The Poetics of Poetry Film: Film Poetry, Videopoetry, Lyric Voice, Reflection

By Sarah Tremlett

Set to generate and influence discussions in the field for years to come, this is an encyclopaedic work on the ever-evolving genre of poetry film. It will set the benchmark for all subsequent works on the subject, being the first book of its kind. 

Poetry films are a genre of short film, usually combining the three main elements: the poem as verbal message; the moving film image and diegetic sounds; and additional non-diegetic sounds or music, which create a soundscape. This book examines the formal characteristics of the poetic in poetry film, film poetry and video poetry, particularly in relation to lyric voice and time.

Provides an introduction to the emergence and history of poetry film in a global context, defining and debating terms both philosophically and materially. Examines the formal characteristics of the poetic in poetry film, particularly in relation to lyric voice and time. Includes interviews, analysis and a rigorous and thorough investigation of the poetry film from its origins to the present. This is a very important, groundbreaking work on film poetry. The ideas discussed here are of great importance, and the diversity and breadth of the volume is especially impressive and very useful. This book brings together in one place crucial ideas and information for practitioners, students and academics, and is clearly and accessibly written. 

Including over 40 contributors and showcasing the work of an international array of practitioners, this will be an industry bible for anyone interested in poetry, digital media, filmmaking, art and creative writing, as well as poetry filmmakers.  It explores working practices, processes of collaboration and the mechanisms which make these possible. It also reveals the network of festivals disseminating and theorizing poetry film and presents a compelling bibliography.

This is the most incisive and complete analysis of filmic poetry to date. It is poised to become a major text in the field.

Essential reading for academics teaching poetry filmmaking, moving image, film, media and media poetry, writing and art. Undergraduate and postgraduate students in those fields. Great potential for textbook adoption.

Also relevant to poets, filmmakers, visual artists, graphic artists and theorists, filmmakers, screenwriters, art historians, philosophers, cultural commentators, arts journalists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Intellect Books
• Release date: Oct 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781789382709

Sarah Tremlett

Sarah Tremlett is a poetry filmmaker, writer, artist and arts journalist/theorist. She co-founded the first MIX conference and Liberated Words CIC, a poetry film organization. 

Book preview

The Poetics of Poetry Film

A triptych of the same woman in a blonde wig and makeup, imitating Marilyn Monroe

Selfie with Marilyn, Sarah Tremlett and Heidi Seaborn, 2020.

The Poetics of Poetry Film

Film Poetry, Videopoetry, Lyric Voice, Reflection

Sarah Tremlett

with over 40 contributors

First published in the UK in 2021 by

Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK

First published in the USA in 2021 by

Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street,

Chicago, IL 60637, USA

Copyright © 2021 Intellect Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by

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otherwise, without written permission.

A catalogue record for this book is available from

the British Library.

Copy editor: MPS Technologies

Cover designer: Aleksandra Szumlas

Production managers: Emma Berrill and Sophia Munyengeterwa

Typesetting: Newgen KnowledgeWorks

Cover image: Things, from Flow: Big Waters, Valerie LeBlanc and

Daniel H. Dugas, 2014–15

Cover symbol: Sarah Tremlett

Print ISBN 978-1-78938-268-6

ePDF ISBN 978-1-78938-269-3

ePUB ISBN 978-1-78938-270-9

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This is a peer-reviewed publication.

To my family and friends

We are going through the reflection age. Living through subjective reflections.

Barbara Rubin, 22 June 1967 (Mekas [1972] 2016: 280)

Contents

Illustrations

Foreword

Valerie LeBlanc

Preface

Introduction: Poetry, Song, Philosophy – The Combined Lyric Aesthetic

PART ONE: FORM AND STRUCTURE

1.Terminology across Time

2.Realization and Structure

3.Voice and Narrative

4.Time and Mind

5.Constructing Dynamic Spatio-Temporality

6.Tonality, Light and Colour

7.Sound Design

8.Poet on Screen: Persona and Subjectivity

Part Two: Artists’ Voices

9.Contemporary Pioneers

George Aguilar

Enzo Minarelli

Enzo Minarelli

Tom Konyves

Javier Robledo

Peter Todd

Valerie LeBlanc and Daniel H. Dugas

Stuart Pound and Rosemary Norman

Rosemary Norman

Stuart Pound

Heather Haley

Thomas Zandegiacomo del Bel

Zata Banks

Gabrielė Labanauskaitė

Dave Bonta

Alastair Cook

Marc Neys

10.Making

Chaucer Cameron

Marie Craven

Lucy English

Ian Gibbins

Jane Glennie

Suzie Hanna

Kate Jessop

Adeena Karasick

Martha McCollough

Matt Mullins

Adele Myers

Charles Olsen

Caleb Parkin and Helmie Stil

Helmie Stil

Caleb Parkin

Maciej Piatek

Dave Richardson

Othniel Smith

Howard Vause

Susanne Wiegner

11.Poetry Film and Videopoetry in Portugal and Spain: Alive and Thriving

Charles Olsen

Alexandre Braga

Manuel Vilarinho

Eduardo Yagüe

Tarha Erena

Alejandro Céspedes

Celia Parra

Jordan T. Caylor

Belén Gache

Santiago Parres

Lola López-Cózar

Agustín Fernández Mallo

David Argüelles Redondo

Ángel Guinda and Sándor M. Salas

12.Experimental Poetry in Argentina from the 1960s to the 1990s: Political Voice and Prefiguring the Turn to Digital Literature and Video Poetry

Marisol Bellusci

13.Liberated Words: Developing a Poetry Film Festival and Workshops

Butterflies Haven Workshop

Helen Moore

Howard Vause

Part Three: Selected Narrative Forms

14.Collections

John D. Scott

15.Text-on-Screen

16.Video Haiku and Video Haiga

Katia Viscogliosi and Francis Magnenot

Judy Kendall

17.A Documentary Approach to Poetry Film

18.Dance and Movement

Helen Mort

19.The Ecopoetry Film

Meriel Lland

Janet Lees

Janet Lees

Helen Moore and Howard Vause

Helen Moore

Overview

Examples of Leading Poetry Film Festivals

References

Artists and Authors Index

Illustrations

Figure 1: Five Miles (Simple Brush Strokes on a Naked Canvas), Marc Neys, Howie Good, 2015. Film and music copyright © Marc Neys (Swoon).

