Posts By Dave Bonta
Elegy with Her Red-Tipped Fingers by Tarfia Faizullah
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owN7-06smUc
A high-quality, music video-style poetry film by poet and filmmaker Jamaal May for Organic Weapon Arts, whose chapbook series “was started with the hip-hop tradition of the mixtape in mind.” Tarfia Faizullah‘s poem may be read online in Blackbird.
The Shipwright’s Love Song by Jo Bell
A new film by Swoon, who blogged some process notes. Here’s a snippet:
Reading this poem I immediately knew (felt) what I wanted for this video.
I had images made last year (visiting old boats with Alastair Cook) in Antwerp (left screen) and earlier this year on St. Andrew’s beach (right screen)
The images were ‘tested’ on several tracks.
‘Maximum Suspicion‘ worked the best with the images, but I still needed a voice.Nic S. (still the most spot-on reader I know) was willing to participate and she provided me with a great recording almost the same day.
This is Swoon’s entry in the Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival Competition‘s “Four by Four” contest, in which filmmakers are invited to make a video of three minutes or less in response to one of four poems, “The Shipwright’s Love Song” among them. Jo Bell is — I love this — “the UK’s Canal Laureate, appointed by the Poetry Society and the Canal and River Trust.”
Monster by Chris Woods
Bob Moyler directs.
100% recycled cardboard sewn together. Monster is a short film commissioned by Comma Film as part of the Version Film Festival 2009. Based on a poem by Chris Woods.
Woods is the author of the Comma Press collection Dangerous Driving.
There Is No Word by Tony Hoagland
A poetry film by Dan Albright and Jordan Meltzer, with an original score by Meltzer. The Tony Hoagland poem originally appeared in Poetry magazine, and this video was featured recently at The Fluid Raven.
THERE IS NO WORD is the official film adaptation of Tony Hoagland’s poem of the same name that explores the subtle, impossible-to-describe experience of a good friendship changing to a mere acquaintanceship.
Here’s what Tony Hoagland has to say about the film:
“your sense of image is beautiful and intuitive, and there’s a sweet rawness to the story telling which seems brave to me; especially when talking about male friendship-so, good for you and thanks for the honor.”[…]
Made for the 2013 Evelyn Horowitz Video Poetry Competition at Emerson College, Boston, MA.
Poppies In July by Sylvia Plath
This is Little Poppies, a student work by Libby Parfitt and Paris Daley, “based on the naturalistic sculpture and black and white photography of Richard Long.”
I’m sorry but I’ve witnessed what’s under your suburban bruises by Meg Tuite
Meg Tuite reads her poem in this collaboration with Swoon (Marc Neys) for the inaugural issue of Awkword Paper Cut [auto-playing audio alert]. Marc blogged about the making of the film. A snippet:
Something in the combination of her words/voice and these sounds led me back to a movie I used in another video, FF Coppola’s ‘Dementia 13’
I picked out a few scenes and faces and started editing. Looked for the right movements that I could feature as some kind of recurring visual chorus.
In the end I added a layer of lights and colours.
Call for submissions: Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition 2013
Ó Bhéal (Irish for by word of mouth) is a weekly poetry event in Cork which, since 2010, has also been sponsoring an annual screening of poetry films and videopoems from around the world. This year they’re taking it to the next level, associating with the IndieCork festival of independent cinema in October and holding a poetry-film competition. View the complete guidelines at their website. Here’s the meat of it:
We are now open for submissions. Thirty films will be shortlisted and screened during the IndieCork festival. One winner will be selected by the Ó Bhéal jury.
Deadline for submissions is the 15th of September 2013.
Entry is free to anyone, and should be made via email to poetryfilm [at] obheal.ie – including the following in an attached word document:
- Name and duration of Film
- Name of director
- Country of origin
- Contact details
- Name of Poet
- Name of Poem
- Synopsis
- Filmmaker biography
- and a Link to download a high-resolution version of the film.
Films must interpret or be based on a poem, and have been completed no earlier than the 1st August 2011. They may not exceed 10 minutes in duration. Non-English language films will require subtitles.
Love? by Julie Gard
Words are a fugitive, ghostly presence in this film by Kathy McTavish. For more poems by Julia Gard, see her website.
Demain, dès l’aube… / Dawn of Tomorrow by Victor Hugo
http://vimeo.com/65694129
Directed by Nick Ramey and Lauren Armantrout, who note in the Vimeo description:
In Victor Hugo’s famous poem, demain des l’aube, many have formulated their own adaptation of the plot. Subtitled in English, while the poem is read in French, this story involves the consequences of commitment in a relationship. The notion that love lasts forever couldn’t be further from the truth in this heartbreaking short.
Hugo’s poem has its own page on the French Wikipedia.
Videopoems of place featured at Connotation Press
This month in her Third Form column at Connotation Press, Erica Goss presents “nine poetry films using the following criteria: first, the native language of the poet or filmmaker had to be the language used in narration, and second, the country of the poet or filmmaker had to be prominent in the video.” Her choices are all films I remember with fondness, and it’s interesting to see them presented side by side. I’ve shared so many videopoems at Moving Poems now, it’s easy to lose track of the outstanding ones, so further acts of curation like Erica’s are invaluable. Go look.
