Poetry Visualized

Go Down, Death - A James Weldon Johnson poem

A difficult poem to recite, without breaking down in tears. I dare you.

The Mayo Clinic

Childhood trauma

An Uncommon Ghost

An Uncommon Ghost – George Aguilar - ANIMATION - 3:30 One of Shakespeare's best-known characters (Yorik) takes the form of a surfing skeleton to visit Hamlet's tomb nestled in a far-flung galaxy. 1999

eZS sequenza 1

Elektra’s pain and anger for Agamemnon’s death, suggested by Sylvia Plath’s verses. The \"sequenza 1\" is a non-narrative fragment, taken from medium-length film \"elektraZenSuite\".

I was looking for the emotions of a poem evoked by a Greek tragedy, putting a human figure in the middle of a bare natural landscape.

The sound effects interact with the voice as the colour effects with the framing.

SEVEN CANDLES

a video poem

THE WIND IN THE MEADOW

"The Wind in the Meadow", a poem by Nick Vardaxis, read by the poet.

NOT FIRE

I'll go with ice

and maybe death

will come to offer me

a frosty rest.

I know I'll feel no pain,

as all my limbs grow numb.

I'll sleep beneath

a comforter of snow.

The body's wise.

First nose and ears and toes

seem distant, silent.

I'll try not to care.

My chest and arms

I'll willingly expose.

To fight against injustice,

I don't dare.

When I despair,

I simply give up hope.

No more I feel

the burn of jealousy

and pride subsides

and anger too.

I cope with loss, with grief.

Indifference sets me free.

My flame burnt out.

I know it seems unkind,

but nothing matters.

Trick is not to mind.

CHARLIE HORSE

We drove to see a play

I'd only read.

I'm really glad

my seat was on the aisle.

Act V, scene iii

all eyes were watching,

while old Lear holds in his arms

Cordelia, dead.

The only dry eyes in the house

were mine.

(All tears

were beaten out of me
when young)

Instead, a ham string knots.

I jump.

I'm strung out on the carpet,

bent,

with bouncing spine.

It's years since you have gone,

not months or days.

Not every thought's

disheartening to me.

Not every ache

springs from a memory.

I feel your loss

in many different ways.

Yet there are times

I find the slightest strain

can zap and twist my soul

in wrenching pain.

Bones - Wild is the Wind

Hang onto your ticket stub. The sangin' don't start til about 1:50. In the meantime there's cold pizza in the lobby.

This is the conclusion of a 57-minute presentation I did called Triptych. 'Wild Is the Wind' is a beautiful, haunting song covered by a broad range of singers including Nina Simone, David Bowie and Johnny Mathis, even George Michael. It was written by celebrated film score composer Dimitri Tiomkin for a 1956 movie of the same name. The song lyrics, written by Ned Washington, have a sort of desolate, existentialist quality.

This moves at a pretty languid pace with a poem of mine, 'Bones', interspersed throughout. The Death figure from Ingmar Bergman's 1957 classic, 'The Seventh Seal' --arguably the most striking film ever made-- pokes his gray visage in periodically, just as he's wont to do in real life. There's a lot of rattling of bones and dead leaves. The arrangement and superb piano interludes are courtesy of Tom Saputo.

This video appears in the March 2008 Houston Literary Review along with my essay 'What the Hell Is It?'

http://thehoustonliteraryreview.com/N...

To Think of Time

I made this piece for a "visual poetry" project in my cinematography class. I chose to visually adapt the poem "To Think of Time" by Walt Whitman. It's shot entirely on 16mm color film.