Figure 2: Anemic Cinema, Marcel Duchamp, 1926. Image copyright © DACS UK.

Figure 3: L’Étoile de Mer (The Star Fish), Man Ray, 1928. Image copyright © DACS UK.

Figure 4: At Land, Maya Deren, 1944. Image copyright © Tavia Ito. Courtesy of Re:Voir.

Figure 5: Cinetest/Cinetext, Jeanne Dillon, Mario Diacono, 1970. Image copyright © Mario Diacono.

Figure 6: ‘Island’ from First Screening, bpNichol, 1984. Image copyright © the estate of bpNichol.

Figure 7: Heather Haley with Thesa Pakarnyk, photo by Tom Wiebe, Visible Verse Poetry Film Festival, 2011.

Figure 8: Robin, Efrat Benzur, Yuval and Merav Nathan (Emily Dickinson), 2012. Image copyright © Yuval and Merav Nathan.

Figure 9: Jig, Adele Myers, Gaia Holmes, 2016. Image copyright © Adele Myers, 2016. All rights reserved.

Figure 10: Claire Climbs Everest, Sam Harvey, Sarah Tremlett, 2017.

Figure 11: Alle Tage, Marc Neys (Ingeborg Bachmann), 2015. Film and music copyright © Marc Neys (Swoon).

Figure 12: It Was Mine, Kajsa Naess, 2015. Image copyright © Mikrofilm AS.

Figure 13: Belles Lettres – Mirror, Kylie Hibbert (Sylvia Plath), 2005.

Figure 14: It Turns Out, Martha McCollough, 2013d.

Figure 15: Abachan, Alastair Cook, 2011. Image copyright ©Alastair Cook.

Figure 16: Landmine in a Field of Flowers, Matt Mullins, 2015.

Figure 17: Instructions to Hearing Persons Desiring a Deaf Man, Brooke Griffin, Raymond Luczak, 2014. Image copyright © Brooke Griffin, 2014.

Figure 18: ‘In a Station of the Metro’, Ezra Pound, Poetry magazine, 1913. Copyright © Faber and Faber Ltd.

Figure 19: Apples and Oranges, Daniel H. Dugas, 2016.

Figure 20: Waterworx – (A Clear Day and No Memories), Rick Hancox, 1982.

Figure 21: People on the Bridge, Beata Pozniak, 2014. Image copyright © Beata Pozniak. All rights reserved.

Figure 22: Words, Maciej Piatek, 2012.

Figure 23: The Future Is Here, Helen Dewbery, Bianca Stone, 2016. Image copyright © Helen Dewbery.

Figure 24: Sakura Yama (桜 山) Coup de Coeur Rendez-vous du Carnet de voyage, Yves Bobie, 2014.

Figure 25: Our Bodies, Matt Mullins, 2012.

Figure 26: Mr Sky, Lucy English, Sarah Tremlett, 2018.

Figure 27: Sandpiper, John D. Scott (Elizabeth Bishop), 2011.

Figure 28: Innocent Beat, Martha McCollough, 2013.

Figure 29: Un Coup de Dés Jamais N’Abolira Le Hasard (A Throw of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance), Stéphane Mallarmé, 1897; translated by A. S. Kline. Copyright © 2007.

Figure 30: Death in the Morning (Water) from Flow: Big Waters, Valerie LeBlanc, Daniel H. Dugas, 2014–15.

Figure 31: Vida, Tarsem Sing Sidhu, Safar Jeet, 2016.

Figure 32: Afterlight, Timothy David Orme, 2013.

Figure 33: Kiki’s Film, Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, 2018.

Figure 34: Hallaig, Neil Kempsell, Martyn Bennett, 2011.

Figure 35: The Celebration, Ghayath Almadhoun, Marie Silkeberg, 2014.

Figure 36: Far Away and Long Ago, Lucia Sellars, 2016.

Figure 37: Beware of DOG, Tom Konyves, 2008. Image copyright © Tom Konyves.

Figure 38: Whore in the Eddy, Heather Haley, 2012.

Figure 39: I Am Nobody’s Nigger, Paris Zarcilla, Dean Atta, 2012.

Figure 40: Ruski Makeup, Mariola Brillowska, 2008.

Figure 41: Ophelia: Me Too, Sarah Tremlett, 2018.

Figure 42: Tortures, Beata Pozniak, 2017. Image copyright © Beata Pozniak. All rights reserved.

Figure 43: Selfpoem, Enzo Minarelli, 2013.

Figure 44: Mistaken Identity, Sarah Tremlett, 2005.

Figure 45: Todos esos momentos se perderan (All Those Moments Will Be Lost in Time), Dier, 2011. Image copyright © Tom Konyves.

Figure 46: ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, 2016. Photo copyright © Thomas Mohn.

Figure 47: Mountain City, Yingli Cai, 2016.

Figure 48: Marchant Grenu (Walking Grainy), Francois Vogel, 2013.

Figure 49: Streamschool, Péter Vácz, 2012. Image copyright © Péter Vácz.

Figure 50: My Mum Is an Aeroplane, Yulia Aronova, Alexander Nochin, 2013.

Figure 51: Chess Queen, Gabrielė Labanauskaitė, 2013. Image copyright © Gabrielė Labanauskaitė and AVaspo.

