~ 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.
Three poems by Alejandra Pizarnik
I wanted to start the New Year with one of my favorite poets. This is Todo hace el amor con el silencio: tres poemas de Alejandra Pizarnik by Hernán Talavera. Here are the three texts along with some rough translations. (Feel free to suggest improvements in the comments.)
| [El olvido]
en la otra orilla de la noche -llévame- llévame entre las dulces sustancias |
[Oblivion]
on the other side of night -take me- take me among sweet substances |
| [no. 22 de “Árbol de Diana”]
en la noche |
[from “Tree of Diana,” #22]
in the night |
| [de Aproximaciones]
La niña que fui De lágrimas se nutrirá mil años. |
[from Approximations]
The girl I was Fed on tears for a millennium. |
What we had has not yet been by Jan Baeke
Another one of the Public Thought collaborations between Dutch poet Jan Baeke and media artist Alfred Marseille. Let me quote the description at Vimeo in full:
Originally conceived as an interactive installation for the 2007 Literature and New Media project in the Waag, Amsterdam, this production by Jan Baeke and Alfred Marseille mixes poetry, moving images and sound in a movie directed by words, and talks about memory, longing, the misguided monologue and the meaning of the kitchen in modern society.
Images and sounds are mainly drawn from the Prelinger archives.
This version is an entirely new edit made for the 2011 Beijing Book Fair and also featured at the 2011 Noorderzon festival in Groningen (Netherlands).
Text: Jan Baeke
Editing: Alfred Marseille
English translation: Willem Groenewegen
(The Waag, incidentally, is an old city gate and guild hall, “the oldest remaining non-religious building in Amsterdam.”)
There’s also a version in Mandarin Chinese.
El pájaro revolucionario (The Revolutionary Bird) by Oscar Alfaro
This is LoCo by Azucena Losana, a Mexican multimedia artist based in Buenos Aires. The soundtrack is a poem by the Bolivian poet Oscar Alfaro, recited by Jorge Cafrune with English subtitles translated by Roger Colom.
Writing Behaviour by Rosemary Norman
Stuart Pound describes this on Vimeo as
a poem set to images and sounds. The image foreground is made up of the lines, words and letters of the poem, floating and twisting in the light, as the incarcerated writer writes his escape.
Some very interesting kinetic text effects bordering on concrete poetry, especially with the light-hearted musical accompaniment provided by James Cordell and Frances Wright.
I feel a bit abashed at not having discovered Pound’s work until now. His Vimeo profile says,
Stuart Pound lives in London and has worked in film, digital video, sound and the visual arts since the early 1970’s. He hopes to return to painting. Since 1995 he has collaborated with the poet Rosemary Norman. Work has been screened regularly at international film and video festivals.
Rosemary Norman says on her page at poetry pf that she and Pound “began by using spoken poems and have experimented with digitally processed recordings and with putting text on screen.” There’s a website devoted to their collaboration at stuartpound.info with texts, stills and clips.
Jump Into Air by Guinevere Glasfurd
Alastair Cook’s Filmpoem 25 features the text and reading of Guinevere Glasfurd. The description on Vimeo reads:
Jump Into Air is a poem by Guinevere Glasfurd on the subject of the deathly decline of the British fishing industry, commissioned by North Light Arts. Guinevere, as well as being an exceptional author and poet, has written for the Fishing News, the industry paper, and drew both on this and her stay with the fishermen of Dunbar during this Summer. Jump Into Air has sound commissioned from Luca Nasciuti and was filmed by Alastair Cook using Kodak Ektachrome.
Nirvana by Charles Bukowski
A very popular poem — there are three videos for it on Vimeo alone — probably because it captures in simple language an experience most of us have felt, and also because there’s a great recording of Tom Waits reading it (which is the narration used here). It also has that wistful, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” kind of vibe, even though the holidays aren’t mentioned. And for me this poetry film epitomizes the appeal of down-home, local diners. (I worked as a short-order cook in a diner for a few years when I was young.)
The director, Patrick Biesemans, says about himself:
I currently work as head of production for a cool little company in Manhattan, and when the opportunity arises I am a freelance director of commercials, fashion films, and music videos.
The film was supported by a successful Kickstarter campaign and shot on a $4000 budget. The campaign description shows Biesemans’ thinking about the project:
We would love the opportunity to pay tribute to Waits and Bukowski by creating a short film inspired by, and complimentary to, this great poem. This video project would be visual poetry, focusing on the atmospheric qualities that Waits’ presents with his voice, and Bukowski with his words. A story revolving around the quiet moments that spark and inspire great writing. […]
Our approach would be to shoot this live action and on location, with a playful mix of practical effects and miniature elements (mainly using model railroad train elements); A surreal yet welcoming artistic representation of the world. I want the influences of the 1950’s and 60’s to shape the art direction, costuming, and mood of this project.
We have no plans to submit this to film festivals or get praise for completing such a great project. We’re doing this as a “love letter” to travelers, writers, singers, campfire storytellers, and poets.
Four Desires by Jason Heroux
According to the description on YouTube, this is “a book trailer for Jason Heroux’s new poetry collection NATURAL CAPITAL published by Mansfield Press,” though I must say it’s awfully subtle for a trailer — and a very fine videopoem, however one categorizes it. In a blog post introducing the video, Heroux adds that it was made by his brother Darren.
Lastu Adri (I do not know) by Elia Abu Madi
Directed by Egyptian film student and photographer Forat Sami, with acting and narration by Yousef Bakir and sound production by Mohamed Elshazly. For background on the Lebanese-American poet Elia Abu Madi, the Wikipedia has a bare-bones bio.
His poems are very well known among Arabs; journalist Gregory Orfalea wrote that “his poetry is as commonplace and memorized in the Arab world as that of Robert Frost is in ours.”
