World Class Poetry Blog

Siege - The Poetry Video -
And An Off-Broadway Musical
11 May 2008, the poet @ 4:47 pm

Two days ago I wrote a blog post about the production of poetry videos using musical scores as a backdrop along with creative, interpretive images that tell a story. Just for the record, if you got the impression that I don’t like Jazz, that would be incorrect. I do like Jazz, but it’s not the only music that is appropriate for accompanying poetry. I think the Beats got that notion stuck in people’s heads and it seems to be something that is almost taken for granted. But I think for my own poetry I’d like to experiment with some rock beats or alternative music.

At the end of this blog post you can see a video that I created myself for the poem “Siege.” It is nowhere near what I have in mind, but it’s a step (a small one) in that direction. This is a very raw production based on my limited skills, but it should give you some idea as to what I have in mind, sans the music score. All it really is is a video of an open mic poetry reading clipped to include a presentation of some photos that I took of the medieval walled fortress Rothenburg ob der Tauber, the subject of the poem. I don’t think I do it justice, but as I said, this is a start.

Dreamhouse Musical - An Off-Broadway
Poetic Experience
It has been brought to my attention that poet Barbara DeCesare’s book of poems jigsaweyesore is the basis of a new off-Broadway musical called “Dreamhouse.” The musical is a part of the Midtown International Theatre Festival and is the production of David Wolfson, who crafted the music, and Ari Laura Kreith, director. Other key people involved include:

• Musical Director/Piano: DANIEL FEYER
• Lighting Designer: JERI SYKES
• Stage Manager: LAUREN WALSH
• Publicity: SCOTTI RHODES

The musical’s cast are Suzan Postel, Maree Johnson, Jennie Eisenhower, Amy Hutchins, and Gayla D. Morgan. The musical promises to be full of wit and humor and observations on life, sex, love, and “the kind of soft sadness that never dips into maudlin theatrics” (Kessa De Santis).

The event is scheduled to run from July 21 to August 5, 2008 and will be held at The Workshop Mainstage located at 312 W. 36 St., 4th Floor, NYC. For more information you can call (212) 868-4444 or check out the website at www.smarttix.com.

Note: This information came to me via e-mail and I can’t vouch for its accuracy. I consider the source a credible source, but the website above currently doesn’t have any information on this event and I have another website address for the musical itself that currently doesn’t appear to be live. I will try to get more information on the event. It does look like one worthy of attendance.

Siege - Poetry Video
And now, without further ado, I bring you “Siege,” the video:

I Have A Dream: Poetry Videos That Rock
9 May 2008, the poet @ 9:01 pm

(Source) For many Broadway buffs, the idea of pairing poetry and song starts and stops at Cats, The Musical. But composer Louis Rosen and Broadway vocalist Capathia Jenkins prove the possibilities are endless.

Actually, the possibilities are endless. This is the message of Millennial Poetics.

I have in mind, actually, something similar and have had for a long time. Instead of using Jazz as the musical score (which seems to be the music genre of choice), I’d like to use rock music, original creations by a contemporary band, or classical music from the public domain, in conjunction with video in order to create a multimedia poetic experience with my own original poetry. Since I am not a musician or an expert video technician, this would have to be a collaborative project. But I do think the world is ready for such an experiment.

What I see of poetry videos today is merely a beginning. I remember when MTV first came into being. The videos were very primitive and with some exceptions many of them were simply concert footage from bands on tour. Over time, music video producers got more creative and sophisticated. The songs began to be written with the video in mind and attractiveness, as well as the ability to act and perform in front of a video camera, became more important to music artists.

I see something similar happening to poetry and I’d like to be there in the forefront. But I need partners. I can’t do it alone. I actually have a few projects I’d like to start on but I don’t have all the resources available to me as yet.

