The Poetics of Poetry Film cited by Wheeler Winston Dixon
I just wanted to share this lovely moment in that leading experimental filmmaker and perhaps the world authority on the subject – Wheeler Winston Dixon – has quoted TPOPF in relation to his extensive volume of video work on Vimeo. Thank You!
And here is just one of his highly crafted experimental films / film poems You are Not Alone, which appear at least one a week, and reflect the emotional tensions and dysfunctions of the world we are living in today. Many of his film poems directly confront political breakdown and eco disaster, whilst also maintaining a potent screen craft with high aesthetic values.
Thank you for your inspiring research and writing that has led the field.
Here follows his description on Wikipedia
Wheeler Winston Dixon (born March 12, 1950) is an American filmmaker and scholar. He is an expert on film history,[4] theory and criticism.[5] His scholarship has particular emphasis on François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, American experimental cinema and horror films. He has written extensively on numerous aspects of film, including his books A Short History of Film (co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster) and A History of Horror. From 1999 through the end of 2014, he was co-editor, along with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, of the Quarterly Review of Film and Video.[6] He is regarded as a top reviewer of films.[6] In addition, he is notable as an experimental American filmmaker with films made over several decades,[7] and the Museum of Modern Art exhibited his works in 2003.[2] He taught at Rutgers University, The New School in New York, the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, and as of May, 2020, is the James E. Ryan professor emeritus of film studies at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln.[8]
And this is the extraordinary body of work under his name. I particularly value: The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of the American Experimental Cinema (State University of New York Press, 1997)
- Synthetic Cinema: The 21st Century Movie Machine (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
- The Films of Terence Fisher: Hammer Horror and Beyond (Auteur / Columbia University Press, 2017)
- A Brief History of Comic Book Movies, with Richard Graham (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
- Hollywood in Crisis or: The Collapse of the Real (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
- Black & White Cinema: A Short History (Rutgers University Press, 2015)
- Dark Humor in Films of the 1960s (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
- Cinema at The Margins (Anthem Press, London, 2013)
- Streaming: Movies, Media and Instant Access (University Press of Kentucky, 2013)[29]
- Death of the Moguls: The End of Classical Hollywood (Rutgers University Press, 2012)[28]
- 21st Century Hollywood: Movies in the Era of Transformation, with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (Rutgers University Press, 2011)
- A History of Horror (Rutgers University Press, 2010)[8]
- Film Noir and The Cinema of Paranoia (Edinburgh University Press and Rutgers University Press, 2009)
- A Short History of Film, co-authored with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (Rutgers University Press) and I.B. Tauris, 2008; Second Edition 2013, Third Edition 2018 [41])
- Film Talk: Directors at Work (Rutgers University Press, 2007)
- Visions of Paradise: Images of Eden in the Cinema (Rutgers University Press, 2006)
- American Cinema of the 1940s: Themes and Variations (Rutgers University Press, 2006)
- Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood (Southern Illinois UP, 2005)
- Film and Television After 9/11 (editor, Southern Illinois UP, 2004)
- Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema (Wallflower, 2003)
- Straight: Constructions of Heterosexuality in the Cinema (State University of New York Press, 2003)
- Experimental Cinema: The Film Reader, co-edited with Gwendolyn Audrey Foster (Routledge, 2002).
- Disaster and Memory: Celebrity Culture and the Crisis of Hollywood Cinema (Columbia University Press, 1999)
- The Exploding Eye: A Re-Visionary History of the American Experimental Cinema (State University of New York Press, 1997)
- The Films of Jean-Luc Godard (State University of New York Press, 1997)
- The Transparency of Spectacle: Meditations on the Moving Image (State University of New York Press Series in Postmodern Culture, 1998)
- It Looks at You: Notes on the Returned Gaze of Cinema (State University of New York Press, 1995)
- Re-Viewing British Cinema: 1900-1992 (State University of New York Press, 1994)
- The Early Film Criticism of François Truffaut (Indiana University Press, 1993)
- The Cinematic Vision of F. Scott Fitzgerald (UMI Research Press, 1986)
The Climate Emergency, Deep Adaptation Forum, Just Stop Oil & The Scottish Centre for Geopoetics
Unfortunately and not surprisingly I have a few posts on this subject as the temperatures soar and the birds have gone very quiet.
