~ Nationality: U.K. ~
Endlings by Angela France
UK poet Angela France reads her poem “Endlings” in a film directed by Helen Dewbery for Nine Arches Press. “Endlings” was nearly the title poem for France’s latest collection, Terminarchy (2021), as she noted in an interview:
I came across the word ‘endling’, which means the last of any species, a while ago. For a long time this collection was going to be titled ‘Endling’ but then a poet in the USA brought out a collection with that title and there is also a series of fantasy books and a computer game called endling. The other word for the last of a species is ‘terminarch’. I didn’t like terminarch as much at first, it had an ugly sound to my ear. Adding a ‘y’ softened the sound and suggested a different direction; we are used to talking about patriarchy, monarchy, oligarchy, perhaps we should think about whether we are heading for terminarchy.
I liked the sound of the word endling but also thought a lot about what it means to be the last. The strongest, most urgent drive in nature is to reproduce so an endling is driven into hopelessness. The endlings in the poem ignore their prey because of that ‘older, greater need’ and only find release, and peace, in death.
I suspect most of us could name at least a couple of extinct animals, such as the Tasmanian Tiger (the thylacine) but when I started researching the species lost in the last few years, I was astonished, and saddened, at the number of them. Some of the names were just wonderful, such as the ‘Gloomy tube-nosed bat’ and the ‘Darling Downs hopping mouse’. They didn’t find their way into this poem but they have remained in my memory, perhaps for another time. There is a very particular grief, for me, in discovering these things after they have left us.
The form of the poem is a loose terza rima, with slant rhyme. I like this form because of its subtle music and also because the interlocking rhyme scheme can have the effect of looking back while stepping forward. I usually prefer slant rhyme because I find full rhyme can fall very heavily on the end of the line unless it is used with great skill.
I feel I should explain something about Sparrow who appears at the end of this poem. William Sparrow was a historical character in my last book, The Hill. He was one of the ringleaders of the local riots over the closure of rights of way on the hill, in 1902. He was a road-sweeper and was literate, witty, and furious, writing daily letters to the newspapers. He has insisted on having a voice in this book but he is not now William Sparrow. He is not Sparrow the man, nor is he sparrow the bird, but something else entirely and he speaks up in a few poems through the book. I am not sure what he is except that he seems to take the role of an ecological conscience. Here, he weeps for all we have lost and are losing, the hopelessness of not having an ark.
In Conversation – Angela France
Nine Moons by Janet Lees
Until recently I lived for many years in the Isle of Man, where my mother’s family is from. I was deeply drawn to the paintings of Breton-born Bruno Cavellec, who was widely acknowledged as one of the leading artists working on the island. I also greatly admired his illustrative work for album sleeves and book covers. Frankly, I was starstruck. When he approached me at an exhibition opening and floated the idea of us working together, it felt like some kind of celestial door opening (accompanied, of course, by the doom bell of imposter syndrome-induced terror).
This was the beginning of a collaboration that unfolded gradually over several years, and culminated in our first work together, Nine Moons, winning Best International Poetry Short at the recent Bloomsday Film Festival in Dublin. This was the first screening for the film. It was also one of the first public accolades for Bruno’s music, the art form which is closest to his heart and which he started working with in earnest just a few years ago, under the name of Mablanig.
Bruno says, “Ever since I saw Janet’s videopoems, I’ve been an admirer of her very distinctive style and powerful narrative. With her, it’s almost as if I discovered a brand-new language, so unique and expressive, which I find deeply moving and inspiring. Writing a score for her was a big dream of mine.”
The first couple of years of our collaboration didn’t involve any creative work – at least, not any concrete work. We knew each other’s work, but we didn’t know each other. While I was still living in the Isle of Man, we met a few times, most memorably in Bruno’s studio, surrounded by his work and his influences, and just talked. It became clear that there was a lot of common ground, and each time we met we dug down deeper into it.
