Weimar: Lit-collage, Aline Helmcke, Frame to Frames book tour, judging – Poetryfilmtage
I am very excited and honoured to be part of Weimar Poetry Film Award / Poetryfilmtage – (Friday 31st May and Saturday 1st June) this year. I will be judging and also presenting the newly published Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow / Cuadro a Cuadros : Tus Ojos Seguen bilingual, ekphrastic poetry anthology, with QR link to poetry films (Saturday at 11 am).
It is my first time at this well-established festival, https://poetryfilmtage.de/ and I would like to thank director Guido Naschert for inviting me to be a juror, and I am really looking forward to meeting the other two esteemed judges – Rike Bolte and Pierre Guiho https://poetryfilmtage.de/jury-2024/. It will also be exciting to meet some of the finalists in person, whilst also taking in events that include short documentaries from around the world, young poetry filmmakers and German-language poetry films.
See Flyer_Poetry_Film_2024-web
This year there were 479 films from 51 countries submitted, and so the directors have been busy selecting finalists! The three festival directors are: Guido Naschert, Ana Maria Vallejo and Catalina Geraldo Vélez. Guido has a background in philosophy and literary studies and is a curator of the competition and international programme, and manages the Literary Society of Thuringia. Together with animator Aline Helmcke he founded the Poetry film Magazine (first published 2015) and the Weimar Poetry Film Award (originating in 2016) http://guidonaschert.de https://www.literarische-gesellschaft.de/
Ana Maria Vallejo http://anavallejo.de/ is also a curator, animator and filmmaker. She loves papercuts, collage and experimental films. She’s co-founder of the Weimar Animation Club and co-curates the competition with Guido. Catalina Giraldo Vélez https://gatomonodesign.com/ is a Professor and Head of Visual Design at Bauhaus University. She is also an animator and co-founder of the Weimar Animation Club.
It is easy to see that animation is a leading subject here. Looking at the background to the festival, they say: ‘Since 2014, professionals and students at the Bauhaus University have explored the connection between moving images and poetry and produced a large number of poetic animations.’ If you would like to combine the art of animation with a contemporary student appreciation of Weimar as a place to live and learn see: https://www.luciaschmidt.org/das-leben-in-weimar-2019/. However, reflecting on the marriage of art and craft (across the visual, verbal and sound design) in poetry film animation, it is equally important to situate the festival against its heritage, where philosophy, politics, literature, aesthetics, design and craftsmanship seem to have moved hand in hand.
The highly acclaimed German polymath, poet, playwright, novelist, theatre director, metaphysician, and scientist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) was invited to the ducal court at Weimar in 1775, and became associated with the city for the rest of his life. Whilst leading German poet and classical playwright Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805) spent his final years in Weimar, exchanging philosophical talks with Goethe, his friend and collaborator. Apparently, it was here that they replaced their espousal of the earlier Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) literary movement that extolled the individual, emotional expression and nature over the cult of Rationalism, with a new humanism or Weimar Classicism (Weimarer Klassik) (1772–1805). It has been said that this new humanism sought to resolve or bridge the binary differences between, for example in poetry the emotional or subjective approach and the objective clarity of the intellect and Age of Enlightenment.
In 1919, a new approach to arts education in post-WWI Germany heralded the combining of the fine arts with industrial craftsmanship, and the merging of the School of Fine Art with the craft-based School of Arts and Crafts into the Bauhaus Art School. It was led by director architect Walter Gropius following his Bauhaus manifesto. It aimed to unite art, craft and technology to create functional design for the people. He brought artists to teach such as Paul Klee and László Moholy-Nagy (whose work crossed all media, painting, sculpture, metalworking, photography and photomontage).
In visiting the festival then, these historical factors – the aesthetics of art, politics and philosophy are inevitably embedded all around you; but are also reflected in much of the subject matter in the poetry film screening programme. Philosophy, art, craft, design are all present in the animations and films being shown, and once outside in the street, reflected back to the viewer through time. As Anna Maria Vallejo said in an interview with Magpies Magazine ‘At my masters I discovered animation as a place where both fields – moving images and fine art – find each other’.
Love, Hannah Hoch, 1931
Lit-collage
Echoing the emphasis on animation the main theme of the festival this year is ‘Lit-collage’ or photomontage, which is really exciting to me. Though I am not known for collage in my own poetry films, my dissertation (some years ago now) on Women Artists and Text (across all media) began with the German Dada collagist Hannah Höch (1889–1978), and it is not difficult to see how the central exhibition at the festival on this subjectDrehmoment by German visual artist and filmmaker Aline Helmcke (co-founder of the festival) bears a strong comparison to Höch’s work. Aline is a visual artist and director specialising in drawing, collage and animated moving image, and her drawings are particularly sensitive and experimental. Helmcke manages to create psychological tensions in her animations, something I don’t often see, for one example go to: junger janssen https://ahelmcke.com/portfolio/animation-junger-janssen/
She studied Fine Art at the Berlin University of the Arts and Animation at the Royal College of Art in London. Her work has been shown at film festivals and exhibitions and is also active as a film curator and university lecturer, currently at the Kunsthochschule Weißensee and the Hochschule für Kunst und Design Burg Giebichenstein Halle. https://ahelmcke.com/
I feel really lucky to actually be able to see this exhibition. The very title, which translates as ‘Torque’ in English (or pulling power in relation to an engine, or in terms of physics, the measurement of a rotational force). With Dadaist overtones, it conjures up concepts that relate to the visual tensions that occur from the cut-up process, the collisions or recombinations that tell new or fragmented narratives. And, of course, these factors take you beyond the visual to political positioning, and socially constructed understandings of gender. The festival programme beautifully illustrates her fractured, Dadaist photomontage style, or see Helmcke’s Brace Brace (2019) with flailing, disembodied legs https://ahelmcke.com/portfolio/cut-out-brace-brace/ or her animated collage loop https://ahelmcke.com/portfolio/animation-animated-collage-loop01/
animated collage loop, Aline Helmcke, 2016
One of my favourite stop motion animations by Catalina Giraldo Vélez is from the poem The Picture in the Picture in the Picture by German author and musician Marlen Pelny. Here, the poem (spoken by Pelny) narrates the nostalgia of, and problems with, searching for memories, with the intangibility of looking back; whilst the drawers of a filing cabinet, (or pages of a notebook and a paperback) uncertainly open and close. https://www.movingpoems.com/filmmaker/catalina-giraldo-velez/
Unfortunately, some wonderful workshops in stop-motion, text collage and sound collage have already taken place in April, when the festival began. However, on Friday evening the Lit Collage theme continues, with the workshop instructors Bas Böttcher, Kay Kalytta and Franka Sachse,‘taking the stage for a multimedia jam session; where spoken word meets sound and video art.’ And later, Aline will present a programme featuring collage animations of note, so I am really looking forward to an exciting Friday evening experience. As a poetry filmmaker with an art-school background myself, I am fascinated by the moving canvas of the animator’s eye. The way that animated shapes and colours can provide a playful often humorous or tragic world, accompanied by appropriate, carefully placed sound effects creates a constantly mesmerising screen. And one that really shows the artist’s free imagination at work, where anything is possible, perhaps the best medium for depicted storytelling. As Anna Maria Vallejo said: ‘My main interest lies in films in which narration can work differently… or where I feel curious because they show a weirdness or mysterious beauty.’
Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow / Cuadro a Cuadros Tus Ojos Seguen
I am thrilled to be driving to Weimar with copies of Frame to Frames in my hot little hands. I am also really looking forward to being interviewed by Guido and discussing a bilingual book-film linked project especially with ekphrastic poetry films, and sharing films and artist’s thoughts on the experience. I will be announcing this separately so for the moment leave you with a brief description of the Press details and all the forthcoming tour dates. I hope to see you at Weimar on Saturday morning if you are interested in bilingual (English and Spanish), ekphrastic poetry film. Congratulations to all the filmmakers who took part.
Described as an innovative and unique project – Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow / Cuadro a Cuadros : Tus Ojos Siguen is a bilingual (English and Spanish) ekphrastic poetry book with a QR link to a 17-film screening of poetry films made from the poems. The concept of a book-film arose from Sarah Tremlett’s Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow ekphrastic poetry film prize, where poetry filmmakers respond to works of art. The 2023 edition II of the prize was screened at FOTOGENIA Film Poetry and Divergent Narratives Film Festival, Mexico City in December 2023. The accompanying colour publication of the poems, synopses and stills from the QR-linked films alongside artists’ biographies, was also launched at the same time, under the imprint Poem Film Editions (co-founded by Sarah Tremlett and Hungarian poetry filmmaker and translator Csilla Toldy), with a print date of April/May, 2024. The festival painting Huapango Torero (see book cover) by non-binary Mexican artist Ana Segovia was selected by Sarah Tremlett as a prompt, and was chosen by many of the artists. This painting (a revision of an original work), where a boy holds a flower up to a bull, is a call to end animal cruelty, machismo and bullfighting.
The Frame to Frames project celebrates three creative forms: art inspiring art, translation and transmedia. So often in watching poetry films the poem passes you by, but the book allows you to press pause, really take in the poem on the page then return to the film. Here, it is possible to see how words and meaning can be transformed through the filmmaker’s process.
See https://vimeo.com/929116208 for a bilingual documentary on the making of the project from five of the poetry filmmakers.
TheFrame to Frames project has screenings at: FOTOGENIA, Mexico City, December, 2023; REELpoetry, Houston, April, 2024; The International Poetry Film Festival of Thuringia, Germany, May, 2024; ‘We Need to Talk about Ekphrasis Now’ Leeds Trinity University, July, 2024; Bristol Literary Film Festival, August, 2024; Maldito Festival de Videopoesía, Albacete, Spain, November, 2024.
Sarah Tremlett, UK and the following artists are available for your festival screening and book presentation: Patricia Killelea, US; Tova Beck Friedman, US; Alejandro Thornton, AR; Colm Scully, IRL; Janet Lees, UK (Lois P Jones and Elena K Byrne, US); Martin Sercombe, (Thom Conroy) NZ; Pamela Falkenberg & Jack Cochran, US; Csilla Toldy, HU, IRL; Finn Harvor, CA; Javier Robledo, AR; Beate Gordes, DE; lan Gibbins, (Judy Morris); Carlos Ramirez Kobra, MX; Penny Florence, UK; Meriel Lland, UK; Ana Pantic, RS;
Refs:
https://magpiesmagazine.com/2022/03/17/interview-with-filmmaker-ana-maria-vallejo/
Poetry Goes Technical: LYRA, Cancer Alley and AI poetry with Thomas Zadegiacomo del Bel
If you are in Bristol this weekend LYRA poetry festival is closing on the 21st with lots still to come, such as TS Eliot prize-winning poets Joelle Taylor and Alice Oswald (in Oswald’s case supported by Caroline Bird and Rachel Long). And for poetry film lovers and those interested in the interaction between poetry and technology there are two major events.
The installation Cancer Alley has been created by Bristol poet Professor Lucy English and intrepid American eco poetry film activists Pam Falkenberg and Jack Cochran, with technical support from Bristol company Holotronica. Whilst the event is situated in a small room at The Watershed, here you will find a melding of leading creative filmmakers (unbeatable visual and sound editing) with politically eloquent and strident voices. Pam and Jack have a total commitment to documenting environmental and human rights atrocities and spreading the word, and have worked with Lucy English on several environmental projects.
Cancer Alley is an 85-mile stretch of more than 200 chemical plants and oil refineries near the Mississippi river between East Baton Rouge and New Orleans. It has a high mortality rate as can be expected from what has been described as a Human Rights crisis with a mainly black population engulfed in toxic waste. Outlier have been documenting images of this nightmare set against the struggles of human habitation alongside the threatened natural environment, particularly cypress groves. The footage was collected on two trips in 2021 and 2022, often in difficult political conditions (they were warned to back off when caught on refinery security cameras). This resulted in their almost total use of a ‘camera car’, even for stills, and they found it ideal when venturing out into the cypress wetland areas.
After Pam and Jack collected footage, Lucy English wrote a poem to the visuals inspired by the accounts of local people and ‘the words of Manari Ushigua Santi, the indigenous leader and forest protector of the Sapara Nation of the Equadorian rainforest.’
Outlier first made a single channel video, then English gained funding from Bath Spa University to create an installation based on the same video, but with some important sensory differences. There are two screens, one which carries the main body of the footage (the ‘backplate’ of the installation) but, with the aid of three projectors, the poetic text and a parade of plastic bottles appear to ‘float’ on a larger silvered, hologauze screen, closer to us, whilst we also experience an effect of smokey air pollution.
CA installation video sample 1
From a creative point of view, pay attention to the quality of Outlier’s sound. They say: ‘The sound was mostly composed from our sound library, supplemented by sound we recorded on location in Cancer Alley, along with sound shared online by sound recording enthusiasts. But sync sound recording along with the images wasn’t a big part of the sound, since the sound of the car engine rather ruins that. But we did record non-sync sound from locations where we could stop and park. Some was in nature preserves, some in the refinery areas.’
CA installation video sample 2
Sitting in the Room at The Watershed
the link to Cancer Alley promo trailer on Vimeo:
https://vimeo.com/811088411?share=copy
Pam has written some really fascinating process notes about the project, and how her family came from an area of Southwestern Pennsylvania where fossil fuel mining caused its own devastation on the environment. These can be found at the very interesting project website
https://canceralleyproject.com/
In Cancer Alley the artists have used technology against itself in a way; to shed light on corruption and disaster, but with a creative lens that allows us to be drawn into the desperate circumstances that have existed for far too long. The viewer has to engage with the politics of human abuse. As the words from the poem state: ‘Technology tells us we are alive… If we are aware why do we do nothing?’
Smokey pollution and flashes from ‘behind the scenes / screen’
If you care about the planet and want to learn more about how audio-visual media can help lobby for change, I would advise you to get to The Watershed before last call on Sunday. Poetry film and political action are walking hand in hand in this installation that is destined for many more iterations in the future. The team are also looking to show the screening in a larger venue with darkened walls and surround sound, so I am looking forward to that event with bated breath.