Figure 52: Scene, Alastair Cook, 2010. Image copyright © Alastair Cook.

Figure 53: Five Miles (Simple Brush Strokes on a Naked Canvas), Marc Neys, Howie Good, 2015. Film and music copyright © Marc Neys (Swoon).

Figure 54: The Litany of the Saints, Lucy English, Helen Dewbery, 2015.

Figure 55: Dog, Kate Jessop, 2013.

Figure 56: And the Alarm Rang, Charles Olsen, Lilián Pallares, 2013.

Figure 57: The Desktop Metaphor, Helmie Stil, Caleb Parkin, 2017. Image copyright © poetry cinema.

Figure 58: Love’s River of Errors, Dave Richardson, 2016.

Figure 59: Ann Savage and Tom Neal in Detour, Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945. Image in the public domain.

Figure 60: Just Midnight, Susanne Wiegner (Robert Lax), 2010.

Figure 61: (Ce nést pas une) Chanson d’Amour ([This Is Not a] Love Song), Alexandre Braga, 2007. Image copyright © Alexandre Braga.

Figure 62: 4º Segundo Pliegue: El Dentro/Fuera (4th Second Section: Inside/Out), Alejandro Céspedes, 2016.

Figure 63: Aurelia: Our Dreams Are a Second Life, Belén Gache, 2013.

Figure 64: Viento (Wind), David Argüelles Redondo, 2015. Image courtesy of En buen Sitio Producciones.

Figure 65: Revista Diagonal Cero (Zero Diagonal Magazine), edition 23, 1967.

Figure 66: Bertie Bert, Butterflies Haven workshops; Helen Moore and Howard Vause, 2015.

Figure 67: In the Waiting Room, John D. Scott (Elizabeth Bishop), 2013.

Figure 68: Qué Es El Amor (What Is Love), Eduardo Yagüe, Lucy English, 2016.

Figure 69: Double Life in REM State, Marc Neys, Cindy St Onge, 2015. Film and music copyright © Marc Neys (Swoon).

Figure 70: Things, from Flow: Big Waters, Valerie LeBlanc, Daniel H. Dugas, 2014–15.

Figure 71: Selbstverbesserung (Self-Improvement), Jörg Piringer, 2015. Image copyright © Jörg Piringer.

Figure 72: accidentals (recalculated), Ian Gibbins, 2016.

Figure 73: Haiku no. 17, Cinema Fragile, 2016. Image copyright © Cinema Fragile.

Figure 74: Murmuration, Judy Kendall, 2000. Image copyright © Judy Kendall, 2018.

Figure 75: At the Border, Jan Baeke, Alfred Marseille, 2016. Image copyright © Public Thought, Jan Baeke and Alfred Marseille.

Figure 76: Once in Whitley Bay, Diana Taylor, Robin Kidson, 2015. Internet image under Creative Commons.

Figure 77: Great, Curmiah Lisette, 2015. Image copyright © Curmiah Lisette.

Figure 78: Dance, Sarah Tremlett, 2015.

Figure 79: small journeys skyward, Meriel Lland, 2015. Image copyright © Meriel Lland.

Figure 80: Greenspin, Helen Moore, Howard Vause, 2013.

Figure 81: Aussie Journal, Helen Moore, 2017.

Foreword

Valerie LeBlanc

Through immersion into the milieu of poetry film, film poetry and videopoetry, Sarah Tremlett has contributed to expanding the field of the genre itself.

In this work, she shares a generous survey of her research to date. Beginning in her introduction, Sarah lays out an intricate review of cultural markers that she has analysed to stand as examples at the roots of poetry film, film poetry and videopoetry philosophies, establishing criteria for their definitions. The often immersive sources of social and political histories found in long poems, as well as in visual art/artefacts of ancient culture, map the role of art in the psychological growth of human thinking and awareness; the world perceived through ideas and available recording technologies through the ages.

Since ancient times poetry has often married the voice with hypnotic rhythms, alongside ritual and recorded life experiences, myths and legends, historical events, social states and the human condition during times of war and peace. And now audiences are drawn in by technical discoveries facilitating equally hypnotic and immersive effects. Positing these historical examples at the outset, and with particular reference to the lyric aesthetic, readers are offered nuggets to carry forward. In the first chapter, we begin with the early part of the twentieth century progressing to the state of the art and milieu today.

Following the format of videopoetry creation, Sarah Tremlett’s document is multimodal. There are sections where her voice is prominent; in others, she features interviews with festival directors, poets and film-makers. Additionally, in other chapters, creators are themselves charged with describing their individual influences, styles and motivations for production. Widening the dimensions of personal and scholarly input to include the myriads of film poetries and videopoetries out there, an intricate architecture of language and illustration builds a model for poetry film, film poetry and videopoetry discourse.

The ‘Poetry Film and Videopoetry in Portugal and Spain: Alive and Thriving’ interview section is an example of inviting individual creators to define their ideas surrounding the poetry film, film poetry or videopoetry genres. Conducted in interview style, Charles Olsen consistently begins the conversations with the question of ‘what is video poetry, or what is film poetry?’ The effect of this approach is to set up a series of personal lexicons that enrich the conversations within The Poetics of Poetry Film.

Teaming up with collaborator Lucy English in 2012, Sarah Tremlett founded the MIX digital screening event (with a Liberated Words poetry film competition), at Bath Spa University in the United Kingdom. Later they set up Liberated Words CIC to both run community film creation workshops and to screen the resulting films alongside the works of international poetry film-makers. One example of a project managed by Sarah Tremlett includes organizing school-age participants into groups dedicated to literary, musical (dance) and media skills development. This approach to the presentation and analysis of text, image and audio-based creations nurtures discussion, while aiding point-of-view development in areas where art and real-world perceptions collide and sometimes link up. Toward achieving this end, workshops involving minorities and persons with other abilities have been carried out through Liberated Words.

