I am looking for a writer who is willing to let these three films inspire him/her to write three poems for them…
Look and listen…absorb…look and listen some more…and write…
I’m looking for three new poems (please use the titles of the films) written for these three videos:
Disturbance in the maze
Wailing Wall Crumbs
Ghostless Blues (The story of Vladimir K.)
More info, mail me: swoonbildos@gmail.com
Check out this terrific interview with Belgian filmmaker Swoon and American poet David Tomaloff about their recent collaboration on a triptych of videopoems. I loved learning about their collaborative process and how they thought of each other’s work, and as an amateur maker of videopoems I was especially impressed by some of Swoon’s thoughts about his approach, such as:
I love working with found material. Trying to give images, shot for a whole other purpose by someone you don’t know in a place you’ve never been, a new life and, more important so, a new meaning, is very liberating. It gives you a weird sense of power. Even the material I shoot myself is often not shot directly for a specific film. I try to build a library of images, shot by me and found footage, where I can wander around in when making a new film. On the other hand, it’s also very nice if I can shoot images the way I want them to be for a specific idea and poem.
Read the rest (and watch the triptych).
Whale Sound, Cello Dreams and Swoon are looking for poems with which to create a videopoem triptych.
Do you have a group of three poems you’d like to have published as videopoems? They could be three of your own poems, a set of three separate-but-related poems by you and two other poets, or a set of three poems written collaboratively by two or more poets.
We are a trio of artists — Nic Sebastian, poet/reader; Kathy McTavish, musician; and Swoon, film-maker — who have come together to pioneer this novel method of poetry publication.
Flight, a videopoem based on a poem by Helen Vitoria, is an example of our collaboration.
To get a sense of how your videopoem triptych would look and sound after publication, visit Night Vision.
Send 3 to 5 poems in the body of an email to Nic at nic_sebastian at hotmail dot com or Swoon at swoonbildos at gmail dot com.
thanks, Dave!
Thanks Dave. Really!
This is a wonderful idea…deadline?
Donna – the deadline is this weekend – Sunday September 4.
what an interesting concept,sorry i am too late.i have just finished the performance of a trio of my poems (i am also a choreographer ad performance artist) and we will this month make a video. it would have been interesting to collaborate in this way. i like your site! please visit mine!
Published in Anon Seven, July 2010. Anon is the anonymous submissions magazine, edited by Colin Fraser and Peggy Hughes.
The combination of film and poetry is an attractive one. For the poet, perhaps a hope that the filmmaker will bring something to the poem: a new audience, a visual attraction, the laying of way markers; for the filmmaker, a fixed parameter to respond to, the power of a text sparking the imagination with visual connections and metaphor.
Poetry has been seen as a bountiful source for the creative process of the lyrical side of experimental film practice since filmmakers and critics began theorising the concepts of film. Many filmmakers view film as an independent art, often persuading that film can only be an art form if it struggles to work within its own language. The combination of image and text forms what writer William Wees has called Poetry-film. In his essay, “The Poetry Film,” published in 1984, he notes that:
a number of avant-garde film and video makers have created a synthesis of poetry and film that generates associations, connotations and metaphors neither the verbal nor the visual text would produce on its own.
Elaborating on this interdependence, Wees argues that the filming of poetry:
expands upon the specific denotations of words and the limited iconic references of images to produce a much broader range of connotations, associations, metaphors. At the same time, it puts limits on the potentially limitless possibilities of meaning in words and images, and directs our responses toward some concretely communicable experience.
In the last issue of Anon, Television Insider discussed the possible futility of foisting poetry upon those who would not want it, quoting Auden’s “poetry makes nothing happen.” The emphasis here is on change: poetry is essentially internalised. This point, although discussed originally in a different context, illustrates a key difficulty in the filming of poetry: it is neither poetry nor film, but a blend of both. In order, then, for the filming of poetry to succeed, surely it cannot merely be a juxtaposing of the two but an organised symbiosis, a series of gentle signposts, an undercurrent of narrative embellishing the poet’s intentions.
The initial step taken by the poet is the very essence of collaboration: the underlying trust placed in the filmmaker with one’s work. This handover of the text is a moment of trepidation, a transfer of trust. However, it is also a point of invigoration, described by Morgan Downie:
I love the notion of collaboration and especially the way technology frees us up to do these things. It’s great to see someone else taking something you’ve done and running with it…. there’s a sense of engagement and commitment.