Poetry and New Technology (courtesy Thomas Zandegiacomo del Bel from ZEBRA)
(Saturday 3 p.m. The event is also available to watch via live stream, however this will only be the screening itself and not the Q&A.)
In contrast to using technology to reveal environmental and human atrocities, Thomas Zandegiacomo del Bel, the artistic director of leading poetry film festival ZEBRA in Berlin, is presenting a series of short films on the cutting edge intersection of poetry and technology (and will also answer questions afterwards) where ingenious geeks have run riot with text that proliferates between the graphics, codes, apps and devices of the world we live in. As the promotional information states: ‘the films are all technically sophisticated, crossing boundaries between AI, social media and algorithms, and are based on poems by Jörg Piringer, Raed Wahesh and Yehuda Amichai, among others. There is a dance of new technology that enthralls and captivates, and cannot help but insinuate itself into our lives. This is the other side of the coin to Cancer Alley and I recommend that you take time for both this weekend.
World Autism Month and Poetry Film – Christina Jane and Steve Downey
April is World Autism Month / Autism Acceptance Month which began on the 2nd of April as World Autism Awareness Day, and includes Autism Acceptance Week 2–8 April. Though for many it might seem a fairly new idea, this important time of year has roots going back as far as the 1970s.
Some years ago now – 2016 – I was external project lead on a poetry film project with Autistic teenagers at Butterflies Haven, Keynsham, Bristol, (with Director Trisha Williams). The project was run by the experienced team of well-known ecopoet Helen Moore and prize-winning digital filmmaker and musician Howard Vause. It turned out to be a great success and the parents found the process very revealing in helping those with Autism to articulate through film and a group situation, their particular experiences of life, school etc. As a mother with a daughter diagnosed with ADHD and many aspects of undiagnosed autism and ADHD in myself and in the family, I gravitate to any sharing of neurodivergence, in order for others to gain familiarity and understanding. I also have personally found that often there is a profoundly creative streak within Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) alongside less welcome factors such as anxiety and depression.
The poetry film world often deals with views from ‘outside the box’, and on many occasions the creatives involved are speaking from their own experiences – the position they find themselves in. I am extremely proud therefore to introduce a poetry filmmaking team – filmmaker and director Steve Downey and performer and poet Christina Jane (who prefers to be known as CJ). They are not only at the forefront of raising awareness about living with Autism and ADHD – they have made a series of four short films on both subjects – but also have received over 82 awards at international film festivals across the globe. I was so impressed with their approach to making creative yet informative and eye-opening filmmaking, that I suggested they should present their work at the CAW (Centre for Art and Wellbeing at Brighton University) online research talks, run by CAW co-director Dr Helen Johnson, which they did to much success in December 2023.
CHRISTINA JANE
Christina Jane (CJ) has both Autism and ADHD and is an extraordinarily creative person. To read her biography is to find a truly multi-talented individual. Poet, actor (since a child and with that all-coveted equity card), singer, spoken word artist, public speaker, digital artist, founding lead member of Neurodelicious as a performer, dancer, juggler, model, stylist, props etc. … the list goes on! Gaining an English literature degree at the University of Essex in 2004, (where she studied Modern Drama, Theatre, Shakespeare, Performance, Creative Writing, Playwriting and Screenwriting) Christina is an example of a person where life and art are one and the same: where if something needs to be done or said she will be the one to do it. She also is a full-time carer for a son with Autism and ADHD and as a parent is an active advocate of raising awareness of living with Autism.
CJ AND THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING DIAGNOSED
‘My son was diagnosed with Autism in May 2016 and I was diagnosed in February 2017. He was diagnosed with ADHD in 2019 and I was diagnosed with ADHD the same year. Being undiagnosed with Autism and ADHD when I was an adult meant I didn’t understand until then why things were so difficult for me. This led to me secretly blaming myself. I didn’t know I was masking at all. I just thought I was doing what everyone else was by trying very hard to fit in. Trying to be like everyone else was a near impossible task. The diagnoses changed everything. I felt like I now understood why things seemed to be twice as hard for me compared with other people and why I had been misunderstood in the past. It felt awful going through it, but things make more sense now. I’m now focusing on the positives by public speaking on awareness and acceptance of both conditions and writing and performing about my experiences, which has often moved people to tears of relief.’
CJ ON PERFORMING WITH AUTISM AND ADHD
‘I’ve acted since I was a child in theatre and film and it’s so much fun working in a team and playing a role. My first performance as a Spoken Word Artist was for Autism Anglia’s ‘Neurofantastic’ in 2017 in thanks for the support that the charity had given me. Live performance isn’t the most inclusive experience for some autistics, so I wanted to put my poems into video form. My biggest collaboration has been with Steve as Director. All of them were visualising poems I’d written; therefore, I was the Screenwriter and Actress in front of the camera whilst Steve was the Director behind. It’s so much fun working in a team and playing a role. My Autism and ADHD can cause misunderstandings, but to counter this I might ask more questions on set or ask for more ‘direction’ to clarify what I need to do. I think my professional background in modelling and acting means that, as long as I know what is expected of me, I often surpass expectations. I can remain patient, determined, and consistent through multiple takes. I also feel that Autism helps me as a performer because I’m used to being a “chameleon” and changing according to who is around me. Most actresses only work when filming a scene, I’ve been an actress for my whole life through subconscious Autistic masking just to fit in! Also, my ADHD can be an advantage because I have a lot of natural energy, perfect for long days on set. I’ve never seen any actors like me, with both Autism and ADHD, except for our films.’
STEVE DOWNEY
Steve Downey also has an extensive and widely creative biography, and recently won the accolade of ‘Maestro of Cinema’ from an organisation in Calcutta. He says: ‘I originally trained in Fine Art (painting), leading to a two-year, post-graduate course at the London Film School, specialising in film direction and graduating with first class honours. After working in the film industry as a film and sound editor on a feature, documentaries and adverts, I spent the next 20 years working in the field of media resources as a senior manager in the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). This included setting up the first Sixth FormFilm Studies Course in conjunction with the British Film Institute as well as overseeing the work of 600 media resources staff working in schools and colleges across London. In 1990 I went back to being an artist as well as arts consultant/administrator, culminating in heading the Arts Development Team for Essex County Council. As an artist I have held more than 30 solo shows, created dozens of public artworks, attended seven artist residences across four continents and run many art training courses for people aged 3 to 83.’
BEING DIAGNOSED WITH AUTISM
‘In 2020 I was diagnosed with Autism. This explained a lot about my experiences as both a child and adult as well my current disabilities including not being aware of social interactions, difficulties with sounds, not understanding what people say, not recognising faces and forgetting names. I believe that my autism has also provided me with certain talents, which include my unique artistic vision, ability to focus on tasks and organisational skills.’
BECOMING A FILMMAKER AGAIN
‘During COVID, the long period of self-isolation affected me greatly, including an “artist’s block”. I decided to do something radical about this by taking up filmmaking again after a long gap. My original training and experience were with film technology so now I had to learn how to work with video. In 2001 I had been successful in gaining a grant from the Arts Council to develop my practice in moving images, sound and writing as well as a Bursary from the Firstsite Gallery. These awards helped me gain additional training in video editing.’
