Ringing in the New Year

So much good poetry news for the New Year.

My poem that I only just found out two days ago was on Verse Daily in November, "On Hearing of Your Hearing Loss," is on that website again--as a favorite of the year 2015.  Thanks to Verse Daily, and to Ninth Letter for being the original publisher (and here's the permalink).

And, I'm so pleased that the Motionpoem based on my poem "Crows, Reckoning" and made by Alex Hanson and Edward Chase Masterson, has been released by Motionpoems. Thanks to Todd Boss and to the filmmakers at Commandr, and to everyone. It's a serious dream-come-true to see this happen. And there's an interview done by poet Avra Wing to celebrate the release. Yay!

What a great way to ring in 2016.

IM on IMDb

This is kind of trippy--I just realized I'm on IMDb. For "Crows, Reckoning" a Motionpoem directed by Alex Hanson and Edward Chase Masterson (and thanks to Todd Boss). Check it out!

The Motionpoem is Online!

Thanks so much to Todd Boss of Motionpoems for pairing my poem "Crows, Reckoning" with the artistry of COMMANDR filmmakers Edward Chase Masterson and Alex Hanson. You can watch the film here. I'm also thinking of ways to spread the word, so if you have any good ideas, please let me know. Thanks! And enjoy.

Poems in Film!

Exciting news: Motionpoems has announced their 6th season of poets, all female, inspired by VIDA: Women in Literary Arts. Thanks to Todd Boss and his staff for including one of my poems, along with the work of these great women: Sarah Blake, Paula Bohince, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Kim Addonizio, Michelle Gould, Melissa Studdard, Brenda Shaughnessy, Meghan O'Rourke, Patricia Smith, Jehanne Dubrow, Catherine Pierce, Ann Eichler Kolakowski, and Stacey Lynn Brown.

If you're in Minneapolis on May 21st, try to go to one of the two public screenings.

Yay!

Wheel

Sky One                                                              Nance Van Winckel

In an early sky, the molecules of my wings
were reshaping themselves—by sheer will, it seemed—
into arms. And I was sad, at first, to be dispossessed
of the old updraft, the wheel-and-hold.
                                          But alright, goodbye.

I'd begun to see that the arms were spiraling, moving
ever more wildly, and Oh, I thought,
            they're full of stars. Then I saw—no,
                        the arms were made of stars. 

**************************

from 'Turbulence: Three Exercises'                              Todd Boss

1.      A Squall

will rail

at a westerly

wall awhile,

will reel, will

roll like a

wheel, mile

over mile up

hill, down

dale, will

loose all hell

and finally

drown just

east of town,

like an old hired

hand grown

tired of it all.

**************************

Happy Ideas by Mary Szybist  

I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn. —Duchamp

I had the happy idea to suspend some blue globes in the air

and watch them pop.

I had the happy idea to put my little copper horse on the shelf so we could stare at each other all evening.

I had the happy idea to create a void in myself.

Then to call it natural.

Then to call it supernatural.

I had the happy idea to wrap a blue scarf around my head and spin.

I had the happy idea that somewhere a child was being born who was nothing like Helen or Jesus except in the sense of changing everything.

I had the happy idea that someday I would find both pleasure and punishment, that I would know them and feel them,

and that, until I did, it would be almost as good to pretend.

I  had the happy idea to string blue lights from a tree and watch them glow.

I had the happy idea to call myself happy.

I had the happy idea that the dog digging a hole in the yard in the twilight had his nose deep in mold-life.

I had the happy idea that what I do not understand is more real than what I do

and then the happier idea to buckle myself into two blue velvet shoes.

I had the happy idea to polish the reflecting glass and say

hello to my own blue soul.  Hello, blue soul.  Hello.

It was my happiest idea.

