Tomorrow we’ll begin showcasing poems from each of the finalists in our 2010 chapbook contest, but to kick off the series, we teamed up with regular qarrtsiluni contributor and blogger James Brush to produce a video for a poem of his choice from the winning manuscript by Clayton T. Michaels. We were extremely impressed with James’ first go at the genre two months ago, God Bless Johnny Cash. It turned out that, in addition to being a fine poet, he also has a degree in film.
We have a strong interest in promoting videopoetry, also known as poetry film and cinepoetry — see Dave’s site Moving Poems, for example — so we decided to do this in preference to a more standard book trailer (itself an interesting new genre). Once the book is officially launched on August 30, other filmmakers will also be welcome to explore videopoem possibilities with the author’s permission. In the meantime, we encourage everyone to link to and share this video. And needless to say, we’d love to get more video submissions to our regular themed issues, too. (You can see all the posts in our Videos category here.)
James Brush lives in Austin, Texas with his wife, cat and two rescued greyhounds, and teaches English in a juvenile correctional facility. His poems have appeared in various places online and in print — see the complete list of publications on his blog. He published his first novel, A Place Without a Postcard, in 2003. He has been fascinated by Martian landscapes since he saw the first Viking images in the mid-1970s.
This is a “videopainting” about what society demands from us as either immigrants or citizens: to assimilate our individual identities and cultures into a larger mainstream persona. The metaphor of a mannequin — arriving from the factory with pre-painted makeup on large arresting eyes, pre-fab white skin, and the seemingly perfect bust — is evocative of the dehumanizing aspect of cultural assimilation. However, this image we construct to integrate into our cultural surroundings is often incomplete, tentative or conflictual; many find themselves going forwards and backwards with this facade, sometimes equally behind and in front of it. This short film is a palindromic painting of an emotional landscape that plays on the mirrors of identity, the multiple masks we offer in different settings, and our subconscious rebellion that emerges in times of epiphany.
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Isabelle Carbonell (website, blog) is a documentary photographer and documentary filmmaker whose determination to give a voice to the voiceless has driven her to document political, social, and environmental injustices around the world. When filming, she becomes her environment — sleeping, eating, and breathing with those she is focusing on, transcending the divide between observer and subject easily. With all the ambitions of an artist, she also employs her rigorous academic training as a researcher to produce an in–depth reportage. As a result, her documentary films and photos try to reveal a deeply complex social understanding while still offering an exquisite artistic vision. Isabelle’s documentary skills have taken her to countries such as India, Qatar, Cuba, Mexico, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua.
Video link. (If you can’t see the video, you need to download Flash.)
Artist’s statement
“In/organic Transmissions” functions as a conversation that is not taking place. In it, elements of natural disintegration attempt to engage with the artificial. This piece entertains notions of health and communication on both micro and macro levels.
Patricia McInroy (website) graduated with an MFA in Visual Arts from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2007. Her video work has been screened at film festivals in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and New York. It is also being shown at schools in Maine, Massachusetts, Florida and South Carolina. She lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she teaches photography to incarcerated youth through the Fresh Eyes program.
Poems by 5 Brass Tacks: D’Arcy Randall, W. Joe Hoppe, Judy Jensen, David Meischen, and Katherine Durham Oldmixon; video, “The Process of Flying,” edited by Katherine Durham Oldmixon with the assistance of Arturo Lomas Garza
Unleashed
She pushes off without the aid of wings, strokes
air to rise above the humming wires, above
the patchwork sharp-peaked roofs that block
their view below, skies breaking off the coast,
and troubling young gnats before my face,
to rise above the garden kale and cabbage,
over patchwork patches of sharp roofs
holding down the living below—
because it’s evolutionary to abandon
land, to glide among the cool, touchable
stars, above the earthbound shouts
that raise their net of fear below:
“Come down, come down before you fall to earth
where you belong!” but not once did I tumble
to the sidewalk, thud hard among their screams;
their upturned stares never reached me
those nights, nothing brought me to ground
but a hard-held expectation, a blue eye opening,
and some days still I raise my heels
from pavement and feel the familiar pull.
by Katherine Durham Oldmixon, with Brass Tacks
Reading by the authors, except for W. Joe Hoppe’s “Flying,” which is read by Dave Bonta — Download the MP3
Process notes
Brass Tacks is a circle of Austin poets who meet periodically to discuss and critique one another’s work. W. Joe suggested that if one of us were to volunteer a poem, we might take the workshop model to the extreme. Katherine offered an early draft of her poem, “Flying,” and the other poets went to work, while Katherine began putting together a video of the process. The 5 Brass Tacks agreed that she would coordinate the workshop and serve as the final editor.