COLLABORATING
Steve first met Christina when she posted a request on Facebook for filmmakers to help make her poems into films. It was also serendipitous as they both live not that far from each other, in East Anglia. With each artist being so prolific in their own right, I asked them to describe their joint approach and working relationship in more detail, as well as their experiences of being diagnosed with autism. I think they have produced a really fascinating insight into the filmmaking process for the four films: We are the Lost Girls, Invisible, What is it like?and Appropriate Social Response Number 3, all made between 2021 and 2023.
Steve takes up the story: ‘Christina and I started collaborating when she put out a call on Facebook in 2021, requesting help to make films about her poems. She did this because she acknowledged that live performance isn’t the most inclusive experience for some Autistics. We arranged an initial meeting to discuss the possible collaboration. We immediately felt a connection, partly because both of us had been diagnosed with Autism as adults. I read Christina’s wonderful collection of poems and we agreed on four poems to be made into short films, starting with Christina’s very first poem “We are the Lost Girls”.’
We are the Lost Girls is particularly poignant in that it concerns female diagnosis of autism.
CHRISTINA JANE
‘I wrote my first proper poem, “We are the Lost Girls”, when brainstorming for a speech I was going to perform as a public speaker in front of parents of Autistic children and professionals on the Good Beginnings course I had already attended. I wanted to give hope to the other parents and help them feel better, because I’ve been where they sat. I’ve written poems about Autism, ADHD and various other topics.
We are the Lost Girls
We are the Lost Girls deals with the ongoing issue of undiagnosed Autism in women and girls, who often present differently to males because the diagnostic criteria for Autism is based on research with Autistic men and boys. Traditionally males are more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age than women and girls with the same condition. Women and girls are also more likely to copy or ‘mask’ the behaviour of others so that they can fit in socially. They hide their differences and difficulties to avoid being teased or isolated. This complex picture can hinder the observation of recognisable symptoms and behaviour patterns. Thankfully we are finally reaching a stage of understanding where Autism and ADHD are becoming more recognised and accepted with the possibility of real diagnosis and help available to all. “We are the Lost Girls” came out of my hope that if I could improve the life just one woman or girl with Autism then it would all be worthwhile.’
STEVE
‘I created a storyboard treatment based on this poem and filming started during the late summer of 2021, utilising my art/film studio in Suffolk as well as location shooting at High Woods Country Park, Frinton-on-Sea, Norwich, Colchester Arts Centre and the City of Colchester. The filming went very smoothly. The editing was a lot trickier, because of my inexperience in video editing (having previously worked only with film). However, my one-to-one training with Jamie Weston from Signals helped solve this problem. I used copyright free music and sound effects where necessary. The editing took a long time, with Christina and I going through the rough-cut stages, until we were both happy with the final result, which was just over five minutes long.’
Here, Steve finds numerous settings to expand on the idea of different ways of changing identity: the running away from the camera repeated again and again, in a dark tunnel or a sylph-like setting with flowing dress and long hair. Of course, Christina is adept at playing these roles. I really like how CJ repeats the phrase ‘copied your actions’ of course emphasising the very process she is describing.
‘we are the girls who copied your words / … copied your actions / copied your actions so well / you thought we knew what to do / we never knew … we changed into actresses / to belong … chameleon girls … / we changed into masks to be normal/ we lost ourselves to fit in/ .. Lost girls who found so-called simple things difficult …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pHxHcZChgU&t=4s
Invisible
Once they had made We are the Lost Girls they began work on the three other films. Invisible is again particularly autobiographical for CJ as it concerns the issues of being an adult living with undiagnosed and unmedicated ADHD. Though, now diagnosed and therefore with more self-awareness, CJ says there are still issues she faces daily.
CHRISTINA JANE
‘Invisible starts by describing how difficult it is to see, explain and come to terms with the invisible disability of ADHD. It later discusses the chronic difficulties of the condition including poor memory, zoning out, time blindness, difficulty following instructions, struggling with attention, concentration, recipes, maps and timetables. It discusses the toll it takes on a person who is not diagnosed until they are an adult because the constant struggles create negative feelings like blame, shame, frustration and disappointment leading to mental health issues of anxiety and depression. The film ends on a positive note with my final diagnosis of ADHD, thereby getting the answers I needed to begin living. Invisible was shot in Steve’s studio and grounds, plus locations at High Woods Country Park, my house and garden, Firstsite Gallery, the City of Colchester and on Clacton Pier. The film incorporates a large range of copyright free music and sound effects.’
STEVE
‘I believe that my long career as a visual artist facilitated a highly original use of colour and composition, including using my own artworks as studio backdrops. I also used three of Christina’s original digital artworks in Invisible. Fortunately, I also had an excellent mirrorless digital camera and purchased a good microphone and a basic set of studio lights.’
I think that Steve does a fantastic job in creating scenarios where being invisible can be seen! Or, put another way, where the subject clearly feels invisible, though is seen by the audience. For example, looking in the mirror, ‘Who am I looking at?’ or CJ feeling her way along a brick wall. Disorientation and a sense of the surreal are also depicted in all four films. One of my favourite images or visual metaphors is where CJ lies flat on the floor wearing a red dress against a red background. Her long, streaming hair flows out behind, and she slowly moves her arms as if swimming. Of course, she is stationary but with the sound of a river flowing by we really feel a sense of frustration; of not only blending in, but also swimming against the tide, or running to stay still. And of course, Clacton (an English seaside resort with an amusement park) and its funfair chaos (particularly a speeded-up Ferris wheel) provides a visual metaphor for the mind: ‘racing thoughts churning and burning long into the night’.
CJ’s delivery is spare and direct, unequivocal and clear as a bell. Yet, at the same time she is also sharing that nagging voice in her head: a constant preoccupation with the self as a sort of constant puzzle to solve. Wondering why life is like it is in her experience, and the awful truth that for many of us correct diagnosis comes late in life, after misdiagnosis that can cause shame and a highly negative sense of self-worth.
‘It takes a toll upon me / Something I am still figuring out / Something I blame myself for / internally shame myself for … because for me there are no simple things / … so invisible even doctors couldn’t see it / … diagnosed with anxiety and depression a decade before ADHD / therapists showed me how I’d failed but never why’…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mCNBNl0kY8
What is it like?
CHRISTINA JANE
‘What is it Like raises thoughts, feelings and comparisons drawn between autistic and so-called “normal” people, between neurodivergent and neurotypical people. It’s about what it feels like to have Autism, comparing it to being a robot or an alien.’
This four-minute film was shot in Steve’s studio and grounds, plus locations at Clacton Pier. Christina appears beautifully made up, evoking party makeup, against glittery fairground attractions or in contrast a country scene, but staring out blankly or searching, as if somehow uncertain of her surroundings and disconnected. You feel as if the makeup represents part of the ‘mask’ Autistic people wear, another way to fit in; but at the same time, it also conceals her sense of feeling like a robot. She ‘cannot learn automatically like they do … I have to learn everything manually / like a robot / without a manual / on how life works… I have to figure out what to say / how to act.’
