update their poetry film page. Last year’s National Poetry Competition filmpoems are still nowhere to be found.)
Про форму / Concerning Form by Yurii Andrukhovych
This is Love Mykolaiv if you dare (Закохайся в Миколаїв, якщо насмілишся) by Ukrainian director Angie (Anzhela) Bogachenko, featuring actors Zoryana Tarasyuta and Denis Shvetsov and a poem by the prominent Ukrainian writer Yurii Andrukhovych called “Concerning Form”, with Roman Reznik’s English translation in the subtitles. Visit Poetry Film Live for the full text and background on the film (including bios of Bogachenko and Andrukhovych). Here’s the summary:
The film introduces viewers to the architecture and the ‘peculiarities’ of life in Mykolaiv. Angie Bogachenko says: “We love our city, but over the years it loses shape. How can it be corrected? Imagine that you found a magic music box, which is able to change any of the drawbacks.”
The Fauvist In Spring by Daniel Cockrill
https://vimeo.com/40280198
Poetry by the UK performance poet Daniel Cockrill animated by Richard Jackson (Plume Animation) with music by Julian Ward. Jackson does a marvelous job of expanding and extending the images in the texts, connecting what appear to be two separate poems, and concluding with a purely visual epilogue after the credits. Uploaded to Vimeo six years ago, it came to my attention just the other week when it was shared on YouTube by Muddy Feet Poetry.
This is one of at least four animations that Cockrill and Jackson have collaborated on. I see too that both of Cockrill’s books with Burning Eye have been produced collaboratively with visual artists: Sellotaping Rain to My Cheek with the cartoonist Tony Husband, and In The Beginning Was The Word, Then A Drawing, Then More Words, Another Drawing, And So On, And So On with illustrator Damien Weighill. Very cool.
6th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens, 19-20 January: full program released
Plans have been finalized and a press release issued for the 6th International Video Poetry Festival in Athens. It will be held at the Embros self-organized theater next Friday and Saturday, and includes the work of 134 video artists, filmmakers and poets from 25 countries, five performances with 21 live poets, three DJs with four live concerts, two video installations AND a book fair! (Have you ever heard of a poetry film festival with a book fair before? Me neither, but what a great idea!)
Here’s the full, profusely illustrated press release, and I’ll paste in the most informative of their posters below. I realize this is kind of short notice for people to make travel plans, but obviously it’s hard to make long-range plans for major events happening in unofficial spaces vulnerable to state repression. I have yet to attend one of these myself, but I got a first-hand report from friends who attended last years’, and they said the screening was extremely well-attended and the audience diverse and seemingly rapt (though perhaps a little too fond of cigarette smoking). The point is there’s more than one way to organize a videopoetry or poetry film festival, and I think it’s important to pay attention to how they’re doing it in Athens. This sounds like a really dynamic, exciting event.
Film festival news note: Newlyn extends deadline to 21 February
The deadline for submissions to the Newlyn Film Festival has been extended to February 21st. (It had been January 31.) This is the festival slated for April 6-8th on the southwestern tip of England with a special category for poetry films, to be judged by Lucy English and Sarah Tremlett. The director tells me they’ve had a good response from poetry filmmakers so far, so I guess we’re not the main reason the deadline has been extended, but don’t miss your chance to be a part of this brand-new festival. Here are the guidelines.
