~ Poet: Carol Ann Duffy ~
Meters by Carol Ann Duffy
For the UK’s National Poetry Day, here’s a poem by the UK’s national poet on a matter of some national interest. It was commissioned by the NGO Smart Energy GB, who say on their website:
Inspired by the passing of traditional gas and electricity meters and the coming of smart meters, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has published a new poem.
The 300-word elegy to the “whirring wheels” of “artefacts” that are making way for smart meters has been set to an accompanying short film by BAFTA-nominated director Gary Tarn, immortalising traditional meters while looking to an inspiring, digital, green future.
Click through for the text. They include a quote from Duffy:
Household meters are one of the most unusual topics I’ve written about.
I hope people enjoy the poem and film, and take a moment to think about the boxes under the stairs and in hallway cupboards, which have been silently recording household life for so long.
Talent by Carol Ann Duffy
One of a series of films from Winning Words, an Olympics-related public poetry project in the U.K. As with the 11 other videos in the series, it features the reader as a performer — kind of an interesting wrinkle on the usual (wo)man-on-the-street-reads-poem video, making it more of a filmpoem. “Here Strategic Planner Angella Tapé reads Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Talent’ in her office at McCann Erickson,” says the description at YouTube. Andy Hutch is the filmmaker.
Stealing by Carol Ann Duffy
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!
