Posts By Dave Bonta
Trein by Astrid Haerens
Flemish poet Astrid Haerens‘ poem “Trein” in a film by American animators Annelyse Gelman and Auden Lincoln-Vogel, commissioned last year by Filmpoem and included in Deus ex Machina‘s “Filmpoem Album” DVD (which I reviewed here). Now it’s available with English subtitling.
Poet-filmmaker Rachel Eliza Griffiths interviewed at Connotation Press
The March issue of Connotation Press is out today, and with it a new Third Form column by Erica Goss. This time, she interviews a poet and multimedia artist I’ve been especially curious about, having featured several of her films at Moving Poems: Rachel Eliza Griffiths. A couple of snippets:
“Students have a more visual life nowadays. In my creative writing classes, I often have students respond to photos on their iPhones. One day they might examine their own work, and on other days they respond in writing to the photos of other students. It’s very interesting to see what they come up with.” Students write self-portrait poems using, for example, five photos as a gallery. Rachel Eliza asks them, “How does shadow work in a poem? Is it similar to shadow in a photo?”
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Rachel Eliza’s current project is P.O.P (Poets on Poetry), a project with 100 contemporary poets who read and comment on poetry, their own and others’. “I wanted videos that showed poets in a better light, quality-wise, than what you often see in archival videos on YouTube, for example. I’m happy that teachers use some of the videos as part of their lesson plans.” P.O.P includes poets such as Cornelius Eady, Tina Chang, Michael Dickman, Marilyn Nelson and Terrance Hayes.
The interview includes commentary on some embedded films. I was especially struck by Griffiths’ description of how she came to make Incident, her contribution to the #BlackPoetsSpeakOut movement. And I was excited to hear that she plans a triptych of new videos in support of her upcoming collection of poems. Check it out.
Doublebunny Press Opens Submissions for Second Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Here’s the press release:
WORCESTER, MA – Doublebunny Press announced yesterday that submissions have opened for the second Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival.
The Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival is a competition meant to highlight poetry and visual art at the intersection of film. The festival, due to take place in Worcester in October of 2015 focuses on short films that illustrate original poems, all of which are non-performance based (read: no footage of the poems being performed).
As well as a $200 prize for Best Overall Production, Rabbit Heart will be awarding $100 prizes in six other categories: Best Animated, Best Music/Sound, Best Smartphone Production, Best Under 1 Minute, Best Valentine, and the Shoots! youth prize. The gala awards ceremony and viewing party will be at Nick’s Bar in Worcester, MA on October 11th.
About Doublebunny Press
Doublebunny Press is a small independent press that serves the New England area through poetry design, layout, and production of fine books and posters. Doublebunny also supported Omnivore Magazine, a poetry and arts monthly which, during its three-year run, published poetry and articles by over 150 authors, and carried a national subscription base.
Doublebunny has a history of great spoken word events in Worcester. They combined forces with The Worcester Poets’ Asylum to present V Day to the city in 2002 and 2003, and the Individual World Poetry Slam in 2005. In 2014, Doublebunny brought the inaugural Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival to the city, and in 2015 they plan an even more exciting show for Worcester, inviting the imagination of poets and filmmakers to once again take center stage.
About Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival
Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival is one of very few outlets in the US for poetry on film, and the only festival that asks that the author of the poem participate in the making of the production. In 2014 Rabbit Heart attracted international attention, including not only European submissions, but the honor of a showcase in the CYCLOP festival in Ukraine. This year Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival has been recognized with a grant from the Worcester Arts Council. Here’s the official language: This program is administered by the Worcester Arts Council, for the Local Cultural Council – an agency supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Submissions are now open for the 2015 Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival.
To learn more about this event, please go to doublebunnypress.com/rabbit-heart-poetry-film-festival/.
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Note also this bit from the Submissions page:
We welcome international submissions! That said, please be aware that our judges are English speakers. If your poem is not in English, subtitles that are in English will help your film along.
Eggheads by John Koethe
This is Talking Points, a film by Rob Perez for Motionpoems, based on the poem “Eggheads” by John Koethe. Perez tells a separate story in the film that intersects with the text in an interesting fashion. “Citizen journalist” Will Campbell writes about the poem and the film in some bonus materials on the Motionpoems website. Here’s an excerpt:
What drew Rob Perez to work on “Eggheads” was the challenge that came with adaptation. “I was interested in the idea and challenge of lifting a poem off the page and putting it on the screen” Perez said. That meant more than simply giving face to Koethe’s words. The film’s biggest challenge came in finding a way to preserve the quality of Koethe’s language while still making a film that uplifted the poem itself.
Perez’s solution to this dilemma was ambitious to say the least: let the poem speak for itself—supported, that is, by a narrative. His film adaptation of “Eggheads” combines a cool, crisp reading of the poem with jazz-tracked footage of a couple moving through the charmed humdrum of ordinary life. Their words are muted, leaving only their actions and something like “Take Five” to tell what they’re up to while in the background “Eggheads,” read by a separate narrator, gives meaning to the pair and their everyday world.
For Perez, the challenge of the film became finding just the right amount of narrative to support the poem without overburdening it. After all, “the poem is good enough to stand alone—otherwise it wouldn’t live like that. Therefore, my job is to find a story—of moving pictures—that allow the poem to say the same thing in a new medium. The screenplay, the actors, the frame, the score, sound effects, etc. are all tools to lift the poem off the page and onto the screen.”
For Zachary by Mary Jo Balistreri
A black-and-white film by Marc Neys AKA Swoon for a poem by Mary Jo Balistreri in The Poetry Storehouse. Marc posted some process notes to his blog:
A very beautiful poem. Heartfelt.