The videos I see on YouTube are good, but they are primitive in the way that MTV videos were primitive in 1984, the year I graduated high school. Even my own attempts to produce video are modest compared to the possibilities. I get frustrated trying to create my own. Tonight, for instance, I was hoping to have created something that might be worth sharing with you on this blog, but before I could finish I hit a snag and Windows Movie Maker crashed on me before I could save what I had. It was a simple video of me reading that I was going to mix with photos of a vacation to Germany that I took with my wife.

I’m confident that as my video making skills increase I can produce a video worth sharing, but how long will that be? Meanwhile, I keep dreaming ….

Millennial Poetics: Adding
The Tenth Column
29 April 2008, the poet @ 9:58 pm

It’s time to review the Millennial Poetics philosophy once more simply because I’ve thought of another principle that should be added. It’s the 10th, but I’d prefer to call them columns.

There’s a reason I want to call them columns. In architecture, a column has a specific purpose; really, it is a dual purpose. On the one hand, they are decorative. On the other hand, they offer support to a building’s roof. But the distance between the foundation and the roof can depend on the length of the column, the style of architecture, and various other factors. In certain historic cultures, a column could also bear a certain mythological significance. It could serve as an archetype as much as anything else. I think when you are building a magnificent structure for which there is no duplicate you must consider its structural support, its design, and its cultural (or mythological) significance. Such is the case with Millennial Poetics.

To review, the previous 9 pillars, or columns, of this school of poetics are:

1. Craft is of utmost importance
2. There is no room for prejudice
3. Form is just another element of craft
4. Creativity and craft go hand in hand
5. No topic is taboo
6. There is no such thing as language that is too archaic
7. All poems are individuals
8. There is no acceptable method to writing poetry
9. All convention should be shunned

I won’t elaborate on them here. You can read about each column, previously referred to as principles, by revisiting my blog series on that subject here. What I’d like to do now is discuss the 10th column, which is, namely: Technology may be used to enhance the poetry experience.

Technology May Be Used To Enhance
The Poetry Experience
With A Brief History Of The Internet
New technologies always advance old art forms. Gutenberg’s press took the art of writing in all media to a new level of mass communication. The advent of the computer allowed artists and writers, creators of all sorts, a new kind of ability. The personal computer made accessible to the average man and woman what before was available to only those who could afford a computer. The PC was affordable to all.

The Internet is really not that new. It’s been around for a half century, but was very primitive in its natural, or original, state, and was only available to researchers and military personnel. In fact, the ARPANET was created specifically to allow researchers the ability to communicate with each other in ways that before were unheard of. For nearly 40 years, the ARPA community grew into a vast network of researchers, government agencies, and military personnel, who were able to share information across long distances without having to use unsecure phone lines or pay large amounts of money on communication systems.

People have been able to communicate by e-mail by as early as 1971. FTP, File Transfer Protocol, has been available since 1973. In the 1970s, the ARPANET flourished and communications between computers across long distances became even more prevalent. In order to participate in the network, a station had to have a node, a special way to connect to the Net. Otherwise, access was not possible. In 1983, the U.S. military took part of that ARPANET and created the MILNET.

Also during this time, several independent networks developed that allowed their users to communicate with each, but they were more limited than the ARPANET or MILNET. Someone came up with the brilliant idea to connect these networks and that led to the development of The Internet in the 1980s. When commercial interests began to find applications for this new mode of information delivery, widespread use picked up speed and by the mid-1990s, almost everyone in the U.S. had heard of the the Internet and many of them were connected at least by e-mail.

What’s Poetry Got To Do With It?
So what does any of this have to do with poetry? Well, we’re talking about new media, correct? Specifically, this discussion is of the Internet and Internet-delivery systems. There is technology available to the average man and woman today that was not available even 10 years ago. I remember when Yahoo! was a simple directory. In 1995, you could go online and search Yahoo! for poetry websites. There were a ton of them.

It was around that time when serious-minded businessmen started figuring out ways to market themselves online. By the time Google got its start in the late 1990s, there were people making serious money online. And they had no idea about search engine optimization back then.