Please check out the latest edition of Stravaig (no 11) from the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics, which has a timely edition with a lot to say about geopoetics and also the catastrophe of climate change. The cover and my feature image is by talented artist Caroline Watson entitled ‘Along the Horizon, With or Without Us’: I so dearly pray it won’t come true. Many thanks to the editorial team for including a poem of mine on that subject, echoing Dylan Thomas, ‘A Villanelle for the Bees and the Birds’, and whilst I am mentioning it, for including one of my poems on family history in Stravaig 10, last year. I would recommend joining the SCG if you are at all interested in discussions by geologists, poets, artists etc. from all walks of life, who are concerned about our planet and our position as custodians of its future.
What can you say on this subject except why are we sitting in the dark waiting for a government to act? I think it is the not knowing, the details of how to switch from oil etc. which of course are mammoth but need to be at the forefront of discussion every day now. Most people are law-abiding but they realise that they are looped up in the systems that support oil: fuel bills, transport, all byproducts etc. Let’s stop oil and future fracking projects and start arresting global warming. Everyone should be working at getting temperatures down.
I have been fortunate in having my poetry film I Cannot be Human included in the Deep Adaptation forum online. Many thanks to talented ecopoet Janet Lees for putting it forward and to the organisers for welcoming it, though of course I wish all of it wasn’t happening.
The Psychological Pain of Global Warming
I would recommend the forum to those of you who are struggling with the ecological emergency we are in, and need to share and discuss issues with likeminded people.
The Deep Adaptation forum
Another place I would suggest is the Just Stop Oil campaign www.juststopoil.org
One of the most inspiring people in that is Zoe Cohen who can be seen bringing the Jeremy Vine TV hosts back to reality in this wonderful interview
I think this shows how we are so schizophrenic. People put on their suits and talk the talk just to get through their day, but know the reality underneath and realise the implication that everything, but everything needs to have a new approach to living. You can’t have a frothy chat about a bit of heat when there are such massive implications and you can’t sweep it under the carpet. Good for you Zoe!
We need to know what the big companies are doing to help us have plans in place to follow (new fuels) right now so we can all feel we are doing our bit to save the planet. On a positive side I am a big supporter of the new forests that are being planted, or so I understand. In 2020 the government announced plans for ten new forests to be planted in just five months. And here at the Northern Forest there seems to be hope.
If trees are planted and environments replaced that is something that we can hang on to and have faith in this and each other.
Coming soon I will be featuring two leading eco activist poetry filmmakers from America – Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran, who have made it their lives’ mission to wake us up to the state of our planet. Not to be missed.
17 JULY 2022 – TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY FOR LIBERATED WORDS!
Yes, it has been ten years since the first Liberated Words curation at MIX conference, Bath Spa University.
A big thank you to everyone who sent in poetry films and videopoems, and those who were screened, who were: Tamsin Taylor (UK), Les Lieux de Memoire, Marco de Mutiis (IT), An Rest, Topp and Dubio, I am Yuri Gagarin, Susanne Wiegner, Something I Remember, Henry Gwiazda, The Process, Philip Hartigan, Did He Struggle, Karen Densham, Is that all there is, Dorit Weisman, Good Morning World, Javier Robledo, Ponencia, Peta Lloyd, Big Society, Anton Hecht, Undone by our Shoelaces, Susanna Flock, Trying to Build a Sentence, Laurent Metrich, Bird Word, John Scott, One Art, David Richardson, The Mantis Shrimp, Steve Fossey, Liberated Words from Berlin, Keith Sargent, Something by Charles Bukowski, Martha McCollough, Innocent Beat and Margarida Sardinha HyperLightness ad Absurdum.
