~ Videopoems ~
Videopoetry, filmpoetry, cinepoetry, poetry-film… the label doesn’t matter. What matters is that text and images enter into dialogue, creating a new, poetic whole.
from Tabacaria (The Tobacconist’s) by Álvaro de Campos (Fernando Pessoa)
This is Azulejo ou l’illusion visuelle, an “animated film by Kolja Saksida made in the two week workshop in Lisbon, Portugal,” according to the description on Vimeo from ZVVIKS, the Slovenian Institute for Film and Audiovisual Production. A note at the end of the film adds that it was inspired by a painting on tiles representing Lisbon before the great earthquake of 1755.
The film includes just the first four lines of the poem in the soundtrack, with a French translation in titling. Here’s the English translation given in the description:
I am nothing.
I’ll never be anything.
I can not want to be anything.
Apart from this, I have in me all the dreams of the world.
This is one of the poems Pessoa wrote under the “heteronym” of Álvaro de Campos. Here’s the complete, much longer text and here’s one blogger’s attempt at a translation.
Things That Have No Name by the Psychiatric Intensive Outpatient Therapy Group
An outstanding collaborative poem credited to the Psychiatric Intensive Outpatient Therapy Group, Summa Health Systems. Alex McClelland made this film based on a poster design by fellow Kent State University student Nate Mucha. Poster and animation are part of the Healing Stanzas project. (Here are the poster and the text.)
best parts of you by Kathleen Roberts
This hypnotic combination of kinetic text, video and sound art represents a collaboration between Duluth, Minnesota-based poet Kathleen Roberts (text, reading) and musician/artist Kathy McTavish (music and images) for the Wildwood River micropress.
I Have a Secret Servant by Felix Dennis
A “melting painting animation” by Italian video artist Elena Chiesa. For more of Felix Dennis’ poetry, see his website.
Another Slow Day by Henry Stead
http://vimeo.com/57190458
London-based poet, translator and classicist Henry Stead supplied the words and voice for this videopoem by Swoon, who has blogged some process notes:
To go with the almost languid reading I wanted images that expressed some kind of restlessness, boredom and even sulk. Once I had those, the video practically made itself…
They met for a live performance (Stead reading while the film was projected) last week at the London Poetry Systems 5th anniversary celebration.
Bir Küvet Hikâyesi (The Tale of a Tub) by Nazim Hikmet
A very fine dramatization of a narrative poem by the great Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet. The translation in the subtitles leaves a bit to be desired, but the actors help carry the meaning through. Here’s the Vimeo description:
Nâzım Hikmet’in “Bir Küvet Hikâyesi” isimli şiirinden uyarlanan kısa film.
This movie which is adapted from a poem by Nazim Hikmet, recreates the tensions provoked by the ‘other woman’ through the voices of a couple named Suleyman and Fahire.
Yönetmen – Senaryo/Directed by: Orçun Baş
Eser/Poem By: Nâzım Hikmet
Oyuncular/Cast: Filiz Baş, Coşkun Baş
Kamera/Camera: Orçun Baş
Ses/Sound: Öner S. Biberkökü
Işık/Light: Orçun Baş, Öner S. Biberkökü
Görsel Efekt/Visual Effects: Öner S. Biberkökü
Kurgu/Editing: Orçun Baş
Every Memory by Sheree Mack
http://vimeo.com/55172122
This is #6 in Alastair Cook‘s Absent Voices series “celebrating the legacy of the Greenock Sugar Sheds, vast Category A listed hulking relics of the sugar trade, a dark and sweet slice of Scots history.” Sheree Mack reads her poem as part of a soundtrack by Luca Nasciuti, with cinematography by Swoon (Mark Neys). This is one of several filmpoem collaborations between Cook and Neys, and you can catch both men along with Nasciuti live in London tomorrow night, February 16, as part of the London Poetry Systems anniversary bash.
Alastair Cook, Mark Neys and Luca Nasciuti are also all directors — along with yours truly — of the first Filmpoem Festival to be held in Dunbar, Scotland in early August. We’ve just posted the call.
America by Allen Ginsberg
An impressive videopoem apparently made for a high school English class. I particularly like how the young filmmaker asserts herself as a kind of alternate-history author of the poem. It seems in keeping with the poem’s own speculative interests.
poem “America” by Allen Ginsberg
directed by Sydney Gross
starring Sydney Gross
special thanks to Sabah Light and Ashley Langley
project for Mr. Locke’s class
To A Young Poet by R. S. Thomas
Othniel Smith notes:
An interpretation of a poem by Welsh writer R. S. Thomas (1913-2000), made entirely using material taken from the public domain Prelinger Archive. Contains brief nudity.
See Smith’s Vimeo channel for many more classic poetry mashups with Prelinger films and Librivox recordings.
something I remember by Robert Lax
The third in a trilogy of animations for Robert Lax poems by the German architect and artist Susanne Wiegner.
“something I remember” is a poem by Robert Lax that describes a certain moment outside of time and space during a rainy night. For the film the letters of the poem are divided in a large amount of layers. These layers become spaces, streets and the falling rain.
And at the end … “there is nothing particular about it to recall.”
Homenaxe ao mineral do repolo (Homage to the Mineral of Cabbage) by Erín Moure
This is Little Theatres, a jaw-droppingly good stop-motion short directed and animated by Stephanie Dudley. It’s based on a poem in Galician, the language of northwest Spain, by the Canadian poet Erín Moure, from her book, Little Theatres (Teatriños).
The film has its own website. According to the About page,
The poem is the second in a series of six by Erín in her award-winning book, Little Theatres. Each poem is an homage to a simple, humble food, such as potatoes, onions, and cabbage. The poems examine our relationship to food, and draw new insights to how these basic foods relate to life, as well as how we relate to each other. In looking more closely at the simple, everyday elements of life, we learn to appreciate their beauty.
The film Little Theatres is an interpretation of what Little Theatres are. It is an exploration of layers: layers of space, and layers of words, both spoken and written. The exploration begins and ends with a simple cabbage.
The film is also available with subtitles in French. (Moure’s multilingual abilities were a source of confusion for me at first, since the Wikipedia article about her mentions that her mother is from the part of western Ukraine known as Galicia — unrelated to the Galicia in the Iberian peninsula except inasmuch as both regions were originally settled by Celts. To compound the confusion, I’ve filed this film under both Canada and Galicia in the index, since the poem, if not the poet, is clearly Galician.)