Since that time, new technologies like Flash, web-delivered video, podcasts, and e-books have emerged. These are all great delivery systems for poetry and all have been used to a degree of success by online poets. We have yet to tap into their full potential. I believe the future looks bright for poetry online and new technologies that have not yet been imagined can take poetry into unheard of directions. Already, online poets are experimenting with hypertext poems, Flash video poetry, and poetry radio through podcasts. Some of these are very creative endeavors.

Poets in the 21st century have available to them resources that the majority of humanity prior to 1950 would never have imagined. If Gutenberg could see what we are tinkering with today he’d go ape over it. Many great thinkers of the past could have extended their influence way beyond what they were capable of if they’d had access to these same tools. Poets today are blessed. I see further specialization and nichefication among poets occurring as a result of technology. That’s not a bad thing. It means that poetry is on the rise and new media means new modes of delivery. It also means new ways to be creative. Technology and poetry go hand in hand; the question is, How will we make the best use of them?

Listen to poetry from your browser, read your favorite poetry blogs without subscribing, with this grand new technology

Today’s Religious Poem Is
A Video: “Salvation”
21 April 2008, the poet @ 8:10 am

This video represents what I mean when I say that poetry videos should be interpretive. I envision a day when poets will produce videos as entertainment, much like today’s Hollywood. In discussions of poetics you will often hear how poetry is either visual or audible. Most poets today believe that poems should be read aloud. It’s an often repeated talking point and has led to the increased popularity of the slam, Spoken Word poetry, and poetry readings all across America. Every year in April, a local independent bookstore in Hanover, Pa. sponsors a poetry contest where a part of the judging criteria involves the actual verbal presentation of the poem before an audience. It is clear that oral presentation is a necessary component to contemporary poetics.

But one can’t deny that there is a visual element as well. There has been for as long as poets put their poems into print. Originally, of course, poetry was a storytelling art. Then it discovered print and that changed the face of poetry from an art that was audience driven, like theater, to one that was writer driven. When poets could write their poems and sell them as books, because people read, they could write in whatever styles and forms they chose and consumers of poetry had to buy what was being offered or not read poetry. Over time, as new technologies emerged (radio, TV, VCRs, DVDs), people stopped reading and started tuning in to the new media. Well, now the new media is the old media and a newer media has emerged.

When TV and radio were new they were limited in their reach. The broadcast could only go so far as they were based on waves and frequencies. The audience was not captive and it had a limit. The new media - Internet-driven technologies - does not have the same limitations as the old media. It’s much more inexpensive on the production end (which means poets have more access and control over the production model) and the audience is unlimited. Feasibly, a video, an e-book, or a podcast that is created today and uploaded to a website can still be accessible in the same unchanged format 200 years from now with no loss of quality. And it costs the producer, the poet, nothing more than the time it takes to create the product.

The time has come for poetry videos to capture the imaginations of an audience. People who previously would not sit down to read a book of poetry can now enjoy a poem through its visual presentation on a computer screen, or through satellite or S-Video feed, on their TV screen. But who wants to look at somebody just standing at a microphone reading from a book? That’s boring.

Instead, poets must get creative in the presentation. I see the production of poetry videos taking place in stages and could very well involve more than one individual in the process - just like making a movie. I see it going this way:

1. The poet writes a poem
2. The poem is published in print along with an audio recording
3. A script writer takes the poem and adapts it for a video presentation
4. Scenes are produced and shot in no specific order (just as a movie is made)
5. Incorporation of animation, sound effects, and other visual and auditory elements are added as the editing process gets underway
6. The finished product is unveiled and marketed to its audience

By utilizing such a process to produce a creative, engaging, and entertaining video-as-poem, poets can reach new audiences, expand the appreciation of an old literary medium, and take narrative storytelling to a new level. Both lyrical and narrative poetry can be interpreted through visual images in a video presentation. Even obscure works such as Dada or Language Poetry can be visualized and put to video. Form, structure, presentation, style, and voice can all be enhanced and brought to a harmonizing head in the media of online video. There is no limit to how creative those in the video making process can be as long as they have the knowledge and tools available to them to create the presentation.