Finally, about a year ago, we set out to make a film, collaborating via Zoom as by this time we were in separate countries. It was an ambitious collaborative project, a videopoetry triptych that was a kind of multilateral ekphrasis. We wanted to respond to each other’s work, which collectively included my poetry, film and photography, and Bruno’s music and paintings. We also wanted to include both our voices.
As we got into the work, Bruno suggested bringing even more of ourselves to the project, in the form of photographs of people who have left a mark on us. Thanks to his Photoshop skills we were able to combine these with some of my images that include frame-like devices, such as windows in old walls. These animated stills make up the third section of the film which for both of us is the most powerful and, in terms of how the music, visuals and text work together, the most seamless.
It was a profoundly affecting experience putting the whole film together, and particularly this section. While I was editing the sequence of images it was as though I was holding my breath, standing on the edge of another world. This was due in large part to Bruno’s hauntingly beautiful and transformative music, which I had playing on repeat the whole time. There’s something he does, an interweaving of darkness and light, sorrow and bliss – which suffuses his paintings too – that is absolutely in tune with my inner landscape.
This was a collaboration in the true sense of the word, and it came with challenges as well as huge rewards. When you are used to working in isolation, making all the creative decisions, it’s a big leap to sharing each step of the process with someone else. I had to consciously let go of both my fear of being creatively ‘wrong’ and my need to control, which I know comes from a need for psychological safety. For me, this wasn’t actually as difficult as I’d expected, because of the trust between Bruno and myself. Fear kills the creative impulse. In hindsight, because we had spent a lot of time not actually doing anything together but just being together, the space we created for the work to grow in was a fertile one.
BIOS
Janet Lees is a lens-based artist and poet. Her films have been selected for festivals and screenings including the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, the International Videopoetry Festival and the Aesthetica Art Prize. In 2021 she won the Ó Bhéal Poetry-Film competition, and in 2024 the first prize at Filmetry Festival. Her poetry is widely published in journals and anthologies, and her art photography has been exhibited around the world.
See more of Janet’s poetry film work here.
Mablanig is the music output of Breton artist and illustrator Bruno Cavellec. After 25 years of designing album covers and film posters, he is now embracing his new career as a composer, and released his first album in 2022. Described as cinematic and atmospheric, his textured compositions are often permeated with a strong sense of drama.
Hear more of Mablanig’s music here, and see more of Bruno’s paintings and other artworks here.
Hamlet’s “What a piece of work is man” soliloquy by William Shakespeare
London-based videopoet Mikey Delgado just surfaced after a three-year hiatus with this remix of war footage with a recitation from Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2, all of it uncredited in the best samizdat style, and it’s perfectly, horribly on-point. I’ve lost my mirth, too…
I have of late, but
wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises, and, indeed, it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging
firmament, this majestical roof, fretted
with golden fire—why, it appeareth nothing to me
but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.What a piece of work is a man, how noble in
reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving
how express and admirable; in action how like
an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man
delights not me, no, nor women neither, though by
your smiling you seem to say so.
Cathedrals by Salena Godden + The Tyger by William Blake
British author and performance poet Salena Godden reads “Cathedrals” from her just-published collection With Love, Grief and Fury in a video from the production company STORYA. This is not a book trailer, however, but something new to me: a museum exhibition trailer in the form of a videopoem!
The exhibition is William Blake’s Universe at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge, UK., and the museum also worked with STORYA and Godden on a more conventional video trailer: a reading of Blake’s most famous poem, “The Tyger” which I’ll append below. But they had the sense to include Salena’s own, personal reactions to Blake and the exhibition at the end of that trailer, and then—or perhaps from the inception—they had the brilliant idea to ask her to read a poem of her own, placing her in conversation with the poet whose multimedia works are the focus of the exhibition.
STORYA is Lucy Andia and Frederick Shelbourne, both profiled on their About page. They say they specialize in videos about artists and exhibitions, and in fact their filming of “The Tyger” is one of the two highlighted projects on their website:
To coincide with the Fitzwilliam Museum’s exhibition, William Blake’s Universe, we were commissioned to create a film. The brief? Capture the exhibition’s striking design and draw inspiration from Blake’s powerful poetry.