Throughout this text, Sarah acknowledges her mentors and those creators who have influenced her own formation. In particular, she cites Tom Konyves and his 2011 videopoetry manifesto as being seminal to the discussion. While no single document can hope to include all examples of the ever-evolving poetry film, film poetry and videopoetry genres, Sarah Tremlett has successfully rounded out her research into a comprehensive survey of the field. Nomenclature consistently remains an issue open for discussion and it will probably remain up to the creator of a work to call it what she/he feels it is.

The Poetics of Poetry Film covers the many factors of lyric voice, time, reflection, and audio-visual rhythm that poetry film, film poetry and videopoetry embody, and will surely generate future discussions in the field for years to come.

15 September 2019

Preface

As an artist and writer, I began exhibiting paintings and writing on the arts in the mid-1980s. My practice progressed into making short narrative films (2001) and then combining experimental films with text as videopoems in 2005. With a background in arts journalism (and academic and small publishing – producing books on wood engraving for Silent Books), my aim has always been twofold: to explore the fascinating and often complex mindsets of artists at work, whilst bringing their ideas to a wider audience.

The Poetics of Poetry Film expands on an M.Phil.-awarded research project (2006–14) entitled: ‘Re: Turning – from Graphic Verse to Digital Poetics – Historical Rhythms and Digital Transitional Effects in Graphic Poetry Film’ (Tremlett 2014b).¹ I examined how minimal, contemplative, visual text-on-screen could remediate page-based Concrete and verse prosody, through two types of motion (or temporal patterning): metronomic repetition and cyclical rotation.

These dynamics echo the traditional structure of the ‘turned’ poetic line of page-based verse but under the new ‘moving’ form of ‘screen verse’. Primarily my research explored how contemplative effects on the page can be remediated as audio-visual poetic effects, supported by philosophical precepts, such as an understanding of forces in (ancient Chinese) dualist philosophy. Relevant papers on the subject (presented and published at the Consciousness Reframed Conferences IX, Vienna, 2008 and X, Munich, 2009) include: ‘Matternal philosophy, female subjectivity and text in art’, in New Realities: Being Syncretic, by Springer Wein (Tremlett 2008), and ‘Some Everybodies – Design and non-dualist filmic experience’ in Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Intellect Books (Tremlett 2009b). Later, at the For the Earth symposium at VideoBardo videopoetry festival, Buenos Aires in 2012, I also presented the paper ‘The Word as a Leaf’.² This investigation led to me being described as a ‘visual philosopher’ by Karina Karaeva, curator at the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (NCCA), Moscow.

As a researcher in the philosophy of poetry film (where theory and practice constantly inform each other), my work centres on interrogating a philosophy of audio-visual poetic language. This is primarily demonstrated through the formal aspects of poetry film (particularly the relations between oral and visual prosody). In today’s political climate, poetry films are often vehicles for philosophical belief, where silenced subjectivity and repression hold sway. As such, in this publication I argue that the historical divisions between Western philosophy and poetry can be re-evaluated as a merging of traditions, symbiotically reinforcing and extending each other within the genre of poetry film.

Tom Konyves

I first met the unparalleled Tom Konyves when he contacted me about my film Some Everybodies (Tremlett 2009c), which I presented at Bury Festival of Text (2009). Tom curated a screening for the event which included another of my films – Blanks in Discourse: 03 (aka Mistaken Identity) (2005). Some Everybodies utilizes the slowing down and freezing of film, exploring perceptions of narrative time against ‘real’ time and space. Putting forward the idea of MIX as a digital screening event to Lucy English after The Chichester Poetry and Voice conference (2010), it was uppermost in my mind that we should invite Tom to speak, as the leading theorist on videopoetry.³ I count this festival and Tom’s support at this time as formative in my career in poetry film.

Since then I have received commissions (Filmpoem/The Poetry Society), judged at festivals (Newlyn Film Festival, Light Up Poole, Liberated Words), and given talks and presented papers and screenings at such venues as: VideoBardo, Argentina; ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival; Tarp Audio-Visual Festival, The National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Lithuania; Lyra Poetry Festival, Bristol; Poetry International, The South Bank Centre, London; REELpoetry, Houston, Texas; and Encounters Short Film and Animation Festival, Bristol. I have also exhibited at such festivals as: ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Germany; Visible Verse, Canada; Rabbit Heart, United States; Ó Bhéal Poetry Film competition, Ireland; The Poetry Society, London; Athens Video Poetry Festival, Greece; Filmpoem, United Kingdom; the Big Poetry Weekend, United Kingdom; the Visible Poetry Project, United States and at Voices and Silences – a British Council-funded solo exhibition in Klaipeda, Lithuania. In 2012, with spoken word poet Lucy English, I co-founded the first MIX conference and Liberated Words CIC, a poetry film organization whose aim is to screen top international poetry films alongside those made in regional group workshops, often including lesser-heard voices, such as those living with Alzheimer’s or autism. Listed in Who’s Who in Research: Visual Arts (Intellect 2013), I am a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and the Society of Women in Philosophy, qualified in Teaching English as a Foreign Language and support a number of environmental organizations.

The Poetics of Poetry Film examines the formal characteristics of the poetic in poetry film (film poetry and videopoetry), particularly in relation to lyric voice and time as an audio-visual lyric aesthetic often underpinned by a philosophical or ethical approach to practice. Poetry films are a genre of short film, usually combining the three main elements of the poem as: verbal message – voice-over or on-screen narration – or subtitles (repeating or replacing voice), and as visual text-on-screen; the moving film image (and diegetic sounds); and additional non-diegetic sounds/music to create soundscape. The often complex interweaving of the elements could be said to give poetry films their uniquely associative character. Their intertextuality and multimodality – between the moving word (phonic or visual) and the moving film image (alongside a subtext of musical associations) – creates the opportunity to engage in deeper analyses in relation to theories within both film and linguistics; for example, Soviet montage theory, narratology and structuralist theory. They are often between three to five minutes in length, where a shorter duration is pragmatic for festival release. As such, condensation of narrative creates its own formal dynamics particular to the genre.

