~ Nationality: U.K. ~
Let it be dark, and it was dark by John Siddique
http://vimeo.com/30260208
This is from a series of animations called Thirteen Moons. I’ll let the author, bestselling U.K. poet John Siddique, explain:
A series of 13 animated films based on a sequence of poems from Recital — An Almanac (Salt). The poems are based on the Full Moons of the year and the Celtic mythology which names each moon after a letter in the ancient tree alphabet.
The films were created when I was British Council Poet in Residence at California State University in Los Angeles. Made with determination, love, and goodwill. Animation director Walter Santucci, his students, friends and myself set to work before passing the pieces to composer Katie Chatburn. My aim was to gave each artist a free hand in what they came up with in response to the poems, interjecting as lightly as possible.
The paintings in this one are by Dania Strong. I’ll be sharing more of these in the coming weeks, but if you’re impatient, you can browse them all — or twelve of them, at any rate — at the album Siddique has set up for them on Vimeo (whence the above quote).
Ground by Alastair Cook
I’ve shared a lot of filmpoems here made by the Scottish artist and filmmaker Alastair Cook, but this one’s the work of someone else: Ginnetta Correli directed and edited this film using Alastair’s reading of some haiku he wrote for a multi-author linked verse sequence. He blogged about the film:
I don’t write terribly much (as you may have noted) and am perhaps unnecessarily precious about what I do write (see Abachan, for instance) and am pleased to see what such a wonderful, dark filmmaker can make of my words. Filmpoem is filmpoemed!
This was featured in VidPoFilm a few weeks ago.
Ground has an impenetrable quality. The film imagery, poem and reading approach each other without quite meeting. In that circle of visual and verbal imagery and the emotion of the voice of the reader, we witness a flame dancing without knowing who lit it, who blows on it, or why it goes out, if it does.
Something profound happens. But what? Is the poem notes on death and what resurrects us through life? Or the dream of a life?
Philosophy by Jo Bell
Alastair Cook came out of a six-month filmpoem hiatus ten days ago with this new film for a piece by the English poet and poetry promoter Jo Bell. Quoting Alastair’s description on Vimeo:
It’s been swirling around my head all summer, while baby Rose has been born and grown; Philosophy is a joy, bright and full of life, bursting.
It has been long in gestation but it has been a real pleasure to make this one; the entire film was shot on Ektachrome Super 8 and processed at Dwaynes in Kansas, whose praises I cannot sing high enough.
And it has also been a pleasure to be able to include Vladimir Kryutchev’s incredible sound work again. His site at oontz is a wonder for binaural loving sound folks.
This one’s for my boy, Charlie.
Jo Bell blogged about the new videopoem here.
Saltwater by Eleanor Rees
Glenn-emlyn Richards‘ latest animation was produced in collaboration with poet Eleanor Rees. (See also their earlier collaboration, Night Vision.) Rees is a Liverpudlian and author of the collection Andraste’s Hair (Salt, 2007), who “often collaborates with other writers, musicians and artists,” according to her online biography.
Treacle by Paul Farley
“Featured in the Museum of Liverpool. Shot by Steven Ferguson, directed and edited by Lucy Armitage,” according to the description on Vimeo. Paul Farley is a native of Liverpool, and is said to be “one of the most culturally wide-ranging of current British poets. Born in the mid-1960s, his imagination is equally likely to refer to film, television, pop music and modern art as to literature.” Armitage is a production coordinator at ITV.
Sonnet 65 by William Shakespeare
A timeless meditation on time gets the film noir treatment. Moving Poems’ latest production uses footage from two films in the public domain at the Prelinger Archives and a Creative Commons-licenced William Byrd piece by Vicente Parrilla and company.
New Year’s Eve by Thomas Hardy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yX746yXs96A
With all the videopoems that have been made with her readings or for her poems, it was probably inevitable that sooner or later Nic S. would have to try making one of her own. This is her maiden effort — and the first Hardy poem in the Moving Poems archive. She used some wonderfully creepy footage of cockroaches from the Prelinger Archives. She her blog post for more about her process.
Two poems (personality fragmented and notes from a taxi cab at 2 a.m.) by u.v. ray
U.K. photographer and musician gordon eightball made this wonderfully atmospheric film, with words and voice supplied by u.v. ray, whose website says he has been “a stalwart of the underground literary scene for 20 years.”
Three poems (Flute Boy, Marriage of Opposites and Half-caste) by John Agard
John Agard is joined on stage by the flautist Keith Waithe, a fellow Guyanan, in an extract from a film by Pamela Robertson-Pearce called John Agard Live!, which was included as a DVD along with Agard’s 2009 collection Alternative Anthem, from Bloodaxe Books. (There’s also video of Agard reading the title poem.)
The Half-Mad Aunt by Seni Seneviratne
Seni Seneviratne reads a poem from the forthcoming anthology Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion & Spirituality (Sibling Rivalry Press), uploaded to Vimeo by the editor, Kevin Simmonds. (Browse all the videos Simmonds has made for the anthology so far on the Collective Brightness website.) The film is by Laura Richardson.