‘what is it like to have autism / how would you even answer / if I asked / what is it like / to be normal’
The wide disparity between neurodivergent and neurotypical people seems to be a gulf that at times feels unbridgeable. The very question ‘How are you?’ is not easy to answer for a neurodivergent person who often wants to say exactly how they are, rather than the accepted response. Being ‘normal’ actually seems to be attuned to a whole raft of conventions that people spout or display that are not authentic, but done to further a particular social gain or from learnt understandings of status, power and acceptability. Being able to see these played out, if you are neurodivergent, is not necessarily pleasant, nor a way to protect yourself, although as CJ says, acting and masking is a way of learning to mimic behaviour and ‘fit in’ and be included. In my view, if neurodivergent people sometimes appear naive, child-like and too honest, saying what they think, life can also feel like a never-ending roundabout you can’t jump on, coupled with social exclusion and misunderstanding at every turn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2zmMe4YxXE
What is it Like? is being shown locally at the Colchester Independent Film Festival in May 2024 and the Southend Film Festival in June. This follows the first 2 films being shown at both these festivals in 2021 and 2022.
Appropriate Social Response Number 3
The fourth film Appropriate Social Response Number 3 about Autism, mental health and friendship, was shot at Steve’s studio and on location at a real gift of a surreal location at the Clacton ‘Upside Down House’, Clacton Pier and beach. Here, Steve’s filmmaking choices inside the house really support the meaning of the text, where Christina stretches from the ceiling to the bedside table on the floor in an upside-down bedroom. She ruminates on the ability or inability to make the right connection through words; when you feel a square peg in a round-hole world. Or, for example, when laughing at the wrong moment and others could take offense or be hurt or confused by the wrong response. Yet the need to keep trying is ever-present. ‘What are we without the words that bind us’.
For Steve and CJ, as well as being brought together by fate, it does feel as if their geographic location on the East Coast of England has contributed a great deal to their overall creative achievements. The ‘noise, show and glitz’ of Clacton’s entertainments, lapped by a grey North Sea, provides a perfect backdrop for expressing a masked and overactive, yet anxious state of mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNwZOjj_S3Y
CHRISTINA JANE: THE RECEPTION TO OUR FILMS
‘The films have been met with both positive personal responses and great critical acclaim. We have been blown away with the phenomenal success they have received! We are the Lost Girls and Invisible have each received over 20 International Film Festival Awards from all over the world and What is it like? has won 14 awards so far. The running total is now 82 Awards in a variety of categories. All the films are still being screened at Film Festivals across the world and the awards are still coming in daily. It makes me very proud and pleased that so many have seen my messages of hope and that they have deemed them worthy of such praise.
All the films have been shared extensively online on Steve’s YouTube Channel, through social media and screened at over 80 Film Festivals plus recent stage events called ‘Neurodelicious’. I’ve received such wonderful feedback on my poems and films across the board. One person even said that my “Lost Girls” poem inspired their master’s dissertation, therefore providing valuable research on female Autism. When performing the poems, people often come over and thank me personally, some in tears of joy, relief or recognition. Some people have contacted me later with news that my poem encouraged them to seek either a diagnosis for Autism or ADHD for themselves or family members. I’ve felt immeasurable joy being told that being successfully diagnosed has had a great positive impact on them, some saying “it’s like that film was made for me!” Neurotypical people have also found the films instructive, gaining insights into the challenges of those who are Neurodivergent, in a variety of ways that is unique to them, as well as simply being entertaining, colourful and uplifting.’
THE FUTURE
STEVE
‘I am planning a short documentary about our four films incorporating behind-the-scenes footage filmed by Tsvetislava Kirkova. The idea is that the films plus the documentary will form the basis of a TV programme broadcast by a TV network, as well as public performances.’
CHRISTINA JANE
‘My dream would be to act for a program about Autism, like ‘The A Word’ or ‘Atypical’, as they normally focus on the stereotypical male autistic journey. I have diagnoses for both Autism and ADHD. I’ve never seen any actors like me on TV or Film with both diagnoses. It would be a landmark in disability representation to have a character with both diagnoses accurately portrayed in a primetime TV show or big budget film as there is zero representation right now. Literally zero. Aside from my films of course! I’d be delighted to have the chance to audition for any suitable role.’
It is really rewarding to bring CJ and Steve’s story to you this April: from their fated random first encounter and their shared experiences of life with Autism, to a series of crafted and creatively informative, accessible yet also award-winning works. Not only are the films an inspiration to others but they are an achievement in their own right. Steve Downey and Christina Jane have used poetry and poetry film to shed light on their own lives, and thereby bring hope to others and raise awareness for those who are neurotypical. Importantly, these two poetry filmmakers have used the medium to find exactly their own way to communicate, (not an easy task for anyone whether neurotypical or neurodivergent), and as a result, in their capable hands, poetry film has provided a perfect vehicle for discovering more about Autism and ADHD.
Find more information on Christina Jane at: https://linktr.ee/ChristinaJane and Steve Downey at www.stevedowneyart.com
If you would like to learn more about Autism, ADHD and Autism month see:
UK
https://www.autism.org.uk/get-involved/raise-money/world-autism-acceptance-week-2024
https://www.autismtogether.co.uk/autism-acceptance-month/
USA
https://www.autismspeaks.org/world-autism-awareness-day
For an excellent book I can recommend on female diagnosis of autism: Women and Girls with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Understanding Life Experiences from Early Childhood to Old Age, Sarah Hendrickx, UK: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2015.
Women in Word II Hypatia Trust, Penzance and FINAL CALL for films
I am really thrilled to be back at the second Women in Word Literary Festival based out of Hypatia Trust, Penzance, Conrwall and this year running from 6th to the 8th of June. I will be part of the selection team for the poetry film section including Lally MacBeth and Linda Cleary from Hypatia. The films will be screened on Thursday, 6th June and on the Friday I will steer a Poetry Film Roundtable discussion on practice and the making process from everyone’s point of view. This is for anyone to join, however experienced, and all are welcome.
https://hypatia-trust.org.uk/women-in-word-festival-2024-poetry-films
Last year, the poetry film screening of women poetry filmmakers with connections to Cornwall, was standing room only and prompted much debate (some of it outside on the cobbles for over half an hour! Where newbies were extolling its praises.) The standard of the films was very high and the themes being discussed were varied and thought-provoking. It was also wonderful to present The Poetics of Poetry Film and have it nestling down in the bookshop and in their archive. I feel very blessed to be able to go back down to the West Country, one side of my spiritual home, and be welcomed by Linda and the team. I also deliberately go by train to experience the landscape sliding through from the beautiful Exe estuary lapping at the side of the track, sweeping passed the wilds of Dartmoor, down to Plymouth and then over viaducts with sailing boats below to the open vistas again, forested gullies dipping and stretching, pulling away from mankind until the land leaves the trees behind and we reach the end of this little island (more or less) and it breathes a sigh of relief.
CALL
The rules for entry are pretty much the same as last year, short films ideally five minutes or less, particularly aimed at women with ties to Cornwall. The connection can be via the director, or poet. The DEADLINE is 5 p.m. April 30th so email Linda immediately, especially as there are already enough people to screen and this is a valuable and important yet jewel-like event, with cosy seating, so book early!
HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR POETRY FILMS FOR INCLUSION – CLICK HERE
Also looking forward to all the other elements of the Festival: Linda’s workshop, Bookclub, Ella Frears, and the fascinating subject of Lost Words from Maggi Livingstone. This is also one of the last places on the planet where you can enjoy a good boogie/rave/ bust a groove / throw some moves / get down, on a dance floor on a Saturday night, and in a bespoke Georgian ballroom. In the UK? You must be joking. A warm and wonderful festival and all set in ancient Penzance saturated in folklore and tales with the co-mingling of polite, grey English Channel and sparkling wild, Atlantic beating relentlessly at its walls.
Featuring a festival bookclub, in conversation / readings from established and emerging women writers, talks, events and workshops, poetry films by women, networking opportunities, a literary stitch event – and an evening finale in a Georgian ballroom!
The Hypatia Trust has a commitment to advancing women’s equality and being visible, strong and collaborative – and we also like to put on fun, community events – so we are super pleased to be putting on our second Women In Word literary festival celebrating women creatives in Cornwall. Women In Word is a women focused literary festival but the events are open to everyone to attend.
Our first Women In Word literary festival in June 2023 was a great success with full and engaged audiences.
For June 2024 we have extended the programming – look out for further updates on our social media channels and subscribe to the newsletter to be the first to know when the tickets go on sale!
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS
Bookclub – led by Alice Mount and Zoe Fitzpatrick: looking at short literary works that connect this year’s theme.
Writing workshop with Linda Cleary – Looking at both interior landscape (of self) and exterior location in relation to: (dis)place(d)
Screenings of short poetry films – Our second year of showcasing work made by women with connections/ties to Cornwall. Co-curated by prizewinning poetry filmmaker and author Sarah Tremlett.
Poetry Film roundtable – for poetry filmmakers and those interested: discussion of process and practice, hosted by Sarah Tremlett and including the films from the previous evening’s screening, with commentaries from the filmmakers, and sharing of ideas, all welcome, plus Q and A.
Poetry reading and in-conversation with Ella Frears – we are so happy to welcome Ella to the festival this year. Ella will read from a selection of her work.
Literary Crafting with Maggi Livingstone and crafters – join us at The Hypatia Trust to stitch some of the words we are in danger of losing. In their book, The Lost Words, Jackie Morris and Robert MacFarlane highlighted words of the natural world such as bluebells, dandelions and acorns which are being replaced by technical words such as blog, broadband and many others. Hypatia will provide material and thread for the event.
The Big Finale Party with DJ Nina at The Union ballroom. Our Women in Word festival ends with a celebration! A grand finale in the Georgian lounge and ballroom at The Union, Penzance.
BIOS
Sarah Tremlett
Sarah Tremlett is a prize-winning poetry film-maker, poet and theorist and director and editor of Liberated Words online. Exhibitor and key speaker at Tom Konyves’ Poets with a Video Camera exhibition, Surrey, Vancouver (2022), she is a juror and curator at festivals; most recently Fotogenia, Women in Word & REELpoetry, and has given numerous talks, readings and screenings on the subject worldwide such as Vancouver & San Francisco, 2022. Her publication The Poetics of Poetry Film (Intellect Books UK, 2021) has been described as ‘“A ground- breaking, encyclopaedic work, and an industry Bible” https://www.intellectbooks.com/the-poetics-of-poetry-film
She also has a chapter on Voice and New Narrative frameworks in Intermedial Art Practices as Cultural Resilience (Routledge, 2024). Sarah runs a family history poetry film project, and inaugurated the Frame to Frames: Your Eyes Follow ekphrastic poetry film screening and prize, which she presented at FOTOGENIA, Mexico City, 2023. Published by Poem Film Editions through Liberated Words, the accompanying innovative bilingual publication Frame to Frames: Your Eyes Follow includes the poems, stills and artists’ details, along with a QR link to all the films in the screening.
More on Sarah here: www.sarahtremlett.com and www.liberatedwords.com
Ella Frears
Ella Frears is a poet and artist, from Cornwall, based in London. Her debut collection, Shine, Darling, (Offord Road Books, 2020) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for both the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Her latest pamphlet I AM THE MOTHER CAT written as part of her residency at John Hansard Gallery is out with Rough Trade Books (2021).
Ella is a tutor in poetry and creative writing at City Lit, was an Associate Lecturer at Goldsmiths University for the BA English with Creative Writing, has taught for Falmouth University, and University East London, as well as running freelance workshops for various spaces and organisations including Arvon, the Guardian, the Poetry School, the Poetry Society, Kew Gardens, Dartington, and Spread the Word.
In 2023 Ella was Creative Fellow at Exeter University working with the Maritime Environmental History Department, and is currently the Royal Literary Fund Fellow for the Courtauld Institute of Art.
Read her full biography here: www.ellafrears.com/biography
Linda Cleary
Linda Cleary is a British born Irish diaspora writer from a working class background, currently living in Cornwall. Her work has been published in various journals plus spoken word, audio and poetry film; one of her most recent poetry films was in Bloomsday Festival 2023. She is a Literary Arts Consultant delivering courses, coaching and editing. Linda set up and curated Hypatia Publications’ literary department 2019 – 2022 and she is the creator and curator of our Women in Word literary festival.
More on Linda here: www.freewriterscentre.org/about
Lally MacBeth
Lally MacBeth is an artist, writer and researcher. She graduated from Central Saint Martins in 2013 with a First Class Honours in Fashion History & Theory, and has since divided her time between being sensible and silly. She founded The Folk Archive in 2020, and co-founded Stone Club in 2021. She writes regularly for Caught by the River, has curated film programmes for Folkestone Docu Fest and London Short Film Festival, and sits on the board for Bosena.
Maggi Livingstone
Maggi is The Hypatia Trust’s lead archivist, archiving the correspondence, notebooks and original manuscripts in The Hypatia Trust collections so that they can be preserved for the long term and made accessible for future generations to enjoy. She is also a crafter and committed to a sustainable lifestyle, wanting to ensure that crafting skills are passed within community and between generations.
DJ Nina
Nina is a Brazilian British resident of Penzance and she has been DJ-ing Latino grooves, vintage tunes and cool mixes for many years; here in Cornwall and across the world. For the Women in Word finale party she will play a bespoke international mix of women singers and musicians.
REELpoetry, Houston April 1–7 live and online – many voices
It really feels that REELpoetry has come of age this year, both online – over a week – and in-person on the weekend, you have a full house of varied poetry filmmaking nurtured by now well-established director Fran Sanders and her inclusive programming. All films are accessible to the deaf and hard-of-hearing, with a rich provision of ASL performances from Douglas Ridloff + Deaf Slam, Heba Toulan and Sabina England.
This week-long event showcases 100+ screenings under 6 minutes from 20 different countries. Connect with international curators and presenters in real time online, and in-person on the weekend; watch world premieres from Houston creatives; experience ASL poetry and performances; join use for two fabulous after parties.
https://www.publicpoetry.net/programs/reelpoetry/reelpoetry2024/program/
This festival creates a unique fusion of personal and political activist filmmaking served up with party atmosphere hospitality. I have been involved for quite a few years, both as an exhibitor, juror and curator and seen it go from strength to strength. I was presenting there in 2020 just before COVID struck and Fran and the team treated us right royally, including memorable trips, enjoying Houston’s multicultural oases. So, if not just for the festival I do recommend getting over there if you can!