A ‘film poem’ historically abjuring verbal language for experimental cinematic language (see Chapter 1), depends on its audio-visual rhythms and tonal qualities to create aesthetic effects. It goes without saying that there are crossovers between definitions. The poetry film often contains and capitalizes on the same aesthetic effects as the film poem, so that where I discuss structure, rhythm, tone or mood, the term film poem can, where applicable, be transposed for poetry film. The description ‘video poem’ is often used as another term for a poetry film, whereas a ‘videopoem’ does not illustrate a separate poem, but in the combination and composition of the elements it is in itself an original screen-based poem. I will be referencing Konyves’ understanding of the videopoem throughout this book, but with amendments (see Chapter 2 for further elaboration).

In practice, many artists today ignore these potentially overlapping categorizations, adapting terms for their own purposes; or alternatively working between terms. I consider myself as both a poetry film-maker and videopoet, and I make and produce films under the name POEM FILM. Importantly, however, poetry films and videopoems are not vehicles for poets solely reciting to camera, unless within a narratively defined scenario. Ultimately, all forms hinge on creating the perception of a relationship (or non-detonative absence of one) between the elements, and it is this dialectic that creates such an exciting ‘imaginative leap’ (Konyves 2011) for the audience.

A still of a frozen bubble with the text ‘Because a Feeling Has No Form’ inside it, floating across grass.

Figure 1: Five Miles (Simple Brush Strokes on a Naked Canvas), Marc Neys, Howie Good, 2015. Film and music copyright © Marc Neys (Swoon).

Poetry film ‘design’ is often entirely due to chance associations; however, I identify basic principles that can be seen across different forms of the genre, focusing on the whole through the individual elements. In doing so, I will try not to obliterate the ineffable alchemy at work (see Figure 1). As French film director Abel Gance (1889–1981) argued, ‘the marriage of image, text and sound is so magical that it is impossible to dissociate them in order to explain the favourable reactions of one’s unconscious’ (Gance in Nin 1963).

In terms of theorizing an audio-visual lyric aesthetic, I firstly outline a historical context, particularly citing Eastern ‘poem paintings’, as well as more recent Western art historical and linguistic theories. I propose that poetry film (film poetry) and videopoetry can extend both Concrete (visual) and lyric poetry (and subjective expression) and historical understandings of poetic form, within a lyric aesthetic that can also be termed an audio-visual philosophical practice where relevant (Tremlett 2019; see also Jakobson 1987).

Examples of historical theorists previously cited by contemporary academics in relation to poetics in the moving image include: the Russian Formalists (whose thinking can be seen to be encapsulated by Viktor Shklovsky [1893–1984] in his famous essays ‘Art as technique’ [(1917) 1965] and ‘Art as device’ [(1917) 1990]); the axial concept of the poetic in film-making by Ukrainian-born, American experimental film-maker Maya Deren (1917–61); and the structuralist poetics of Russian-American linguist and literary theorist Roman Jakobson (1896–1982).

In addition, I will also be referencing Russian philosopher of language and literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1895–1975) concepts of heteroglossia and the dialogic imagination ([1975] 1981) which will be re-examined in terms of voice and narrative. However, foremost in terms of historical context lie the lesser known but now central lyric concepts within the Futurist manifesto (Marinetti 1909) and ‘The Futurist Cinema manifesto’ (Marinetti et al. 1916a) itself. As co-director of Liberated Words, identifying the significance of Italian poet, art theorist and founder of Futurism Filippo Tommaso Emilio Marinetti (1876–1944) might not seem surprising. However, whilst we may superficially associate the artist and the movement with a machine-fuelled machismo, creating typographic and oral destruction of semantics and syntax in favour of the sound poem and fragmented visual text, it is important to look deeper.

Marinetti divides his manifesto into categories beginning with ‘The Futurist Sensibility’, in which he says he ‘invented essential and synthetic lyricism, imagination without strings, and words-in-freedom, [and which] deals exclusively with poetic inspiration’ (1909, original emphasis). Here Marinetti does not find it inimical to combine a subjective expressive lyric sensibility with an objective approach, deconstructing language (highlighting iconicity and materiality), and being firmly aware of audience perceptions. He defines his new multilinear lyricism as encompassing the lyric simultaneity of sound, music, colour and analogy with the pictorial (1909).

Importantly, this is further expanded in ‘The Futurist Cinema manifesto’ (Marinetti et al. 1916a) which is heavily influenced by the synaesthetic and theosophist approach of Italian Futurists (and brothers) painter Arnaldo Ginanni Corradini (1890–1982) and playwright Bruno Ginanni Corradini (1892–1976) (later known as Arnaldo Ginna and Bruno Corra):

Cinematic analogies […] Cinematic poems, speeches, and poetry. We shall make all of their component images pass across the screen […] Cinematic simultaneity and interpenetration of different times and places […] Cinematic musical researches […] objects removed from their normal surroundings and put into an abnormal state […] Filmed dramas of disproportion […] Linear, plastic, chromatic equivalences, etc., of men, women, events, thoughts, music, feelings, weights, smells, noises (with white lines on black we shall show the inner, physical rhythm of a husband who discovers his wife in adultery and chases the lover – rhythm of soul and rhythm of legs) […] Filmed words-in-freedom in movement (synoptic tables of lyric values—dramas of humanized or animated letters—orthographic dramas—typographical dramas—geometric dramas—numeric sensibility, etc.) […] Painting + sculpture + plastic dynamism + words-in-freedom + composed noises [intonarumori] + architecture + synthetic theatre = Futurist cinema. This is how we decompose and recompose the universe according to our marvellous whims

(Marinetti et al. 1916a)

In essence this manifesto aims much higher than it can reach, bearing in mind that silent, black and white cinema has to be read into with a fair degree of theorizing to achieve any sense of total synaesthesia or ‘polyexpressiveness’ (see Chapter 1). Nevertheless, it also provides an almost comprehensive blueprint for a multimedia synthesis between poetry, film, music and painting (including both the lyric and visual word) achieved by digital poetry film-makers and videopoets today.