In an interview with the Scottish Poetry Library this spring, poet and presenter Owen Sheers made a similar point, that the genesis of a poem may be with the poet, but there comes a point where the filmmaker takes control. I took the opportunity to discuss with Owen Sheers the methodology imposed when bringing six poems to the screen in the recent BBC4 series, A Poet’s Guide to Britain. It is clear there is a conflict for the filmmaker when drawing the viewer’s attention to the poem; is the text of the poem placed on the screen or is it merely read?
The answer, with unswerving common sense, is that it depends. The possibilities for the introduction of literal visual images, non-literal images, suggestive images or visual signposts are all vying for attention. The filmmaker’s skill is to interpret what the particular poem is asking for. Owen’s measured opinion was that there is an opportunity for “a surprising image, to place two things up against each other which don’t quite fit.” The essence is that if the words must be on screen then perhaps not the entire text but only a carefully chosen extract, alongside the poem being read in full. Sheers noted that he feels that this is essential in attempting to reach a wider audience.
And so, the poem will be read to you. Listening to a poem is not like reading a poem; there’s a sense of enlivening as a poem is launched into the air. Seamus Heaney, talking of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, noted that when he heard the whole thing read aloud the experience taught him, in the words of the poem, to sit still. This idea, the experience of being read to, allows the reader to be captive, open to the experience. This is the essence of Poetry-film.
There is then a need to define Poetry-film, to categorise in order to make sense of the body of work and to differentiate between the filming of poetry and the mass of other media. It must encompass a broad range of typologies and methodologies: almost any definition of a poem, from the most graphic to almost pure poetry to the traditional verse form is accepted. As a result of this broad definition, a number of filmmakers and poets have discussed the merits of defining the genre more specifically. But there is another aspect to this: much of the discussion is about finding a place, helping the genre grow and promoting the filming of poetry. Hence defining (rejecting that which does not fit) is a necessary evil. As filming poetry is about capturing the essence on film, the artistic genre cannot, for example, include a film of the poet reading their work. In my understanding, the filming of poetry falls into the following categories:
I do not wish, within the parameters of this article, to become embroiled in the intensive discussions regarding the sifting of terminology. To my mind, this is an open church: the success of a piece of film is when it becomes the true embodiment of the poet’s sentiment embellished in some way by our filmmaker. It is an interesting area, though: there is much discussion of intellectual intention and aesthetic vision. A philosophical approach to craftsmanship is not new to any of the arts.
Ron Silliman, the prolific American poet and popular blogger, is emphatic about what makes a Poetry-film. His view is that the animation of Billy Collin’s poem, “The Dead,” by Juan Declan is “neither poem nor cartoon threatening to break any new ground whatsoever”. The film is a charming and dedicated homage to a great text, a gracious meditation on death wrought from the events on September 11th, 2001.
This animation is from Billy Collins’ own Action Poetry series, a project worth seeking out. There are eleven films, realised by animators with talent and tricks up their sleeves. Each one includes literal and reverential references to the text, showing the graphic representation of the words. This is either done by placing text on screen or by hammering home the point by the visual representation of an object as it is mentioned in the poem. Silliman’s point is this: these are talented filmmakers in a project showcasing an exceptional poet reading his poems, but it simply doesn’t take the work somewhere new: “Collins’ piece is nothing more than a reading of the piece over which a cartoon has been superimposed.” A little harsh perhaps; it is of course arguable that in the case of a poet of the stature of Collins, there is little need to take it anywhere.
There are discussions in the world of Poetry-film, deliberating the chicken and egg of the possibilities of visual metaphor and connection with the poet’s text. As Fil Ieropoulos, a researcher at the University College For The Creative Arts, states [PDF],
The poetry-film is interested in the fine line between text as word or image, spoken voice as words or sounds and the question of whether image or concept come first in a human mind, discussions that were prevalent in 20th century modernist literature and science.
It is this artist’s understanding that the Poetry-film should successfully bring the work to the audience through visual and audio layering, attractive to those who would not necessarily read the poetry. The film needs to provide a subtext, a series of suggestions and visual notes that embellish the poem, using the filmmaker’s subtle skills to allow the poet’s voice to be seen as well as heard. The collaboration remains with the words. If this subtext is missing, the film resorts to being a piece of media, the reading of a text over discombobulated imagery, a superimposition.