In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered, Chaucer Cameron
I am really sad to miss the live events this year. Alongside the highly successful collaboration between Houston poets and filmmakers (in its second year) you can meet in person international curators such as Helen Dewbery (Poetry Film Live) presenting Chaucer Cameron’s memories of being a prostitute in London in I Didn’t Die that Day. Or, what about leading US activist poetry filmmakers Outlier Moving Pictures (Pamela Falkenberg and Jack Cochran) who have taken on the mammoth task of making poetry films from a selection of leading Texan activist poets in Changing the World One Poem at a Time (Texas edition). They are one of the finest examples of this genre today, and are soon to be in the UK in Bristol for their Cancer Alley installation with poetry by Lucy English (more on that soon). It is also very interesting to see included Norwegian curation: GEOPOETICON from Odveig Klyve & Bjørn Gulbrandsen featuring language, politics and geography and a wonderful curation from Thomas Zandegiacomo del Bel (who is unable to be there in person unfortunately) on the best of ZEBRA from Berlin.
Sabina England at the Deaf Muslim Expo, Chicago, 2022
Sufi Poetry in American Sign Language and Dancing
One of the most compelling, engaging and unique live events is by Sabina England, performing Nature, Water, Air, Fire, Earth, based on Sufi Poets and her own work.
She says: ‘I first came up with the concept of creating Sufi poetry in American Sign Language when I was invited by the Deaf Muslim Expo 2022 in Chicago to perform for them, and I had never seen anyone perform Sufi poetry for deaf people.
I will be performing four Sufi poems (Kabir, Mahsati Ganjavi, Jalaluddin Rumi, and one poem written by me, respectively). Each poem contains an element inspired by nature: moon/sun, fire, water, and Earth. Kabir’s poem praised the beauty of the moon and sun, which then led to his declaration for loving God (Allah). Mahsati was a Sufi mystic poetess from present-day Azerbaijan who wrote a poem in Persian about fire, comparing it to her burning love for God. Rumi wrote that drinking water didn’t abate his thirst, his desperate love for God. Lastly, my poem is inspired by the emerald forests of Earth. My poem is an ode to Earth, and I compare Earth to our mother, for she sustains us and provides us food from the soil. Mother Earth keeps the cycle of life going.
Although these Sufi poems are religious in nature and speak of the poets’ love for Allah and I am Muslim, I still want the poetry to be open for everyone, regardless of their religion or beliefs. These Sufi poems can be interpreted in so many ways – readers can view the poets’ divine love as love and respect for each other, for the universe, for humanity, and so on.
I will be incorporating some dancing with feather fans and American Sign Language. My dancing will show movements of nature – basking in the moonlight, the swaying movements of fire, the flowing of water, and walking through the forest. While signing the poetry in American Sign Language, I will take pauses and dance around, with some signing in my hands. I also project videos of nature onscreen to display the visual beauty of nature. My goal is to deeply inspire the audience and bring them some happiness, light and joy.’
This Was Meant to be For Nora, Moving Poems in the City, Vancouver.
Online
Events online have two time zone options for different parts of the world this year, which is a real bonus, something I advocated, as the one disadvantage is missing some of the screenings from the UK. I am particularly looking forward to seeing Moving Poems in the City – (April 3, 12–1 and 7–8) presented by Vancouver Poet Laureate Fiona Tinwei Lam and Alger Ji-Liang. This is a 12-strong curation of Vancouver poets and filmmakers who have based their films on sites around the city. I was fortunate enough to be invited as a key speaker and exhibitor at Tom Konyves’ Poets with a Video Camera exhibition in December 2022. Fiona was also part of that and also alongside myself, ran a poetry reading / video screening at The People’s Co-Op Bookstore which I took part in. A memorable occasion. With a serene face on what you have to remember is the Pacific Ocean, Vancouver is a beautiful yet fragile place. Perhaps one of the most desirable cities in the world, it has been pressured as usual with much development. But, walking around you are tantalised by its wealth of culture, and long historic tradition. This curation really feels like the right way to celebrate its hidden stories.
Contrasts, Moving Poems in the City, Vancouver.
On Thursday April 4th we have what I know from past experience, will be a really exciting presentation of ASL video curated by Douglas Ridloff who is also performing live. Also look out for what promises to be a very interesting ASL poetry panel discussion on Friday 1–2. The online section includes the finalists from the open submissions and REELpoetry steering committee member Ian Gibbins will be presenting a ‘Video Jukebox’ of new films by festival curators, presenters and judges. Twice daily Monday through Thursday you have the chance to meet artists from the festival in the REELcafe chat rooms hosted by Fran Sanders. This includes my film Flight, a film from a series about my childhood (also a poetry book commission). It is one of those personal films that percolate up slowly, and nudged into being made by a comment from Helen Dewbery, and a continuing working relationship with the inspiring poet / poetry filmmaker Linda Cleary.
Ekphrasis – art-inspired Poetry Filmmaking
On Tuesday April 2nd, you will find my documentary film on the Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow book-film project published by Poem Film Editions, where five poetry filmmakers from the bilingual book and 17-film QR-linked screening (launched at FOTOGENIA festival in December 2023) discuss how a painting can inspire their poetry filmmaking. The artists are: Janet Lees, Pamela Falkenberg, Jack Cochran, Meriel Lland and myself. Not only do we discuss art inspiring art but also translation, both through language (English and Spanish) but also in relation to intermedia – the linked poetry book & film and the source painting. Many of the films were based on leading Mexican non-binary artist Ana Segovia’s painting Huapango Torero – which confronts bullfighting and animal cruelty in a sensitive and important way.
The Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow documentary screenings are: TUESDAY, APRIL 2nd: 12-1.00 CST / 5-6 p.m. GMT and 7-8 p.m. CST / 12-1 a.m. GMT. If you want to meet filmmakers from Frame to Frames, a group will definitely be available online at the Tuesday REELcafe meeting 2–3 GMT CST / 7-8 p.m.
With such a lot on offer there is something for everyone; and REELpoetry has become a recognised festival on the poetry film calendar.
Please Note: You can buy copies of Frame to Frames : Your Eyes Follow from Poem Film Editions at this very website SOON! Available through liberatedwords.com/store
The Poetics… & Projections : The Journal for Movies and Mind; The Palgrave Handbook of Intermediality, Visual Studies and the RSA.
I am delighted to say that The Poetics of Poetry Film is gaining a steady presence even three years after its initial publication. I can’t mention all the emails and endorsements of the book I have had, however here are a few diverse examples. I am proud to say that some time ago it was accepted by the Royal Society of Arts library in London, where I am a Fellow. I feel very pleased that poetry film is now represented in such an institution; particularly as it is so suited to showcasing engagement with ethical and social principles via cultural practice.
