Hypnosis at the Bird Factory by Thylias Moss

On 16 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYxhMAFK-e0

An enjoyable “adventure in vibration studies” from Forkergirl, who includes it in a webpage devoted to her limited fork theory. I’m not sure if this is a serious theory or a gentle parody of Thylias Moss’s academic colleagues, but it doesn’t matter. The video’s description at YouTube is delightful and worth reproducing in full:

STATUS REPORT OF A SEARCH FOR SIGNS OF INTELLIGENT LIFE WITHIN FORKING AND FORKED UNIVERSES, EMPHASIZING THOSE OUTSIDE OF SETI DOMAINS

SUBMITTED BY FORKERGIRL

So many vibrations, so many patterns of movement on so many scales in so many bifurcating systems, but at last a (temporary) match to the pattern of movement (and its associated audible and inaudible, on human scales, music) of a search for signs of intelligent life.

This status report describes the finding of a feather in a forking universe system in which the feather led to hypnosis at a bird factory presumed to be the source of the feather as no other intelligent-life constructions were observed though their unavailability for observation does not preclude the existence of other intelligent life constructions in this particular universe system. The feather itself was alive with possibilities, but as forkergirl had prior knowledge of birds, vibrations of that knowledge imposed limiting factors on those possibilities, resulting in a bounded infinity, as infinite as any other, though of a different size.

An inability to find other intelligent life constructions doesn’t mean they aren’t there and indeed could indicate that parameters of the search itself do not support finding evidence that forks so far from the parameters, the parameters cannot detect or measure presences outside detectable thresholds.

It is difficult at best to report on a reality based on hypnotic evolutions when such behaviors in many western depictions of Earth realities tend both to lack and to be unable to acquire scientific credence despite the existence of terminology for the mystical and supernatural, terms that refer to something, including, though not limited to, the substance of various forms of delusion, the mind being able to generate and sustain realities that do not require confirmation of existence from outside the mind’s imagined authority, real within the imaginary realm that (at this time) is difficult to measure though its roots are tethered to an organic and electrical human body nervous system relied upon by both objectivity and subjectivity, the empirical and the aesthetic.

The full status report is available as a PDF.

The Dot by Moniza Alvi

On 15 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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http://www.vimeo.com/12538662

British-Pakistani poet Moniza Alvi’s poem as interpreted by a student filmmaker in British Columbia.

God Bless Johnny Cash by James Brush

On 14 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 1 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Poet and blogger James Brush’s very first go at the videopoem genre.

I haven’t made a video for fun in 16 years. Perhaps it was the time spent working on film sets in the early ’90s, but I lost interest somewhere along the way. The inspiration for this came from Christine Swint’s “Anybody’s Child” and Dave Bonta’s post on poets and technology over at Very Like a Whale. In the comments I mentioned that I have a film degree and probably should take a crack at doing a video poem sometime.

Then, this evening, I was about to post this poem along with audio of me reading. The poem started with some pictures I had taken of my guitar with the iphone Hipstamatic app, and I thought it would be cool to put one of the pictures up. Next thing I knew, I was building this video.

The “music” is something I recorded a few years back by overdubbing several tracks of me playing my guitar (well, really I was mostly playing the amplifier) and my wife’s bass. I’m not sure if it’s too loud, but I was trying to submerge the voice a little bit without losing too much clarity.

The post also includes the text of the poem. James’ film expertise really shows here, I think: the mix of sound and images is just right, and there’s just enough movement going on for this to qualify in my mind as a “moving poem,” even though, as he says, he was inspired in part by a recent, high-quality slideshow-video from Christine Swint. I love seeing poetry-blogger friends experiment with multimedia, and I’m proud of whatever small role I might have played in helping to make that happen.

Something I’ve Not Done by W. S. Merwin

On 13 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Dance
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Another section of the production Men Think They Are Better Than Grass by the Deborah Slater Dance Theatre, based on poems by W. S. Merwin. This section features a trio of dancers: Shaunna Vella, Kelly Kemp and Wendy Rein.