It goes without saying that any validation of Italian Futurist aesthetic approaches does not espouse their driving association with for example, Facism and chauvinism, nor Marinetti’s provocative and declamatory activist performances where people were arrested (Strauven 2009). In terms of contemporary poetry film-makers it is important to go back to the manifestos themselves, and reread them in terms of a dynamical lyricism (including the destruction of verbal and visual text-based syntax) forging links between the word and the moving image. Both the Futurist manifesto (Marinetti 1909) and the Futurist Cinema manifesto (Marinetti et al. 1916a) are equally important in contextualizing poetry film and its relationship to voice, visual text and the sound word or ‘acoustic typography’ (Strauven 2009), later developed and known as Concrete poetry. From the foundation of these manifestos, we can extrapolate on subsequent filmic renditions of both the verse and visual text in all its forms.

As a researcher, I have read over 250 publications on subjects that include historical and contemporary theories and analyses of form in: poetry film; film poetry and video poetry/videopoetry; poetry (lyric, verse, media, visual – pattern, Concrete, graphic; spoken word, performance, Beat, oral); film (experimental and feature film); art; music theory and digital sound design; linguistics; philosophy; feminism; and theories of perception.

Extending far beyond the page and the live poetry event in its reach, the poetry film and its worldwide channels of dissemination provide a powerful platform for minority voices, whilst paradoxically fostering exciting new collaborations. The rise in the Internet, social media and accessible digital software has made it possible for everyone to make short, poetic films, confirming Barbara Rubin’s extraordinarily early prophecy: ‘We are going through the reflection age. Living through subjective reflections’ (Mekas [1972] 2016: 280).

Poetry films are also rich with altruistic and spiritual convictions; they are even endowed by some with embodying the maker’s loving spirit. In contrast, academic or cultural knowledge creation has traditionally gained validation through objective analyses. Kudos has not been derived from focusing on the spiritual or abstract concepts such as love. As British ecopoet Helen Moore observes, one academic lecturer told her, that unlike him ‘you are allowed to talk about spirituality’. With a world at war, in financial and political turmoil, and with an environmental disaster on our hands in our lifetime, artists are now voicing their call to action. Ethics has entered aesthetics with a vengeance, identified through such terms as ‘connective aesthetics’ (Gablik 1992). Yes, poetry films often embody an empathetic philosophy, just like poetry; today the subjective, lyric inner voice is back.

Acknowledgements

I would firstly like to thank Lucy English for her role in Liberated Words, whilst this book was being written, and all the highly talented contributors for their insights and individual approaches, especially Alastair Cook, Marc Neys and Dave Bonta for giving up precious time for interviews. I am particularly indebted to Tom Konyves for his early support; Thomas Zandegiacomo del Bel for his in-depth essay on ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, and a valuable overview of leading participants around the world; Charles Olsen for his incisive and revealing interviews with leading Spanish and Portuguese videopoets; Javier Robledo for his enlightening essay on VideoBardo (and Dr Claudia Kozak for her fine translation); Marisol Bellusci for contextualizing videopoetry against 1960s experimental poetry in Argentina; talented performance artist, poetry film-maker, leading campaigner and not least Hollywood actress Beata Pozniak for her time and revealing thoughts; Enzo Minarelli’s important contribution on orality and polypoetry, giving a wider historical perspective on the field; Valerie LeBlanc for her generous and insightful Foreword; Matt Mullins for kindly allowing me to include extracts from his interview with George Aguilar for Atticus Review; Dr Jeff Boehm and Jon Riley for translating my musical descriptions into musical terminology; and my deepest thanks to Professor Gwendolyn Audrey Foster and Dr Meriel Lland for their rich wisdom and advice. Finally, none of this would have been possible without the patient support of leading academic publisher – Intellect Books – and my dedicated and irreplaceable editors Emma Berrill and Sophia Munyengeterwa. Thank you.

Disclaimer

Although historical references are made to poetic cinema and film poetry in its various incarnations, the emphasis is on contemporary practitioners, rather than say American experimental film-makers between the 1940s and 1980s. This publication does not include an in-depth examination of semiotics in relation to poetry film, nor detailed analyses of video editing and animation techniques, and related software programmes. The works selected are from established practitioners, and are available online with English translations. Many poetry films I value have not been possible to include. Historical category definitions by other theorists (experimental film and film poem) have been adhered to where relevant. Priority has been given to the audio-visual form, rather than full, printed poems, except where specified. Poets writing ekphrastic poems inspired by films or TV are not included. Longer essays, poems and interviews can be found at the Liberated Words website http://www.liberatedwords.com and http://www.sarahtremlett.com. This publication is not a comprehensive source of poetry film sites, festivals, magazines, etc. For an overview of these, see http://www.movingpoems.com, http://www.poetryfilmkanal.de, http://atticusreview.org or http://www.poetryfilmlive.com and www.cinematicpoems.com. Where possible, all links for historical films have been to reputable and long-term sites such as http://www.UbuWeb.com.

