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  • Dave Bonta 11:08 pm on March 8, 2011 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Katherine Leyton, live readings, , Voice Alpha   

    Interview with “How Pedestrian” curator Katherine Leyton 

    Nic Sebastian at Voice Alpha interviews Katherine Leyton, who stops people on the street and gets them to read poems on camera for her site How Pedestrian.

    The visual element of the project, of course, was the main idea. I wanted to bring poetry to people in pubs and streets and taxis around Toronto, capture it on video and post it online. However, the visual aspect of a poem itself is also very important, and I think to fully absorb a poem you need to actually read it; this is why I decided to post the work next to the video. I really wanted the viewer be able to read along.

    One of the most surprising results of the project so far has been the overwhelmingly positive public response.

    The enthusiasm with which pedestrians agree to read for me is astonishing. I would say that out of every ten people I ask to read a poem, nine say yes. When I started, I never expected a 90% response rate, which speaks of my own misperceptions about the way the Canadian public views poetry. People are willing and curious, they just might not be inspired to seek it out on their own – they need a push. Many of my readers want to discuss the poem or poet with me after they read, and almost all are fascinated by the project.

    Read more.

     

  • Dave Bonta 9:17 am on August 10, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: live readings, Sharon Doubiago,   

    Sharon Doubiago reading from My Father’s Love 

    A great example of an author-reading video made riveting not only by gripping material and a good reading but also by judicious editing and the inclusion of still photos. This really makes me want to read the memoir.

    Hat-tip: the Women’s Poetry (WOMPO) listserv

     

  • Dave Bonta 4:36 pm on July 8, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , live readings,   

    Random strangers reading poems on camera 

    Check out How Pedestrian, the latest addition to the Moving Poems linkroll. As described in a recent article in the Toronto National Post, the site’s curator and videographer, Toronto poet Katherine Leyton, stops people at random and asks them to recite a poem on camera. Most of the time, they agree.

    “Poetry has such a bad rap,” Leyton says. “People will tell me about how they had to analyze Robert Frost poems in high school, and how boring it was, but poetry doesn’t have to be like that.” She’s hoping her blog will change the public’s perceptions about poetry and make it more accessible to those who might otherwise shy away from it.

    Most of the participants read the poem Leyton provides only moments before they recite it, and while in some videos this is obvious, in others, the readers recite with such feeling and conviction that it’s hard not to think it’s rehearsed. “Good poetry should always work first on a gut level — it should communicate with you intuitively,” Leyton explains. “I think that for most poets, that’s the aim.”

    As a proof-of-concept, the site is brilliant, and with Leyton’s short but substantive blurbs about each featured poet, I should think How Pedestrian could really come in handy in the classroom.

     

  • Dave Bonta 3:15 pm on May 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Anne Carson, Bob Lockwood, dance, Dorianne Laux, live readings, Sadie Wilcox,   

    Poetry + dance 

    Today’s post at Moving Poems, The Lovers by Dorianne Laux, is equally a testament to the imagination of the director, Bob Lockwood, as to the performers: great care has obviously been expended on both the filming and choreography. Lockwood says that the video is “an amalgam of takes of two rehearsal runs.” Having three female dancers take turns reciting the poem worked brilliantly to universalize the very personal, intimate subject-matter of the poem, I thought. The only way it might’ve been improved would have been to have made them wear masks.

    “The Lovers” joins a small number of other very impressive offerings in Moving Poem’s Dance category, which several people have told me includes some of their favorite videos on the site. Perhaps the best-known of these poetry-dance videos are the ones for Anne Carson’s series of lectures in the form of sonnets, filmed by Sadie Wilcox, but the approaches to filming, choreography, and integration of text are diverse and also very multicultural, including Iranian, Burmese, Indian and Swedish poets. Together, these videos should serve to remind us that poetry has been a part of multi-media productions for millennia, as dance, drama, and/or musical performance. From this perspective, the merging of poetry with film or video is simply the latest manifestation of a very ancient impulse.

     

    • ChristineSwint 7:12 pm on May 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      I agree, masks would have been interesting. I liked the beginning, before they started speaking, when their arms were flowing in a wave-like pattern. It helped to establish a sort of universal “I.” I would love to know what Dorianne Laux thinks of it. The dancers physically showed the complexities of emotions in the poem. Funny, I just read a poem last night byLucia Perillo called “Four Red Zodiacs,” in which she describes how Baudelaire “couldn’t stand what sex did to the face”. I guess men AND women have their issues when it comes to looking at their partner during sex.

      • Dave 11:11 pm on May 20, 2010 Permalink | Reply

        I think what some find unsettling about the face in ecstacy is that all masks come off. And a face that isn’t a mask is almost not a face at all.

        • renkat 4:11 pm on May 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          I think you are right. Masks. Do you have a theater background, Dave? (Still love the Carson sonnets. I am so inspired by those. It is the kind of work our students do at school all the time.) Totally OT – I bought the Stephen Fry book, it came today and I can’t wait.

          • Dave 4:18 pm on May 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply

            Not really, though I did spend six months studying Noh chanting and dance when I lived in Japan. (Let me know how you like that book.)

  • Christine Swint 3:46 pm on May 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Annie Clarkson, live readings,   

    Here’s a link to Annie Clarkson’s reading:

    I’ve read her chapbook, Winter Hands, and it’s beautiful. Her video reading interests me because she first talks about her writing in general, as well as the authors who have influenced her. As she reads, she stands next to an antique lamp with tassel fringe, in front of a wall painted deep red. The sound of dishes clinking in the background gives the reading an immediacy. The filming is good, because normally when a reading is recorded the poet stands on a stage in front of a mike.

    I doubt I would ever have a chance to hear Annie read live, so this recording is almost as good as hearing her in person.

     

    • Dave 4:36 pm on May 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      Thanks for sharing that, Christine. There are so many poorly filmed poetry readings online, I’ll admit I have almost stopped checking them out. But I need to start featuring more of them on Moving Poems, so I’m glad to see this. (And if I’d realized that a forum would be a great way to find out about new videos to consider for the main site, I would’ve set this up a long time ago!)

    • Dave 7:53 pm on May 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply

      I know you’re interested in the topic of poetry reading in general. Just discovered this at Beau’s site:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xX3rBNScqc

      • ChristineSwint 8:52 pm on May 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply

        Gulp, Heinlein is hard on poets! Beau’s good at that animation, wow. So what would Heinlein say about reading poetry aloud in general?

        • Dave 9:35 pm on May 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply

          I don’t know. Heinlein was more or less a fascist, though, wasn’t he? I guess I’d be worried if he LIKED poetry.

          • ChristineSwint 10:12 pm on May 18, 2010 Permalink | Reply

            His only book I’ve read is Stranger in a Strange Land, which is not at all fascist. Maybe he just didn’t get poetry.

            • Dave 12:50 pm on May 19, 2010 Permalink

              Well, be that as it may, here’s a recipe for a kind of poetry reading even Heinlein would probably approve of (via Ren on the WOMPO list):
              http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1768073198/the-poetry-bomb

            • ChristineSwint 2:50 pm on May 19, 2010 Permalink

              Oh, he just read in Atlanta, and I missed it! I live in the suburbs, and it’s hard to get to all the cool events in Atlanta, especially late at night. He even brought his bomb–I saw someone’s picture of it. He painted it a bright red. He’s one of the editors of the Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. His project is a good one, especially because of the wars. Ironic, his first poem is from an MP… .

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