I thought it would be nice to check out where they are at today, on all stages of the digital art / poetry film / videopoetry spectrum. Where there wasn’t an obvious website, I chose Vimeo or YouTube links. CONGRATULATIONS to everyone for just continuing … no easy feat.
Tamsin Taylor
http://www.tamsintaylor.co.uk/
Marco de Mutiis
Topp and Dubio
Susanne Wiegner
Henry Gwiazda
Philip Hartigan
Karen Densham
Dorit Weisman
Javier Robledo Director of VideoBardo
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCndZi1VKdoPTx6FsZhp-oTg
Anton Hecht
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDT-aDaFl9YWmx2jdV2yvhg
Susanna Flock
Laurent Metrich
John D. Scott
Elizabeth Bishop and the Art of Losing, Magpie Productions, Gorgeous Mistake Productions
83-minute documentary.https://artoflosingmovie.com/
Dave Richardson
Steve Fossey
https://www.stevefossey.co.uk/
Keith Sargent
Martha McCollough
Margarida Sardinha
https://www.margaridasardinha.com/
AMPLIFIED VOICES at MIX conference 5 JULY 2021
Join us for a curated poetry film screening and Q&A hosted by Professor Lucy English of Bath Spa University with Adrian B. Earle (Think/Write/Fly)and Sarah Tremlett (Liberated Words).
About this event
Poetry films are short films which blend word, spoken or as text, sound and moving image. In this curation, Adrian B. Earle (Think/Write/Fly) and Sarah Tremlett (Liberated Words) have chosen a selection of films which showcase unusual or different approaches to creation and/or less represented voices. This will be followed by a Q&A.
Place and Time – Adrian B. Earle
Poetry film can explore voices made distant by place and time. How can translations of ancient poetry be relevant to contemporary audiences? How does our perception of time change in different situations such as waiting for a pregnancy test? How can we reclaim marginal language through poetry film and how can poetry film represent new visions of masculinity?
Adrian B. Earle is a Writer, Poet, and Media Maker from Birmingham. He has been mashing together sonics & Syllables for a decade as Thinkwritefly. Managing Director at Audio & Video Poetry Project VerseFirst Productions, & Creative Development Lead at the Poetry in Place App Overhear. A 2019 Hippodrome young Poet, His debut pamphlet 5000HURTS is published by Burning Eye Books, 2019, His Poetry Film boyshapedspace commissioned for the BBC, was selected for multiple festivals internationally & won joint 1st at the Newlyn PZ international Film Festival 2020, His first full collection We are Always & Forever Ending is Published by Broken Sleep Books July 31st.
Voicing the More-Than-Human – Sarah Tremlett
Sarah Tremlett looks at how poetry film-makers express, in different ways, the politically and economically disregarded voices of the more-than-human in our fast disappearing fragile world ecosystems. How can the aesthetics of the ecopoetry film transcend or disrupt the androcentric viewpoint, and raise awareness of such major issues for the planet?
Sarah Tremlett (Poem Film) MPhil, FRSA, SWIP is a British poetry filmmaker, poet and theorist, particularly enquiring into the philosophy of poetry film. She is co-director of Liberated Words Poetry Film events, editor of Liberated Words online, a curator and judge at festivals, and author of leading publication The Poetics of Poetry Film published by Intellect Books and The University of Chicago Press, May, 2021. With a family history poetry film screening in ‘Reconnections’ at LYRA poetry festival 2021, she is the creator of an ongoing family history prose, poetry and poetry film project entitled Tree. Her family history poem on mediaeval mining ‘Firewash’ is part of Earth Lines geopoetry and geopoetics collection (Edinburgh Geological Society, Autumn, 2021).
This event is part of MIX 2021: Amplified Publishing. Developed by Bath Spa University, MIX is a four-day virtual conference that explores the intersection of writing and technology, bringing together people to make, think and talk. You can buy a ticket for the conference here. If you have already purchased a ticket for the conference you don’t need to buy an additional ticket for this event.