Autobiography by Djelloul Marbrook

On 12 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Book trailers, Videopoems
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Video trailers for books are becoming increasingly common, and sometimes, as here, they take the form of videopoetry. This is one of two trailers by Brent Robison for Djelloul Marbrook’s prize-winning collection from Kent State University Press, Far From Algiers.

Marbrook has had a distinguished career in journalism and now authors a blog on literary and cultural affairs.

Cold by Emily Kendal Frey

On 9 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Videopoems
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With the northeastern U.S. just coming out of a heat wave, winter seems a far-off and delicious prospect. This is a poem from the collection The New Planet by Porland, Oregon-based writer Emily Kendal Frey. The video is by Zachary Schomburg, with whom Frey has also done some collaborative writing, according to this interview with her at The Collagist. For this project they also brought in Emily’s sister Elinor Frey, an accomplished cellist, whose music helped create a very wintry ambience indeed.

Television by Todd Alcott

On 8 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 3 Comments - Videopoems
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Beth Fulton writes,

The inspiration of this video comes from Todd Alcott’s poem, Television. I own no rights to his reading of the poem and intend only to share my own personal interpretation. Hope you like!

This is to my knowledge the first English-language videopoem to have gone viral. I first saw it last week on Facebook, where it seems to have been posted quite heavily. It’s been played 445,537 times in just three months, making it currently the most popular videopoem on Vimeo, and second only to Juan Delcan’s animation of Billy Collins’ “The Dead” on YouTube, which has amassed 761,494 views — but over the course of three years. So “Television”‘s refrain, “Look at me!” seems to be working.

Todd Alcott is a screenwriter living in Santa Monica, and judging by the comment he left below the video on Vimeo, seems to be a friend or acquaintance of the filmmaker doesn’t know the filmmaker (though he likes the video — see comments).

How to Make a Crab Cake by January Gill O’Neil

On 7 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 2 Comments - Performance Poetry
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Another in our brief series of videopoems that riff on television. January Gill O’Neil makes nice use of TV cooking-show conventions for a poem from her debut collection Underlife. She blogged briefly about the making of the video here.

(Hat tip: Christine Swint in the Moving Poems forum.)

“And did those feet in ancient time” by William Blake

On 6 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 4 Comments - Performance Poetry
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Continuing the theme of videopoems that riff on television conventions, here’s a poetry promo from the BBC disguised as a sporting news story from the BBC. The poem is referred to as “Jerusalem,” but it’s actually from the Preface to Milton. A popular hymn adaptation by Hubert Parry a century after Blake wrote it is reponsible for the new title, according to the Wikipedia.

The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by his uncle Joseph of Arimathea, travelled to the area that is now England and visited Glastonbury. The legend is linked to an idea in the Book of Revelation (3:12 and 21:2) describing a Second Coming, wherein Jesus establishes a new Jerusalem. The Christian church in general, and the English Church in particular, used Jerusalem as a metaphor for Heaven, a place of universal love and peace.

That’s one of those metaphors that would seem to have outlived its relevance, except perhaps in the writing of the late Mahmoud Darwish.

Some Last Questions by W. S. Merwin

On 5 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Dance
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Another section from the production Men Think They Are Better Than Grass by the San Francisco-based Deborah Slater Dance Theatre, based on poems by W. S. Merwin. The two featured dancers here are Travis Rowland and Breton Tyner Bryan. The inclusion of sound effects from the TV quiz show Jeopardy is brilliant, I thought.

Last Thursday, Merwin was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate.

Stealing by Carol Ann Duffy

On 2 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 5 Comments - Videopoems
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Update: this video is no longer online.

Directed by Gerard Docherty. Aside from the sloppy spelling, this is a fine video and seemed worth sharing. Duffy is, of course, the current Poet Laureate of Great Britain. I assume this video was made without her permission, and thus represents a kind of stealing itself — and/or an homage and act of generosity, depending on your view of intellectual property rights.

I’m going back to posting five videos a week here, at least until I can shrink the current queue of draft posts. So much good stuff coming out these days!

Children by Mike Finley

On 1 July, 2010 by Dave Bonta with 0 Comments - Author-made videopoems
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Mike Finley is a journalist and business writer who also writes poetry and, starting last year, has been making a lot of videos. This is one of my favorites of his so far.