The Palgrave Handbook of Intermediality
More recently, I am thrilled to have been quoted and cited from the book by leading scholar Dr Rebecca Kosick, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Poetry and Poetics at Bristol University, UK. The Poetics of Poetry Film is included in the video poetry section in her extensively researched, 30-page chapter (plus 4-page references) entitled ‘Late Twentieth-Century Intermedia Poetry in the Americas’. This, in turn makes up an important part of the mighty The Palgrave Handbook of Intermediality, by J. Bruhn et al. (eds.), December, 2023. NB: If you want to buy this weighty tome it will set you back around £500! From my own point of view this chapter brings up some of the work that I researched some time ago from a different angle, and reflects back on my interest in historic poetic forms, the use of rhythm, and the crossover between lyric and visual poetry which we also now find in poetry film.
Kosick provides an in-depth analysis of the how of diverse historic poetry(ies)) and their ancestral DNA as precursors for the intermedia world today. American poet, artist, publisher and co-founder of the Fluxus movement Dick Higgins first coined the term ‘intermedia’ in a 1965 essay. Later he completed ‘Some Poetry Intermedia’ (1976) – an expressive, pinky-purple spiral diagram, dynamically expressing his thinking (a form of visual manifesto) on the intersection of different poetic forms. In a winning intellectual move, Kosick takes Higgins’ categories in this diagram and draws attention to how the malleability of poetry at the end of the twentieth century paves the way for the intermedia revolution that followed.
Following Higgins, she includes sections on: Visual Poetry (including Concrete); Object Poetry; Sound Poetry; Video Poetry (which features TPOPF); Action Poetry; Postal Poetry and Concept Poetry. As I know from my own research across certain of these categories, the identifying and interweaving of poetry in all its forms is a rigorous yet compelling subject, made richer by the many literary lights from the past re-invigorating or brightening the journey. For instance, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is cited as using the term ‘intermedia’ as far back as 1812, and examples of poets / poetry groups include a cross-section from the expected Brazil’s Noigandres group to the Cuban publishing collective Ediciones Vigía, Chilean poet/artist Cecilia Vicuña, Mexican artist Ulises Carrión, US poet N.H. Pritchard, and Brazilian artist Leonara de Barros.
In terms of video poetry in particular, she engages in some of the questions I have asked and extends them:
Such distinctions are evident when considering concrete poetry’s “appeal to
non-verbal communication” and its desire to break with a “merely temporalistic linear”
poetic structure (de Campos et al. 1965: 157, 156). Whereas early waves of
concrete poetry sought an immediacy of poetic perception akin to the way viewers
might take in a painting all at once, for video poetry, a linear experience of time on
the part of the viewer overlies even the most nonsequential or nonnarrative “content”
it might convey. In this way, video poetry returns the visual/spatial aspects of
concrete poetry to a tradition perhaps more temporally akin to literature or film
than to the visual or plastic arts. Yet this same fact can offer opportunities to the
intermedium of video poetry. As Tremlett explains, “what makes a poetry film so
unique is that the spatio-temporal visual surface or monstration, descending from the
graphic arts, is as powerful or more powerful than the sequential trajectory inherited
from the traditional dramatic film” (Tremlett 2021: 79). Thus, while a lengthened
temporality may seem to be restored from the perspective of visual poetry’s turn
toward video, from the perspective of film, poetry – particularly poetry related to the
visual arts – offers alternatives to the narrative sequentiality dominant in more
mainstream cinema. Rebecca Kosick
Kosick breathes new life into the subject with diverse associations and lesser-known artists – bookending the 1950s and 60s (including Allan Kaprow and ‘Happenings’ or embodied Action Poetry) up to the digital era. I found her section on Action Poetry really edifying. In relation to this she particularly cites Mary Ellen Solt’s 1968 work PEOPLEMOVER in part generated by the anger against American policies in relation to Vietnam. Here poetry was expressed through such channels as: found language, multiple iterations, vocal performance readings, demonstrations and text on screen. I liked Kosick’s selection of the definition ‘poetry put into action, a kind of poetic action-research that intends to change social life in a poetic way’ (Tochon 2000: n.p.).
From the radical use of the mechanical typewriter, and the concept of the object poem (and the book itself as object), or sound poetry where sound beyond syntax creates composition, throughout this chapter Kosick continually asks us to conceive of how intermedia poetry came and continues to come into being, providing another vital stepping stone in this fascinating journey.
Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind
I am also thrilled to announce that an important, insightful and well-rounded review of the book has been included in a recent issue of Projections: The Journal for Movies and Mind, Volume 17, Issue 2, June 2023, pp: 101–105 (published in association with The Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image: https://scsmi-online.org/). I felt I would share their remit for the journal which ‘Recognizes cinema as an art form, and aims to integrate established traditions of analyzing media aesthetics with current research into perception, cognition, and emotion, according to frameworks supplied by philosophy of mind, phenomenology, psychology, and the cognitive-and neurosciences.’ I do feel that poetry film has much to offer across these categories, in its often highly subjective role as ‘visualised mindscape’ of the author-filmmaker.
I am delighted to say that this sterling overview is by Professor Rebecca A. Sheehan who is a leading academic in Cinema Studies in the Department of Cinema and Television Arts at California State University. Her important publication American Avant-Garde Cinema’s Philosophy of the In-Between (Oxford University Press, 2020) addresses the intersections between post-WWII American Avant-Garde cinema and the emerging field of Film-Philosophy. Her numerous essays in film theory include philosophies of embodiment and women’s experimental cinema – such profound and rich seams today. On behalf of everyone involved, I couldn’t feel more privileged that the book has found its way into her hands and merited her time and consideration. Thank you, Rebecca.
Here is an extract of the review:
‘Sarah Tremlett’s The Poetics of Poetry Film: Film Poetry, Videopoetry, Lyric Voice, Reflection offers a breathtaking range of glimpses at the historical flashpoints, formal anatomy, and major and minor contemporary makers and trends in what Tremlett alternately calls film poems and poetry film (and their sister, video poetry). […] The book is impressively comprehensive in its representation and acknowledgment of the wide diversity of formal experiments and elements that constitute the history and present of “poetry film,”. […] The Poetics of Poetry Film should serve as an important resource for scholars and filmmakers interested in contemporary aesthetic trends in this interdisciplinary field. It also offers an important archive of festivals and conferences on poetry film through its inclusion of interviews with festival organizers and writings by contemporary filmmakers working at the intersection of poetry and film.’
Rebecca A. Sheehan
Visual Studies
Finally, I am so pleased to cite an article in Visual Studies (Taylor and Francis) by Gabrielle McNally, a time-based artist and scholar and Associate Professor of Digital Cinema in the School of Art and Design at Northern Michigan University.
‘The Poetics of Poetry Film functions as an extensive survey of the field of poetry film, film poetry, videopoetry and the many related methodologies. […] Tremlett’s voice carries with it a level of authority due to her work as both a scholar on the subject as well as a practicing artist in network with the international collection of practitioners included in the volume.
As a reference volume, instructors working with students through experimental forms could find many valuable resources. An inclusion of the leading poetry film festivals stands out as a great resource for filmmakers interested in sharing their own poetry films with a larger audience. The ideal audience for this book includes those interested in creating film poetry works who can explore other makers’ methods described in this book for inspiration. The volume is organised by topic and looking directly at the subheadings within each section reads as a toolbox for aspiring poetry filmmakers with examples of artists and works to direct the reader toward additional resources.’ Gabrielle McNally
