~ Poet: Morten Søndergaard ~

Wordpharmacy by Morten Søndergaard

A documentary/interview from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art of Danish poet Morten Søndergaard‘s wonderful multimedia project Wordpharmacy, which

combines the structure of language with the healing principles of various medicaments. Like pills, language is something to be consumed by the body, and in turn it does not only affect our conceptions of things, but it also comes to designate our very corporal movability in the world. Consequently, words are not only something we consume, they are refractory entities that in turn define and consume us. Wordpharmacy can be seen as a poetical gesture endeavouring to let words work their magic from within the body itself.

The Wordpharmacy is written and produced by the danish poet Morten Søndergaard.

The Wordpharmacy has be shown in several cities like Paris and London and Berlin and Bangor and Tromsø and Voss.

The Wordpharmacy is translated into English by Barbara Haveland and designed by Christian Ramsø and is now available in six languages.

According to the Vimeo description,

Morten Søndergaard was interviewed by Christian Lund at Hardy Tree Gallery in London in April 2014. Thanks to Steven Fowlers and Cameron Maxwell.

Camera: Matthias Pilz
Edited by: Miriam Nielsen
Produced by: Christian Lund

Jeg sætter mig / I take a seat by Morten Søndergaard

Danish poet Morten Søndergaard‘s reading of his poem for Lyrikline, as well as the English translation there by John Irons, are featured in this videopoem by Marc Neys A.K.A. Swoon, who writes:

A big thanks to Arjen Vandrie for being the recording engineer of the different instruments I mistreated in this track.

The visual idea for the video came to me when going through different sources looking for footage for another project.
I picked out pieces depicting several (powerful) forces in nature (water/waves, wind, lightning,…) and some with a clear human presence in it. One piece (The hand above the water) was the perfect carrier for the words. The repetition of that calming gesture worked perfectly with Morten’s voice.

[…]

poem & voice: Morten Søndergaard
(from: Bier dør sovende – Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 1998)
Audioproduktion: Literaturwerkstatt Berlin 2008
Concept, editing, treats & music: SWOON
recording engineer music: Arjen Vandrie
Cinematography: cinematography: Sarah Lee (from ‘Under The Sea’)
Leonard Soosay (from ‘For Benny’) – Michael Raiden (from ‘ A Quick Hour’)
under the Attribution license (CC BY 3.0)
Thanks; Orange HD, videoblocks, Mazwai, Lyrikline

Surprisingly, I’ve never shared a Danish poetry film here before—this is the first. I hope it won’t be the last. (I’d love to see a filmmaker do something with Henrik Nordbrandt’s poetry, for example.)