We have a limited number of Pay It Forward tickets to support individuals who want to attend this Maker Session but are not able to pay (e.g. if you are a freelancer with a limited income or not employed by an academic institution). If you are interested in being offered a Pay It Forward ticket email mix@bathspa.ac.uk
For more information on MIX 2021: Amplified Publishing visit our website. If you have any access requirements or need more information email mix@bathspa.ac.uk
Uprooted 2018–20 touring screening
Uprooted is a curation by Sarah Tremlett on poetry films created on migration and the refugee crisis. It had a small tour of the South West, where the inaugural screening was at North Cornwall Book Festival in October, 2018, followed by Bath Spa University Empathy conference in November and Lyra Poetry Festival, Bristol, April, 2019. Joining forces with Canadian multimedia artist Mary McDonald Uprooted was also shown in the USA at Reelpoetry, Houston, 2020. Here we also included Mary’s beautifully executed and deeply poignant poetry film On the Margin of History with Serbian poet Natasha Boskic and Syrian poet Mohamad Kebbewar.
It begins with an interpretation of the poem ‘The Damascene Collar of the Dove’ from The Butterfly’s Burden (2007) by Mahmoud Darwish (Palestine, 1941–2008) by filmmaker Waref Abu Quba (Syria).
Each event interleaved live poetry with the screening of the poetry films, in different and powerful ways. Houston was particularly memorable for the poets chosen and their responses to the films.
Uprooted for LYRA programme
The aim of the curation was to show how artists can provide a different, more empathetic view
than is portrayed in the media. We have films from artists such as: Ghayath Almadhoun and Marie
Silkeberg, Jan Baeke, Alfred Marseille, Maciej Piatek and poet Hollie McNish.
Please get in touch if you would like to host a screening at your festival.
‘Wonderful’ Patrick Gale, North Cornwall Book Festival. ‘Thought provoking and so many different types of film’; ‘Really revealing’; ‘We really support what you are doing’; ‘Powerful – and giving artists a voice’ ‘How do you make poetry films?’ The films generated a big response; the audience all cheered at Holly McNish’s film: Mathematics. www.liberatedwords.com
VideoBardo – 25 Year celebrations : interviews on TPOPF with Sarah Tremlett and Charles Olsen
VIDEOBARDO www.videobardo.com in Buenos Aires is celebrating its 25th anniversary! Live from the 25–28 November at the CENTRO CULTURAL SAN MARTÍN – SALA 1 (Sarmiento y Paraná ) 5–11 pm, it is now online at the Video Bardo YouTube channel. I was honoured to be interviewed by festival director Javier Robledo who asked some really interesting questions interview with Javier and this is followed by the interview by Charles Olsen with Spanish and Portuguese video poets from the book. These have had a fantastic number of hits to date, as have other videos on the site, so thank you everyone.
There were numerous screenings and invited curations to see, and I wish I could have been there myself. I went in 2012 and gave a talk, so I know how special the festival can be. If you take a look at their website you can travel back to the beginning of this century! and see the extraordinary work they have been across all forms of poetry. They are truly an innovative festival.
SO excited to be part of it.
Spanning 25 years this festival was a truly a legendary event, with a multitude of different approaches to poetry and film/video.
There will be programs of Videopoetry, Poetic Video Perfomance, Poetic Animation, Poetic Sound, VideoDance, Video Art and Poetic Medium-length Films that bring together137 videos by artists from around the world. In addition, there will be a video interview with Javier Robledo on the book The Poetics of Poetry Film with Sarah Tremlett, director of the Liberated Words Festival in the United Kingdom, and a separate presentation by Charles Olsen with Spanish and Portuguese videopoets who were featured in his chapter in the book.
Instants Video Video Art Festival of France, Magmart Video Art Festival of Italy, Waley Gallery Art Galey from Taiwan, ÁREA Association of Audiovisual Experimental Filmmakers, the presentation of the Decolonial Constellations Series in Art-Action # 2 of the space Peras de Olmo –Ars Continua, and as a guest Tom Konyves, a reference in Videopoetry, from Canada will present Hopscotch, the analysis of a videopoem.