Salena Godden, a poet deeply inspired by Blake’s rebellious spirit and unwavering dedication to creativity, was the perfect choice for a reading. Her selection: the iconic poem, The Tyger. Through creative brainstorming sessions, our team identified fire as the poem’s central element to visualise.
Flickering lights and shadows of tigers and foliage were used to create an immersive atmosphere surrounding Salena’s reading. This museum film, a testament to the power of collaboration, is the result of many creative minds coming together.
Godden has a whole blog post about the shoot, full of photos—check it out. As she notes, “Radical British poet, painter and visionary William Blake believed in the power of art and words to bring us together.”
Symphony Jane by Rosemary Norman
A love song to the Eurasian blackbird, the American robin’s more musical cousin, this recent film from long-time videopoetry collaborators Stuart Pound and Rosemary Norman shows the power of a simple concept beautifully realized:
A poem arrives on the screen letter by letter. The image is all text with the story in the soundtrack, a blackbird’s song.
Last year, Pound and Norman came out with a print book showcasing their collaborations, Words & Pictures, available from Aspect Ratio (2 Lothair Road, London W5 4TA) for £8.50, which garnered a good review in London Grip:
Many readers will have seen and enjoyed Rosemary Norman’s poems in magazines and also observed that her bio note mentions her collaborations with video artist Stuart Pound in the making of poetry videos. These videos have been shown at festivals and other film events (including some at the BFI); but the majority of Norman’s readers will probably not have had a chance to attend one of these screenings. Fortunately it is now possible to experience a selection of Norman & Pound’s work in the comfort of one’s own home. A new book Words & Pictures contains 18 of Norman’s poems together with a number of stills from the corresponding videos and, more importantly, an internet link / QR code giving access to an on-line archive where the videos can be seen in full. This offers a simple but satisfying multi-media experience where one can enjoy the words on the page alongside (or as a curtain-raiser to) a visual and auditory interpretation.
Darkness by Ben Morgan
This delightful new animation by Suzie Hanna recreates the world of illuminated manuscripts to bring to life a text by poet and scholar Ben Morgan. Like many viewers, I’m sure, my main reference point for that sort of thing was Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but I had no trouble adjusting to this more serious and cerebral use of Medieval imagery and motifs. In fact, I found it—dare I say?—quite illuminating.
Made for an installation ‘Invertlight’ in St Peter Hungate Church Norwich in 2024, this animation of Ben Morgan’s poem imagines an encounter between Julian of Norwich, a 14th century Anchoress locked away in her cell, and her son who visits to challenge her decision to give up on the natural world. It is not known if she had children but she entered the ‘living death’ after child bearing age, and may well have been a mother before her voluntary incarceration. Julian wrote ‘Revelations of Divine Love’ the first surviving book to be written by a woman in the English language. ‘Invertlight’ is a Research project at Norwich University of the Arts that focuses on creating Art for buildings that have been changed from religious to secular use.
For more on the poet, see One Hand Clapping:
Ben Morgan is a poet and academic based in Oxford, UK. His first poetry pamphlet, Medea in Corinth: Poems, Prayers, Letters, and a Curse, was published by Poetry Salzburg in 2018. It retold the famous myth through poetic letters, spells, prayers, sonnets and songs, as well as theatrical interludes. He has also published poems in Oxford Poetry and at The Sunday Tribune and The High Window. He has taught Shakespeare studies and early modern literature at a number of colleges in Oxford and is completing a monograph on Shakespeare and human rights for Princeton University Press.
Tasting Notes by Matthew Stewart
This is one of the best, most satisfying films based on a poetry collection that I’ve seen. It was made in 2013 in support of a pamphlet (chapbook) of the same title from Happenstance Press. The poems are clearly differentiated, yet blend pretty seamlessly into a whole, with shots of the poet in a vineyard as part of the connective tissue. British poet Matthew Stewart collaborated with Spanish filmmaker José María Fernández de Vega of GLOW production company in Extramadura, where Stewart works in the wine trade. It’s hard to imagine a more poetic vocation! And since the speaker in each poem is a different variety of wine, and they’re all delivered in the poet’s own voice, it’s as if we’re hearing missing metamorphoses out of Ovid.
