STOP PRESS! Filmpoem will perform at StAnza 2012 with readings by Colin Will, Jo Bell, Jane McKie and Jennifer Lynn Williams with live soundtrack by Luca Nasciuti on Friday 16th March at 3:30pm. Book here!
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. Filmpoem is an innovative collaborative venture by analogue filmmaker Alastair Cook, committed to attracting new audiences to poetry. Email us here or follow us on Twitter.
14th Avenue Tshwane (née Pretoria) is a poem by Gérard Rudolf from his collection Orphaned Latitudes. It is my first work of 2012 and illustrates the year's intent: it is made from tangible film, not digital recordings, and 2012 is the year of using the digital to edit the analogue. I cannot edit without digital, I cannot make film without analogue. The year of Rollei, Bolex and Collodion. See you soon and Happy New Year!
Slow Wave Through The City is a poem by Jacq Kelly, published by Colin Herd this year. It crossed my path digitally and I watched the film in my head as I read, my adopted city of Edinburgh speeding by. Slow Wave Through the City was filmed in Edinburgh on 8mm film in Summer 2011 on a long walk with the poet; it was shot using Ektachrome Super8, processed in Kansas by Dwaynes.
Mothlight is a film of Janette Ayachi's poem, which she wrote after watching James Stanley Brakhage's film Mothlight, a film shot on single 8 and hand edited in 1963, a "found foliage" film composed of insects, leaves, and other detritus sandwiched between two strips of perforated tape. Janette's new poetry is beguiling, mercurial, her words are set out before her: dark, open, beautiful. Mothlight was filmed on single 8 in 1961 and edited in 2011.
Philosophy is by poet and boater Jo Bell; she is also the Director of National Poetry Day. It's been swirling around my head all summer, while baby Rose has been born and grown; Philosophy is a joy, bright and full of life, bursting. It has been long in gestation but it has been a real pleasure to make this one; the entire film was shot on Ektachrome Super 8 and processed at Dwaynes in Kansas, whose praises I cannot sing high enough. Also, it has also been a pleasure to be able to include Vladimir Kryutchev's incredible sound work again. His site at Oontz is a wonder for binaural loving sound folks. This one's for my boy, Charlie.
Prodigal is a poem by incredible poet Kona Macphee and was born from Andrew Philip's poem project for the second Hidden Door festival, held in Edinburgh in October 2010. I was asked to record a reading of the poem and as I read it, I felt it's power and resolved to make a filmpoem. I commissioned a cello piece from Rebecca Rowe and we performed this live at the Poetry Association of Scotland's meeting on 9th March 2011, at the Scottish Poetry Library. A new direction for these perhaps, the addition of live performance...but the work is as dark and mercurial as ever.
Condition of Fire is a filmpoem of seven poems from New Jersey poet Jennifer Lynn Williams eponymous first collection. As her publisher, Tony Frazer, writes: "Ovid expressed the truth that to change is to survive, and this message erupts out of the poems in Condition of Fire, whose language and images strive to communicate in new ways the essential elements of myth, creation and the burning breath of being." Condition of Fire was premiered on 26th February 2011 at the Scottish Poetry Library and features a commissioned sound work by Luca Nasciuti.
Naming is a film by Alastair Cook of a poem by US poet Scott Edward Anderson. Scott’s poetry received the Nebraska Review Award and the Aldrich Emerging Poets Award and appeared in the recent issue of Anon. You can read more of his poetry at his Seapoetry blog and his website. Naming was premiered at the Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Edinburgh, January 2011. It was shot entirely on Kodachrome Super 8 in 2010 and contains no post production, after effects or digital trickery.
Abachan is a landscape incantation, written in Lybster, Caithness, at a time of crisis; it is unlikely that I will make another film with a poem of my own. Abachan was premiered at the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics meet at Brantwood, John Ruskin's house, on Coniston in the Lake District, March 26th 2011. Additional sounds from David Fyans and Victoria MacRae. Abachan was shot entirely on Kodachrome Super 8 in 1977 by my father.
MacAdam Takes to the Sea is a filmpoem of Andrew Philip's wonderful eponymous poem, commissioned for the second Hidden Door Festival in Edinburgh; it was premiered on 23rd October 2010. It will also be shown at StAnza, the Scottish Poetry Festival, from 16-20th March 2011.
-ed is a film of a poem by Mairi Sharratt from her collection This is a Poem. It took a long time for me to begin this filmpoem for two reasons: I had been busy with The Land and the Sea, my
solo film and photography show as part of the Edinburgh Festival 2010; also the poem is dark and yet meditative, lifting to a powerful crescendo and as a result I felt that I needed to introduce a figurative element. So I ruminated...
-ed was premiered at the Hidden Door Festival on 24nd October 2010 and will be shown at StAnza, the Scottish Poetry Festival, from 16-20th March 2011. With thanks to Erstlaub.
Adrift is a film of a poem by Juliet Wilson from her debut Unthinkable Skies, published by Colin Will's Dunbar based Calderwood Press. Adrift was premiered at The Land and the Sea with a reading by Juliet. It will also be shown at StAnza, the Scottish Poetry Festival, from 16-20th March 2011. With thanks to Luca Nasciuti.
Emily Melting is film collaboration with poet Gérard Rudolf. The poem Emily Melting is from Gérard's incredible poetry collection, Orphaned Latitudes. Gérard described the poem as being "as much about a lost country as it is about people losing each other in the half remembered haze of a boyhood memory." This film is the beginning of a series of work with Gérard, and we plan to write, produce and direct a feature length film in due course.
The poem La Plage is by exceptional poet Jane McKie and is steeped in bright sunshine and knee-deep in children. La Plage was screened at the McEwan Hall in Edinburgh on the 25th and 26th March 2010 as part of film and poetry project This Collection. With thanks to Charlie Cook.
The poem Niddrie is by poet Claire Askew. Niddrie was screened at the McEwan Hall in Edinburgh on the 25th and 26th March 2010 as part of ongoing film and poetry project This Collection. With thanks to Ginnetta Correlli.
The poem Portobello is written and read by poet and short story writer Morgan Downie
and is a dark drag, a rake through the ghost of Edinburgh's seaside. It was screened at the McEwan Hall in Edinburgh on the 25th and 26th March 2010 as part of ongoing film and poetry project This Collection. With thanks to The Scottish Poetry Library.
Scene is the first filmpoem, for This Collection. Scene was premiered on the 25th March 2010 at the McEwan Hall in Edinburgh and was chosen to be screened as part of the ZEBRA Film Poetry Festival in Berlin in October 2010. With thanks to James Norton.