This video titled “Salvation” is just a start. There are actually better examples of interpretive poetry videos online, but this is one that I found with a religious theme. You can find plenty more poetry videos at YouTube. Just watch.

Poets, Say What You Mean To Say
28 March 2008, the poet @ 9:21 pm

It’s Friday. Time for a video. I love this interview with Nuyorican poet Keith Roach. “Say what the hell you mean to say.”

(Sorry, video deleted due to an unknown technical difficulty.)

Poetry Videos Are The Future, Stolen Books Are History
26 March 2008, the poet @ 10:01 pm

Here’s a nice review of Larry Woiwode’s poetic memoir.

Kudos to Deborah Ager for finding this video of Galway Kinnell reading “Black Milk of Daybreak”.

But what’s up with this cameraman?

Yes, I believe poetry videos are the future, but I believe they must be much more creative than some guy standing on a stage reading from a book. How about some interpretive moving images?

Oh, and can you imagine that Bukowski’s books are the most stolen from bookstores? Tragic, but funny.

MiPOradio And Video Poetry: Download The WCP Toolbar
15 March 2008, the poet @ 6:23 pm

If you’re a fan of MiPOradio then you might be interested to know that you can now listen to every broadcast from your browser. All you need to do is download the World Class Poetry toolbar. Our radio feature includes 30 radio stations, including NPR, and broadcasts from Grace Cavalieri’s MiPOradio. You’ll absolutely be able to love listening to it directly from your browser - and the best part is, it’s free.

Download the toolbar now by clicking on the banner below:

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Weekly Poetry Videos Courtesy Of George Wallace
If you’ve been reading World Class Poetry Blog for some time then you know that I am a big supporter of poetry videos. I recently discovered a poetry website dedicated completely to this new medium. It’s Poetryvlog.com.This week’s video is from David Amram, a world class musician and renaissance man. Amram is on video reading his own poetry and if you’re from the beat generation then you’d be interested to know that he rubbed elbows with some of the greats from that era, including Jack Kerouac, Bob Dylan, and Dizzy Gillespie.

Every video features a poet reading his or her own poems, and you can catch it weekly. There is even an RSS feed, which means you can subscribe so that you don’t miss any videos. And there is quite a list of poets already archived in video at Poetryvlog.com.

Of course, I’ll make it easy for you. Stay up to date with poetry videos by downloading the World Class Poetry Toolbar.

Now you have two reasons to get the toolbar - and, remember, it’s free.

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Creativity And Poetic Craft
Go Hand In Hand
5 March 2008, the poet @ 5:54 pm

Continuing the Millennial Poetics series, here’s a recap:

• Poetic Craft Is Of The Utmost Importance
• Millennial Poetics: There Is No Room For Prejudice In Poetry
• Form Is Just Another Element Of Poetic Craft

The nine principles of poetics are:

1. Craft is of utmost importance
2. There is no room for prejudice
3. Form is just another element of craft
4. Creativity and craft go hand in hand
5. No topic is taboo
6. There is no such thing as language that is too archaic
7. All poems are individuals
8. There is no acceptable method to writing poetry
9. All convention should be shunned

Today we’re on creativity. As the title of this post suggests, creativity and poetic craft go hand in hand.

Creativity And Poetic Craft Go Hand In Hand
Einstein said that imagination is more important than intelligence. That quote epitomizes the essence of Millennial poetics. Creativity and craft are nearly synonymous. Imagination is the poet’s brains.

Poets do not report the news. We improve it. Too many poets try to “capture the moment” or tell it like it happened.” That is almost always the wrong way to approach a poem. It is much more exciting to tell what could have happened or what should have happened. The poet who can take what did happen and enhance it with metaphor, hyperbole, allusion, or other poetic elements is the poet who will go down in history with a legacy. It isn’t what happened that is important in poetry. It is what the poet can make his readers believe happened that is intrinsically important.