A while back I compiled my Top Ten Multi-Poem Films and Videopoems. This would certainly have occupied a prominent position in the list had it been available at the time. Conservative as the choice of images is, they rarely feel overly obvious. And Stewart’s voiceover is well done: readerly, but with excellent cadence and modulation. I’d have preferred somewhat less melodic music by way of contrast, but otherwise there were no false notes for me among these very tasty words and images.
Fuck / Our Future by Inua Ellams
A video made for some kind of climate series at The New York Times, locked behind the paywall, I think. My request for clarification on filmmaker(s) has gone unanswered, but it seems the result of a collaboration with the photographer named at the beginning, Josh Haner, a Pulitzer-winning feature photographer for the paper. Ellams himself also works in graphic art and design. I like how the poem’s searing language is mediated by the intimate space of an online reading, giving way to natural places and a more-than-figurative tree of life.
Earlier we shared a film by Jamie McDonald for the title poem from Ellam’s 2020 collection The Actual, among several other video interpretations of Ellams’ work. It’s fascinating to see giant legacy media organizations like the NYT and the Financial Times promote Ellams’ poetry, almost as cover for their ceaseless promotion of the planet-destroying financial and military/industrial machines.
The Lines by Andrew Motion
Suzie Hanna just uploaded to Vimeo this 2001 animation she co-directed with Hayley Winter. Live images and straight recordings interact with artifice at all levels, borrowing elements from glitch art and concrete text experiments. The former UK poet laureate Andrew Motion supplied the poem and reading, and Sebastian Castagna composed the soundtrack.
The Lines, a poetry animation, was selected for numerous festivals including Manchester Poetry Festival and Hamburg Animation Festival, it was part of a programme curated by the British Council ‘Shooting Rhymes and Cutting Verses’ which was shown all over the world to promote UK Culture. The Gene used it as visuals for a concert tour and it was shown in cinemas as part of the Sonimation project which was instigated by Suzie Hanna in collaboration with Sonic Arts Network and Digital Arts Network in 2001.
We’ve shared Hanna’s work often here. The bio on her website is worth quoting in full:
Suzie Hanna is Emerita Professor of Animation at Norwich University of the Arts. She was Chair of NAHEMI, the National Association for Higher Education in the Moving Image from 2016-2019, and remains an honorary member of the executive. She is an animator who collaborates with other academics and artists, and whose research interests include animation, poetry, puppetry and sound design. She has made numerous short films all of which have been selected for international festival screenings, TV broadcast or exhibited in curated shows. She contributes to journals, books and conferences, and has led several innovative projects including animated online international student collaborations and digital exhibitions of art and poetry on Europe’s largest public HiDef screen. She works as a production consultant and as an international academic examiner, was a member of the AHRC Peer Review College from 2009-2014, and is a longstanding member of ASIFA. She plays the violin and the musical saw.
All will be well by Jane Lovell
A new videopoem from UK poet Jane Lovell and artist Janet Lees, using some stunning underwater footage from Janet’s recent trip to the island of El Hierro in the Azores. Here’s how she captioned it on Instagram:
Feeling very muted going into this new year, hard to feel hopeful. I think this short videopoem holds a sense of solace. A deceptively simple poem by Jane Lovell, containing beautiful images and word-music, combined with footage I shot in the incomparable island of El Hierro recently, notably at Cala de Tacorón, a transformative place. I usually go for the lateral rather than the literal when putting film and poetry together, but somehow in this instance a straight translation between the elements felt right. This is part of an ongoing collaboration between the two JLs
Music is by The Duke of Norfolk.
Careful What You Wish For Orangutan by Pete Mullineaux
Pete Mullineaux won the 2023 Poetry & Folk In The Environment competition sponsored by UK performance-poetry organization Home Stage with this highly entertaining video, a collaboration with Roj Whelan AKA The RoJ LiGht of RoJnRoll Productions in Dublin, who handled the camerawork and editing.