Each poet then submitted a draft based on the original, along with an image of the marked-up poem. All agreed not look at one another’s poems until each had written his or her own version — but some “cheated,” and D’Arcy remarked that cheating really mutated the signature. In the next round, we tried to write a final, collaborative version. Although everyone worked with all five poems, each poet produced a “final” poem that varied little from his or her individual poem in voice, style and interpretation. David and Judy’s title hint at some of those differences. Katherine’s first version of the final poem attempted to stitch together the others, but couldn’t accommodate the strategies of compression or individual stylistic or thematic choices.
We learned that if we had chosen a collaborative project in which each of us produced a line (as in an exquisite corpse), a stanza (as in a renga) or a poem (as in a crown) we would each have something to point to as our own. We also realized that if we had begun with a poem to which none of us had an interior or original relationship, it would have been easier to write. (It seemed that either Katherine had to be the final editor or couldn’t be.) Finally, we realized that we had mutated the poem to create five poems, each borrowing substantially from one another, each our own.
Note on the video
The video, “The Process of Flying,” combines photographs by Katherine Durham Oldmixon of the Austin Kite Festival with images of marked-up poems in the process of collaboration by D’Arcy Randall, David Meischen, W. Joe Hoppe and Judy Jensen. The piano music tracks are from the GarageBand library. The video was composed and edited by Katherine Durham Oldmixon with the assistance of Arturo Lomas Garza.
If you can’t see the video, you need to download Flash.
On the zócalo in Puebla, la ciudad de los ángeles,
flocks of shiny balloons rise and fall and rise
again with the coruscating spray of water
spouted from the mouths of fountain
fish misting birds who flutter
above human voices
peddlers, priests, tourists folding
maps, laughing children playing chase,
rumble of taxis, buses, cars, clink of glasses in
sidewalk cafes, scrape of chairs as the band begins
the danzón, hum of horns, scuff of cellos and violins,
Robert Skiles and Arturo (“Turo”) Lomas Garza have been friends and collaborators for almost thirty-three years, together performing Robert’s musical compositions for recordings and live concerts. Poet and photographer Katherine Durham Oldmixon and Turo have also worked together and supported one another on many artistic projects. So it’s no surprise that Turo, the editor of this project, is the nexus of the collaboration.
When we launched this project, we agreed that we wanted Robert’s music to be central, but we began with Katherine’s poem “Puebla de los ángeles” as a basis for the idea. Robert had read the poem before and expressed an appreciation for its sounds and images. We didn’t want the poem to become lyrics accompanied by music, but the music to be its own interpretation and representation of the idea, and the poem and images to complement. So Robert wrote and recorded his piano solo, “Puebla de los ángeles,” and Turo selected and edited Katherine’s photographs of Puebla, Mexico to create the visual media, integrating the lines of the poem as he heard them and saw them in the song.
We started with a raw video of clips Christine shot while running errands in her town. After Michelle and Jo viewed the video, Michelle suggested a theme of ‘disappearance,’ and came up with a rough outline for a narrative that we all liked. There were a few images and scenes that Jo felt didn’t quite go with our intended poem, which we later deleted. We didn’t know how the lines would turn out, but we did have an idea of where we were going from the start.
Writing line by line, we alternated between the three of us via Facebook, a convenient option since Jo lives in England, Michelle is in South Africa, and Christine is in the US. At times we disclosed what was in our minds as we wrote — this particular aspect of our collaboration is important, because we did not write blindly. The poem is more a result of a merging of minds rather than a serendipitous creation.
Whoever said “three’s a crowd” never collaborated on a poem. Although having three different poets weighing in on each word was at times unwieldy, we came to an agreement about the success of each line fairly quickly.
After brainstorming for titles and reaching a consensus about closing the poem, we recorded the voice, and completed the video.
Upon autopsy, the neck stump of the parasitic head was shown to contain fragments of bone and tiny vestiges of a heart and lungs.
— www.phreeque.com
I could feel your blood circulating inside me,
knew I was killing you, siphoning off
what you needed for myself,
but how could I have been expected
to do otherwise.
On examination, our skulls are one,
locked together like puzzle pieces,
our craniums stacked and sealed
like bricks laid and mortared
by a bricklayer who’d been drinking.
What has a body, even body fragments,
wants to live, has no choice.
The two-headed snake — its brains
struggling to find food — writhes,
gets nowhere until it dies hungry.
I knew something was going wrong
when your body became pale
as rice paper, your blue veins dried up.
And I could not turn my head
to look you in the eyes.
Qarrtsiluni offers electronic delivery of original poetry, prose, and art, organized into regular, themed issues, with a new post every weekday. You can find us wherever you go: email and IM, iTunes, feed readers, sometimes even print. Read more...
Poet (and qarrtsiluni contributor) Jee Leong Koh on his decision to self-publish his poetry and launch his own imprint: http://is.gd/eunZb1 week ago
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