**************************

Fog on Skyline Drive                                                                                  Alison Apothecker

Because what I say must be said
          silently, a hushed gathering
of lip readers practicing
          an imprecise articulation,
and also because all you can do
          as you grip the wheel this evening
and steer against the white line
          that leaves you dizzy in its trailing off,
lost mid-sentence, a verb
                   feeling for its object,
I will have you trust that this night
          will unfold in the same order it does
on any night, that you will,
more slowly, yes, but all the same—
Let me explain it this way:
All that is indecipherable is what I am.
Trees become their shadows and their shadows'
          shadows the faces
you've tried hard to remember not to
          forget.
You will come to know faith as a white flag
          you wave to the road and night,
the deer and opossum waiting just beyond
          the dimmed lights.
                   Your body calls this grace.

Now, you see it clearly in your mind:
          a warm room, the sleeping dog.
I give you the chance, curve by curve
          to practice what is necessary
                   to say
                            and to hear it being said. 

Message from (the) Boss

Today poet Todd Boss posted a picture of the 12 rejection notices he has received in the past from Poetry Magazine. He received these 12 before any of his poem were accepted, and today he was celebrating his 15th poem to be in Poetry. His point was that we should never stop trying.

Looking at Boss's status update, I wondered how long it had been since I had even sent out a submission to a journal. I've been worrying about my poor newly homeless manuscript since this spring when its publisher folded, and I haven't been doing anything about submitting new work. In fact, when I checked my records, it had been 9 months since I submitted anything. Sheesh, I could have made a baby in all that time!

So this morning, despite the fact that I need to take the final two online exams of my semester, I put together a packet and submitted it to five journals. And I have an idea for a second packet, but I'm going to finish my exams first, and do that next week (or October 1st, since apparently a few journals I'm interested in don't open till then). Anyway, thanks to Todd Boss, I'm back in the game.

Video Poems

Video poems have become more and more popular over the past couple of years. Today I found a website put together by poet Dave Bonta that has centralized many of the video poems available on the net. It's called Moving Poems, but he also lists other video poems sites you can use, if you scroll down and look on the right side of his homepage.

Bonta has the video poems broken into useful categories: animation, author-made, concrete poems, interviews, dance, to name a few of his categories. He also tends to comment helpfully on each video in text under the screen.

I had been aware of videos by Anne Carson, Todd Boss, Kate Greenstreet, Michelle Bitting, and Billy Collins before stumbling onto Bonta's site, and I had liked all the work that I had seen. Until now, and I still like plenty, just not all.

Below is the "Reticent Sonnet" by Carson. (I love all of Carson's video work. Look on YouTube for more great video poems by her, including "A Lecture on Pronouns in the Form of Fifteen Sonnets.")

And here's Todd Boss's "Icicles." (A couple of really nice Todd Boss poems that aren't on Bonta's website but which are on YouTube are "Don't Come Home" and "Poverty and Paint." In fact, Todd Boss has his own YouTube Channel).

And here's Billy Collins's "Forgetfulness."

The last video I will share today is from Kate Greenstreet. It's called "Cloth." I've not included the screen but only the link because Greenstreet uses the Vimeo format, and somehow Blogger seems to prefer YouTube. (In fact, look for more of Greenstreet's work on Vimeo, rather than YouTube.)

Watching more video poems from Bonta's site this morning, I realized I have much more mixed feelings about them than I had previously thought. Some of them resonate deeply with me, but others are at such odds to my reading of given poems that I cannot enjoy them, and even feel irritated by them. Some visual interpretations that are different from what I would have conceived stretch my imagination and challenge me, but others merely disappoint or worse, disgruntle.

I also find the use of music to be helpful only in certain combinations with voice, poem, and visual image. Sometimes the music overwhelms the music of the spoken voice, and really distracts me, whereas other times music enhances the general atmosphere of the poem effectively.

I also find I have a strong preference for the poem to be read aloud rather than presented in type or text as a visual element in the video. Particularly when the lines are fed to me slowly, I find that the rate usually does not match the rate at which I wish to read, and that is highly frustrating. I lose the line in my frustration.

I am cranky, or what?

So, do you have any favorite video poems to recommend?