In considering the potential importance of seeing their work as film, it is perhaps best left to the poets to describe their aspirations. Juliet Wilson has worked in collaboration with other artists and believes the visual is an intrinsic part of the process of writing poetry:
I think very visually when I write poetry… I also have a strong visual sense of many of my longer poems as I write them, which may take the shape of a narrative or may be more in the form of atmospheric snapshots. I’m interested in the collaborative film making process, how a filmmaker might see my poem differently…and how the two visions can fit together… I think films of my poetry would have the same effect only more so.
Poet Jane McKie describes how she felt when first watching the film interpretation of her poem “La Plage”:
“La Plage” is partly a homage to the beach at Portobello, Edinburgh. When I wrote it I had Portobello’s status as a past resort in mind… and by extension, the faded grandeur of so many of Britain’s seaside towns. But in the writing it became both something more specifically Scottish, and something more metaphysical. When I saw the beautiful, evocative film, I was very affected by the way in which [the filmmaker] has captured the suggestions of absence and loss, the bitter-sweetness, that I had in mind. The sunshine and the wind — cold, biting even — and the muted soundtrack of children’s laughter evoke precisely the spirit of the piece, for me at least. The blurred images of sand, waves, bodies, summon up an atomisation of remembered experience that is at the heart of what I was trying to achieve: a dispersal of nostalgia by the elements.
So, a Poetry-film is just that, a single entwined entity, a melting, a cleaving together of words, sound and vision. It is an attempt to take a poem and present it through a medium that will create a new artwork, separate from the original poem. The film is a separate work from the text itself and this in turn may be able to open up poetry to people who are not necessarily receptive to the written word. Poetry often tries to deal with the abstract world of thought and feeling, rather than the literal world of things. The Poetry-film is the perfect marriage of the two.
©Alastair Cook 2010
Hello,
I’m a Belgian video-artist and use poetry very often for my works. I add sounds, images,…
I’m working on a portfolio at the moment and would love to use some of your words used here…” a Poetry-film is just that, a single entwined entity, a melting, a cleaving together of words, sound and vision. It is an attempt to take a poem and present it through a medium that will create a new artwork, separate from the original poem”
Off course I will add your name.
Is it okay for you to use some of these ideas?
Thanks a lot.
If you would like to see some of my work: http://vimeo.com/swoon/videos
Best regards,
Swoon (aka Marc Neys)
You want to make a meta-poetry-film? Interesting idea!
I admire what both of you guys are doing with music, you as a composer and Alastair as a collaborator with composers. For my own videopoems, I’ve limited myself mainly to what I can find on sites with Creative Commons-licensed material (ccmixter, Jamendo and archive.org) plus some ambient sound I’m recorded with a Zoom H2 mike. For my own and others’ edification, it might be useful at some point to try and pull together a page of tips on soundtrack creation for videopoem makers. So if you have any general or specific recommendations, I’m all ears. (Uh, so to speak.)
Hey Marc. You are welcome to use the words as long as you quote only and accompany them with my full name and both http://alastaircook.com and http://filmpoem.com. They are copyright and as such there is no creative commons licence I’m afraid. Thanks for asking and I’m pleased you’re doing this too, the more the merrier! I’ll check your Swoon work on vimeo…
Scottish poet Morgan Downie shared some of his thoughts about videopoetry and his collaboration with Alastair Cook (see their two videos) in “time vampires,” a blog post from April 28 which I only just discovered. He includes some kind words about Moving Poems, which I appreciated, but I particularly liked his conclusion:
in computerland you can pretty much do what you want, pick a sound, an image, a stream of words and run with it. when alastair did the scene video he just picked it up and ran with it. what a surprise, what a treasure! not only that by indulging yourself in these collaborative efforts you get to meet new people who do things differently to you, who come from different and interesting backgrounds, countries, cultures and, more or less, there’s no publisher, deadline, competition, brief etc etc other than what you want there to be. so all of that is rendered superfluous. and that can only be a good thing.
so, time vampires. yes, staring at a screen can be a bad thing, but as a means to some form of creative expression, some interaction, something new you hadn’t even thought of? that’s a monkey on my back i’ll welcome. i could write more but i’m off to practise some guitar noise i want to use. i have no idea how to record it, what to do with it when i have done, but that’s all part of the joy.
i recommend it.
Donna vorreyer, and 2 others are discussing. 
Alastair Cook, 
Terrific initiative! Can’t wait to see what comes out of it.