Nic S. did a poignant reading that led to this track;The visuals for this one are a combination of footage I shot during a hiking weekend last december (moody shots of trees, reflections, shadows…) alternated with the repetition of a boy falling (carefully edited out from a very lively action video by Justin Kauffman (under the Attribution license CC BY 3.0)
I think the ‘endless’ falling of the boy works well with the rest of the footage. Creating the right atmosphere for the poem and the soundtrack. There’s some comfort in this one I think.
A reminder, for any poets who might be reading this: the deadline for submissions to The Poetry Storehouse is coming up on February 28. After that it will transition to archive mode, adding new remixes (including videos) only up through September.
After Love by Roger Reeves
https://vimeo.com/119716922
A mirrored field turns into layered images of a church interior in this new videopoem from Ruben Quesada for
A poem by Roger Reeves from his debut collection of poetry, KING ME (Copper Canyon Press, 2013).
Music: “Symphony No. 5” by Gustav Mahler
For more on Reeves, see the Poetry Foundation website. Here’s King Me.
Poetry film festival news: upcoming screenings and calls for submissions
The autumn months may be the prime time for poetry film festivals, but two festivals are hosting special screenings in early March. On March 5, UK’s Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival will be reprising many of its 2014 selections in a two-hour screening called “Reflections” at The Little Theatre Cinema in Bath, as part of the Bath Literature Festival. “First shown in September at The Arnolfini, Bristol we are now including a new film from Bath Spa University students entitled Mesmorism,” says Lucy English on the Liberated Words Facebook page, which includes the full details.
Berlin’s ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival is also on the road, but traveling a bit farther: “The Literaturwerkstatt Berlin will present the best poetry films of the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival at the German-Russian shortfilm festival ‘Vkratze!’ in Wolgograd [Volgograd]” in Russia on March 7, says Thomas Zandegiacomo Del Bel on Facebook, sharing a link to the event page. It sounds like an interesting festival over-all, “dedicated to the interaction of Germany and Russia in the field of short film as well as the involvement of young filmmakers and the audience in a diversified festival context.” The ZEBRA screening will include films from all over the world, but with a particular emphasis on Germany and Russia, as I understand it.
(The ZEBRA folks are unusually active in pursuing international screening opportunities; be sure to join their Facebook page and/or group if you want to make sure to stay informed about all of their activities. I don’t always get around to linking them here.)
Yet another Facebook page, the Filmpoem group, is my source for the next tidbit: Alastair Cook posted that
Filmpoem will be doing an open call for this year’s festival and events around the UK, opening on the 1st March and closing on the 1st May. This year we’ll do a digital as well as hard copy call, you may be relieved to hear! First event? Hidden Door in Edinburgh, home turf for once! We’re on Sunday 24th May. Get your tickets sorted, this one will be big!
See the Hidden Door website for more info on that event. And if you’re a filmmaker or videopoet, get ready to submit not only to Filmpoem but also to Rabbit Heart Poetry Film Festival in Worcester, Massachusetts. Submissions open on 27 February—next Friday—for its 2015 festival. See the Rules page for complete details. It looks as if they’ll be continuing their unique focus on poets as active filmmakers:
The work must be the submitter’s original work: the poetry must be by the submitter, and that person should be directly involved in the process of making the video. We want you to make the video, not hire someone else to make it. This is not to say that we think asking for help is a bad thing – we think teaming up is super, actually. Just, you know, respect the spirit of this thing, and don’t buy it, make it. If you’re a filmmaker making a video for a poet, you should submit together as a team. Just make sure the poet has a part in this filmy business other than just handing you the poem, natch.
Call for submissions: Canadian poetry films for the Envoi Poetry Festival
Filmmaker Cecilia Araneda writes:
I am currently accepting submissions for a program of short poetry films for the Envoi Poetry Festival, to be screened in Wednesday, June 3 in Winnipeg.
New films by Canadian directors, under 20 minutes in length and which incorporate poetry or spoken word, can be considered.
Please send submissions in the form of a link in an e-mail to cecilia@ceciliaaraneda.ca, using the subject line “poetry film submission.”
In this e-mail, please also confirm the nationality of the film’s director. Finally, please do not include any attachments within your e-mail.
The deadline for submissions is Friday, March 6.
Artist fees will be paid by the Envoi Poetry Festival for selected works.
This is part of a growing trend, I think, for regular poetry festivals to include a screening of poetry films. Good to see! In this case, it appears to have been a bit of an afterthought, as the regular call-out for poets had a deadline of January 5. Cecilia Araneda is an author and filmmaker with ten short films under her belt “which have won awards and screened in festivals, curated programs and art house cinemas internationally.”
Amorosa Anticipación / Anticipation of Love by Jorge Luis Borges
This nearly 14-minute videopoem was conceived, shot and edited by Sva Li Levy, AKA syncopath. Initially I wondered how it was going to hold my attention for so long, especially considering that Borges’ original poem is fairly short, but I needn’t have worried: I found it mesmerizing, a brilliant concept beautifully executed. How better, indeed, to anticipate love than by going through a soapy car-wash, Coltrane’s “Love Supreme” playing on the radio? And then playing around with the radio dial and finding Borges’ poem mysteriously transmitted in different languages: Hebrew (read by Yitzhak Hyzkia), Spanish (Julio Martinez Mezansa), English (Yonatan Kunda, reading the Alastair Reid translation), Portuguese (Martha Rieger) and French (Ravit Hanan).
Including the text of a poem in the soundtrack of a poetry film or videopoem has by now become so standard a move that I think I’ve been hungry for a new twist. And Levy’s treatment feels right in part because the poem could so easily be made to seem sententious, and instead he brings out the undercurrent of humor and the provisional quality found in so much of Borges’ writing.
