~ 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.
Hay Otra Voz—A Chicano Poem by Tino Villanueva
A collaboration between Chicano poet Tino Villanueva and filmmaker Alberto Roblest.
Gable by Brian Johnstone
A video by John Birdsong of Panman Productions. His decision to combine audio of a reading with the poet’s still face was kind of an interesting departure from the norm, I thought.
Johnstone was a co-founder of the StAnza international poetry festival held each March in St. Andrews, Scotland.
What I Say When You Ask What I’m Up To by Diana Salier
San Francisco-based writer and musician Diana Salier collaborated with the animator and director, Daniel Lichtenberg, on
A paper cutout-style animated video adapted from Diana Salier’s poem WHAT I SAY WHEN YOU ASK WHAT I’M UP TO, from her new book LETTERS FROM ROBOTS.
Diana builds a couch fort to hide herself from a former lover.
LETTERS FROM ROBOTS is out now on Night Bomb Press.
Salier stars in the film (along with Leiandrea Layus), composed the music and did the voice-over. Additional credits include assistant animator Max Berry and gaffer Matt Rome. (One doesn’t see nearly enough poetry films crediting gaffers.) It was produced at Photon SF.
Sonnet 97 by William Shakespeare
I found this musical interpretation compelling; the accompanying kinestatic video isn’t bad, either. It’s a selection from The Winter E.P. – Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Hallam London, who is credited with composition, vocals, guitars, keyboards and all programming. The photos in the video were taken on Norderney Island in the North Sea by Nicola Moczek and Riklef Rambow. Visit the composer’s bandcamp page to hear more from the EP.
A Year Younger by Hal Sirowitz
Hal Sirowitz’ Mother Said was a bestseller in Noway, whence this film by Kajsa Næss, who notes,
The film is made using a mix of pixillation, cut out photographs and stop motion.
Shot on 16mm
Notes from Noise by Jan Lauwereyns
Swoon used public-domain footage from the U.S. Navy’s MSTS Arctic operations (1955-1957) to accompany an English-language text by the multilingual Belgian writer and scientist Jan Lauwereyns. He first constructed a soundscape, then found footage to match, but in a departure from his usual modus operandi, decided not to include the poem in the soundtrack:
Reading or recording the poem was no option…
It wouldn’t work. I needed to see the words ‘floating’ slowly, using the pace of the music and the images.
Giving them time to interact with the sounds and the images.
How Well It Burns by Brian Johnstone
Alastair Cook writes,
How Well It Burns is the third in a series of seven Filmpoems commissioned by Alastair Cook in collaboration with Absent Voices, a group focused on the celebration of the vast and semi-derelict Greenock Sugar Sheds.
How Well It Burns is by poet Brian Johnstone, erstwhile Director of StAnza, the Scottish Poetry Festival and a widely published poet; the other poets in the series are John Glenday, Vicki Feaver, Sheree Mack, Jane McKie, Gérard Rudolf and Jennifer Lynn Williams.
The series of seven will be performed live at the Scottish Poetry Library at an event on 6th December 2012; more information and tickets here.
For more on Brian Johnstone, see his page at the Scottish Poetry Library.