Throughout this book, I have tried to keep in mind the more recent statement of American non-narrative experimental film-maker or film poet Stan Brakhage (1933–2003), who reminds me that defining can remove us from the very purpose of art itself: ‘these left-brain hierarchies of symbols, signs, numbers and words which tend to delimit one’s ability to be aware of what a lit candle human beings just normally are, all the time, going along being’ ([1996] 2015). I feel that poetry films today are generated by ‘lit candles’ as lit candles, and I hope not to extinguish their direct access to our equally unique imaginations.

Notes

1Accessed through Chelsea College of Arts Library.

2See https://www.sarahtremlett.com . Accessed 27 November 2012.

3In 1978, Tom defined his multimedia work as videopoems and in print in 1982 in The Insecurity of Art: Essays on Poetics published by Véhicule Press (Konyves 1982). See https://www.ufv.ca/english/faculty-and-staff/konyves-tom.htm .

Introduction: Poetry, Song, Philosophy – The Combined Lyric Aesthetic

As the Mycenaean Greek civilization (1600–1100 bc) declined (along with Linear B script), and the Dark Ages (1100–800 bc) descended on Greek history, their ancestral triumphs and mythical exploits were passed down orally as heroic tales. The poet Homer (c.900–800 bc) is said to have composed the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey, terming the poet aoidos or ‘singer’ (Kirk 2019). Nagy (1994) states that, at this time, the performing of a composition was an activating of myth.

The Greek alphabet evolved circa 750–650 bc, when Homer’s epic poems were first recorded, and the first lyric poets said to originate, although some historians argue they preceded the Archaic period (Nagy 2007). Unlike the epic poet, the solo lyric poet is known for expressing their own feelings and personal subjectivity, singing (monody) or reciting short poems. Equally the choral lyric was sung by a group or khoros ‘chorus’ who could also have danced. If the lyric was accompanied by a musical instrument, usually a kithara (lyre) or wind instrument, it was termed melic from melos ‘song’ (Nagy 2007). The lyric form included hymns for religious festivals, songs for family celebrations, the symposium ‘drinking party’ and celebrating the hero or athlete at public events (Olympic Games) (De Romilly 1996).

Ancient Greek, as a language, operated through a pitch-accent stress system, rather than abstract metrical stress. As such song was different to speech in the duration and intensity of patterns of rhythm and pitch. In the recited rather than sung lyric poem, the melody was reduced, with a more regular rhythm, termed meter (Nagy 2007). In many senses the poetry film, combining the spoken (and sometimes sung) word with music, has returned to its roots; and importantly, differs in its didactic and ethical origins from other forms of short film.

During the time of Homer, mythos (narrative as a set of beliefs), logos as account and ‘hodos’ or way were synonymous in the oral tradition. In the pre-Socratic world, the term ‘phronesis’ originally meant intuition, being and action resolved into a unit, where theory and practice were united (Jaeger 1934). By the fifth century bc the Sophist philosophers began to question the use of myth and ritual as a means of understanding and regulating their world. Heraclitus (c.540–c.480 BC) viewed logos as rational discourse on the world’s rational structure.¹ Simplistically, by the time of classical Greek philosophers Socrates (c.470–399 bc) and Plato (b. 427 bc), mythos became defined as non-verifiable, and logos as objective, scientific account or theory.

Ultimately, it became politically expedient to separate the verse from musical instrumentation and song, to reduce the sensory, hypnotic effects produced. Plato not only utilized writing as both a transcription of his own and Socrates’ voice, but also as a way to reduce the sensual stirring of the soul in the oral tradition (Burch and Verdicchio 2002). Plato’s concept of mimesis (later taken up by the philosopher Aristotle [384–322 bc]) proposed ideal, non-physical forms as true reality. Any type of artistic creativity based on natural forms was viewed as an imitation of an imitation; and the concepts of representation and metaphysics entered the arena. For Aristotle, there were two primary virtues, which belonged to the intellect: sophia (wisdom) and phronesis as practical, astute judgement (Irwin 1999). The original mythic interpretation of phronesis as belief-based narrative aligned to logos had been reconfigured.

In the Poetics (fourth century bc) Aristotle embraced the concept of mimesis or imitation and catharsis in different forms: drama as tragedy or comedy (mainly action); the epic form with diegesis, where a narrator recites lengthy events in the third person; the choric hymn (dithyrambic poetry); and the lyric (with lyre) a short poem expounding on the personal feelings or state of mind of the speaker (Heath 1996). A combination of all forms can occur in a single poetry film today.

Illuminated Verse

The German Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher (1602–80), who invented different aspects of the magic lantern, was well acquainted with the earliest forms of mirror. He recorded that, during the time of Solomon (970–928 bc), there had been projected mirror writing with Biblical verses as text. Mirror writing entailed writing on a brightly illuminated but dusty mirror, which by a series of further mirrors (symbolizing man and angels) was ‘projected’ onto a wall (Kircher [1646] 2000). The final text represented truths hidden in the real world. This writing could be defined as the earliest example of ‘moving’ verse (Tremlett 2014).

Moving Verses

From the fifth century bc, Buddhist priests went through the ritual of spinning texts, using hand-held or free-standing prayer wheels or drums containing mantras or verses. This was seen as a spiritual method of submitting linear discourse to the cyclical rhythms of organic life, as a oneness with the universe. The written verse form also documented the atrocities of war, just as poetry films do today. In the Hebrew Bible, the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon in 586 bc provided the basis of The Book of Lamentations, where the city was symbolized as a woman; and, included such devices as an acrostic poem, depicting the Hebrew alphabet.