This doesn’t mean, however, that creativity is simply a reference to imagination with regard to the content of a poem. It also is a reference to imagination with regard to the language of a poem. Presentation is every bit as important as content, though content and presentation are in reality intimately connected. It is the poet’s creative skills that pull all of this together.

Instead of just presenting facts or lists, the creative poet must employ techniques and devices that illustrate the facts. Information is not poetry, but good poetry does convey information.

A poet can be creative in any number of ways. E.E. Cummings was being creative when he employed punctuation in unconventional ways. Walt Whitman was being creative when he invented a new American form. Gerard Manley Hopkins was being creative when he took an existing form - the sonnet - and added his own signature mark, an odd metrical structure he called “sprung rhythm.” Allen Ginsberg was being creative when he stood naked in a bookstore and railed against the establishment. Mark Smith was being creative when he introduced the world to poetry slams in Chicago in the 1980s. Now it is time for a new form, a new creativeness to emerge in the world of poetry. I see that creativity being birthed this very moment as poets invent new forms of multimedia presentation with Flash and other visually-oriented video poetry such as this one from Billy Collins:

Creativity is the one human characteristic that has no limits. Poets are among human professions that have creativity in abundance. We should use it. It is time to take poetry to the next level of achievement - beyond slams, beyond spoken word, beyond mere word play, and beyond the hard core political rant that seems be chic among the psychologically disenfranchised and economically downtrodden. The next revolution in poetics will be a worldwide movement to communicate in digital images. The question will be, will poets working in that form be creative enough?

CAVEAT: Just as I finished this post I went searching for videos on YouTube. I subscribe to any videos tagged “poetry.” And wouldn’t you know that I found one. It was a marketing video for this website, which is another example of the type of creative poetry video I discussed above. A great resource for poets working with visual images.

Read the next installment in the series, “In Poetry, No Subject Is Taboo.”

Classic Literature On YouTube, A Fellowship, Religion, And Politics
10 February 2008, the poet @ 11:06 pm

The Kenyon Review is extolling the new forms of literature. The interesting thing about these YouTube videos is that many of them are done by high school students while reading through literature in their classes. I remember reading Great Expectations for the first time. I don’t remember having exactly this reaction to it, but it is entertaining. The Mayor of Casterbridge is one of my all-time favorite classic novels. I found its YouTube version almost as funny as Great Expectations on YouTube. The latter actually uses real “actors,” as opposed to puppets.

From Poetry Foundation:

Five Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowships in the amount of  $15,000 will be awarded to young poets through a national competition sponsored by the Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry. Established in 1989 by the Indianapolis philanthropist Ruth Lilly, the fellowships are intended to encourage the further study and writing of poetry. Applicants must be us citizens between the age of twenty-one and thirty-one as of  March 31, 2008.

Erotic religion: A Sermon On The Mound.

Interesting reading if you have some time on your hands.

Bookends: Poet Gets Recognized After 40 Years, Taylor Mali Tells What Teachers Make
30 December 2007, the poet @ 10:03 pm

I’m a little late in blogging about this, but poet Anne Stevenson wrote poetry for 40 years before getting swamped with recognition. After 18, count ‘em, 18 books of poetry, this marathon runner has won three very important American poetry prizes totaling $260,000 in payout. It just goes to show that patience is still a virtue and good things do come to those who wait.

In other poetry news: Doug Holder wrote a brilliant piece in The Somerville News and encourages poets to “build a community wherever you may reside.” That’s a good word, and I second the motion.

Baudelaire and Mallarme: Inventors of poetic style and voices. If you can get past the endless repetition, this prose piece shows why Baudelaire and Mallarme are important voices to study for modern poets.

And here’s my favorite: Poet Taylor Mali defends the teacher …