The Figurative Visual Poem

The tradition of mixing ‘transparent’ alphabetic information with ‘opaque’ representational pictures formed by letters can be traced to Simmias of Rhodes, a Greek poet of the fourth century bc, or Simonides of Keos in the fifth century bc (Bohn 1986) and is perhaps most evident in much later Biblical, illuminated manuscripts. This form of pattern poetry has been repeated at various stages in history, notably the poems of peace and war or Calligrammes (1917) of French poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918). In mediaeval times ‘Carmina Figurata’ could contain patterns, but also included coloured (often red) words within sacred texts to meditate upon whilst reading. I referenced Carmina Figurata in my minimal, text-based videopoem Mistaken Identity (Tremlett 2005) that displays continuous, looping text from women’s magazines, with the words I and Home in red (error in proofreading) indicating places of refuge. This is accompanied by an ‘error’ beep, creating an idiosyncratic series of random notes, as the words reach the top of the screen.

Other stylistic effects with verse were also created: works fragmenting the poetic line – cut-ups, fragmentary, minimalist and combinatory poems took their part alongside traditional syllabic stress verse forms. In China, the ancient book of divination, the I Ching (with its oldest known extract from 400 to 200 bc) is just one example. By the birth of Christ, it seems that the verse had undergone every type of transformation possible, involving music, light, the oral lyric and visual text; and it is clear that all these forms feed into the poetry film today.

Philosophy through Poetry: China and the Lyric Aesthetic in Poetry and Painting

In China the bond between poetry and moral order was cemented through Taoism developed from the teachings and writings of philosopher Lao Tzu (d: 533 bc) (reputed to have authored the Tao Te Ching), and the Book of Odes or Book of Songs (said to have been compiled by Confucius [551–479 bc]) from the eleventh to seventh centuries BC. At the same time, music theorists developed a theory of form that became adopted in poetry and finally painting as a lyric aesthetic (Kao 1991). This created an outlet for a philosophy that centred on a relationship between the inner self and the universe. The lyric work was seen as a record of the prior act in the mind, a lyrical mind producing lyrical form in affective language (Kao 1991) with personal symbols. The Eastern and Western philosophical programmes to all intents and purposes diverged: the one reflecting inner, subjective, lyric presentation still in touch with the equivalent of pre-Socratic phronesis, and the other espousing dualist hierarchies (of culture over nature, word over matter, etc.) and objective, representational truths.

It was in the T’ang (Tang) dynasty (618–907 ad) in China that poetry (exemplifying an educated person) was first combined with painting; but it wasn’t until the Song (Sung) dynasty (960–1279) that the rise of ‘the three perfections’ (combining painting, poetry and calligraphy) began in earnest (Sullivan 1974). Scholar-amateurs as literati would gather and exchange poems, paint paintings based on poems and write poems for paintings, as social occasions (Kao 1991). The aim was to express a felt, lyric aesthetic; both collaborating with friends and stimulating the mind, particularly in relation to philosophical precepts. This same basic premise is alive and well today in poetry film workshops and festivals, but with three new perfections: poetry, the moving image and music.

Yu-kung Kao (1991) has observed that today, in direct opposition to the lyric aesthetic, cultural theories of representation absent the subjectivity of the artist in favour of the art object. Perhaps for pragmatic reasons, historically theorists have avoided the esoteric ‘problem’ of the lyric self, particularly where it was deemed ideologically unsound, as in Soviet Russia. However, my thinking on the subject allows that both Western and Eastern philosophical contexts prepare the ground for poetry film today.

The study of poetry film form and aesthetics therefore involves considering both the objective, centrifugal, extensional, referential narrative, and the inner, centripetal, intensional, subjective lyric. Of course, most poetry films contain both approaches; and, arguably it is the ambiguity of the word between its extensional and intensional function that opens up the exciting potential of a poem for the film-maker and audience. How much a poetry film uses personal symbols (as in leading Belgian film-maker Marc Neys’ use of red objects supplanting himself) reflects Kao’s observation that we are in the presence of the ‘internalizing mental mode’ (1991: 55). In fact, metaphor itself could be described as an unconscious form of this thinking. One fine example of a contemporary Chinese poetry film that exemplifies the lyric aesthetic is Hong Huo’s Water Music Song (Huo [Shi] 2016) with song-like poem by Su Shi from the Song dynasty (960–1279 ad), related to the Chinese mid-Autumn festival and the moon.

Whilst many poetry film-makers may not consider the philosophical through practice in any depth, by resisting the representational, the poetry film can be full of its own sense of self and the brilliance of intensional, unique symbols. It is as if the pre-Socratic, lyric hodos or way aligned to phronesis is still present. Amittai Aviram states that poetry makes sense of the world by representing it through rhythm, but contains within it the signs that the world is not representation (Burch and Verdicchio 2002). It is for this reason, Aviram says, that we are free.

Note

1. See the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/logos/v-1 . Accessed 24 June 2020.

Part One

Form and Structure

Terminology across Time

Poetry Films, Film Poems and Video Poems / Videopoems

The term ‘poetry film’ or ‘poetry-film’ (see on for use of the hyphen) as a film containing poetry (as verbal voice-over and/or subtitles or text-on-screen) was first given public credibility by Polish-born, American poet Herman Berlandt (1923–2017) in the title of his first ‘Poetry Film Festival’ (Bolinas, San Francisco, September, 1975). However, earlier records of the term survive. From 1967 to 1969 American Greg Sharits (1945–80), brother of experimental film-maker Paul Sharits (1943–93), managed the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque in Manhattan, with an ambitious and eclectic programme of acts and screenings, including, for example, Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol (1928–87). In his valuable, revealing and often personal account of 1960s experimental cinema – The Exploding Eye (1997) – Professor Wheeler Winston Dixon has included a fevered and enticing poster by Sharits. Amongst dance, music and ‘live and taped poetry’, the text tells of ‘phosphines’ (?), American poet John Giorno’s ‘raspberry fog machine’ and film-maker Mike Jacobson’s ‘fluorescent loops’; but, more specifically,