Midwest Video Poetry Festival
Arts + Literature Laboratory 111 S. Livingston St., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Joanna Maxellon
A child sitting underwater.
A still from "S.he," a short film directed by Joanna Maxellon and written by Claudia Spaniel, part of the 2023 Midwest Video Poetry Festival.
The Midwest Video Poetry Festival turns 4 this year, with live spoken word/video collabs and screenings of videos from around the globe. Each day’s offerings are different. Saturday’s live presenters are Dana Maya and Aaron Granat, and Cynthia Marie Hoffman and Natalie Hinckley; Sunday features Chele Issac and Quan Barry. The videos range from the minute-and-a-half long Davenport (by Madison filmmaker Michelle Marie Kelley), which animates a poem via a vintage Vandercook letterpress with more than 300 prints made for each frame, to Singularity, a filming of poet Marie Howe reading at Storm King Art Center, by director Matthew Thompson. More info below and updates at artlitlab.org.
media release: Join us for the 4th annual Midwest Video Poetry Fest on Saturday, October 14, 2023, and Sunday, October 15, 2023 at 7 PM for live reading and video collaborations followed by a screening of the best new poetry videos from around the world. These films include original poems, experimental works, animation, translations, and more. Filmmakers, poets, and festival organizers will be on hand for a short Q&A after the screening.
Videos will also be screened at Woodland Pattern in Milwaukee.
This event will be held live at ALL in Madison.
Oct. 14:
Following the screening in Madison, there will be a Live Filmmaker + Poet performance that includes poet Dana Maya and filmmaker Aaron Granat along with poet Cynthia Marie Hoffman and filmmaker Natalie Hinckley.
1) Learn to Swim Pt 2 (5m6s) Directed by Carlos Zaya; written by Ehimwenma Joshua Idehen (United Kingdom): Joshua Idehen recites a poem—a collection of dozens of aphorisms about living a more fulfilling life, including the benefits of learning how to swim.
2) Davenport (1m30s) Directed and written by Michelle Marie Kelley (United States): A Short animated poem with original score. Made with pressure prints hand stenciled and printed on a Vandercook letterpress. Over 300 prints were made to complete each frame of this film.
3) "reverence" (3m30s) Directed and written by M Freeman (United States): A meditation on the irrepressible awe of being, "reverence" is a selection from Cinema Divina, M's ongoing series of genre-fluid films (short, autobiographic, poetic, psalm-like, essayistic) created through contemplative practice.
4) The Racist Bone (3m01s) Directed by Matthew Thompson; written by Cornelius Eady (United States): Poet, educator, and Cave Canem co-founder Cornelius Eady performs his poem "The Racist Bone" in a film shot in Poets House in New York City.
5) Hypnic Jerk (2m55s) Directed by Pamela Falkenberg, Jack Cochran; written by Alan Peat (United States): A wholly imaginary world cut from the cloth of Rousseau’s fantastical paintings and the dream illogic of Alan Peat’s fragmented poem "Hypnic Jerk."
6) Chinatown Diptych (2m43s) Directed by Jean Coleman; written by Jenny Xie (United States): American poet Jenny Xie performs her poem "Chinatown Diptych" while roaming the scenes and textures of New York City's Chinatown.
7) According to Sun Ra, None of Us Are Real (04m38s) Directed and written by Naima Lowe (United States): Naima Lowe disrupts conventional notions of the biopic in this genre-nonconforming piece centering the mundane queerness of legendary Sun Ra—the prototype Afrofuturist and hugely influential jazz musician. A genre-fluid classic, According to Sun Ra, None of Us Are Real is a liberating tonic honoring the ordinary queerness of a Black legend.
8) For the Skeptical (3m14s) Directed and written by Dawn Westlake (United States): Interrogates what constitutes truth in our media-saturated and politically autocratic societies.
9) Because You Speak of Fur (3m13s) Directed by Patricia Delso Lucas, Johanna Wagner; written by Georg Leß (Belgium): Adaptated from "Anderkatt" (The Haircut) by Berlin-based author Georg Leß, "Because You Speaker of Fur" is an exchange of imagery and soundscapes as a result of an interrupted conversation between two women: one who is out on an expedition, the other one at home following the expedition from afar.
10) Gaps (6m16s) Directed and written by Gabriella Cisneros (United States): Inspired by and containing quotes from Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, "Gaps" deliberates the ways that we fill a day and our relationship to imperfections and the future.
11) Burial Rites (1m43s) Directed and written by Marius Grose (United Kingdom): Through layered images of the natural world, "Burial Rites" explores themes of transformation, dislocation, growth, and decay to create a new state of being. The mirroring of language phrases in the poem build a rhythm and shape to both poem and film.
12) you _ me (1m14s) Directed by Yolanda Moreno Torrado (Spain): Metaphor and connotation establish dialogues that generate different angles of reflection in each one. "you _ me" is a self-discursive construction, which invites others to build their own discourses.
13) Dunes (7m15s) Directed and written by Eta Dahlia (United States): A durational videopoem that explores the communal fluidity and interdependence through minimalist poetry. The single words deconstruct, intermingle, and empower each other to form enriching connections.
Oct. 15:
The second evening Live Filmmaker + Poet Performance will feature award winning poet and Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English at UW Madison, Quan Barry along with artist and filmmaker Chele Isaac.
1) Crane Waltz (2m27s) Directed by Kelly Smith-Campbell; written by Michelle Seaman (United States): Interdisciplinary Artists, Kelly Smith-Campbell, Michelle Seaman, and Benjamin Dauer collaborate as Half Wild blending spoken and sung poetry with electro-acoustic music. For Crane Waltz, they explore what it means to move, migrate, connect, and keep a steady pace in an ever-changing world.
2) Once Removed (1m41s) Directed and written by Devon Stackonis (United States): A letterpress animation paired with a poem that together pose extraction and mutilation of the landscape in relationship to the body. The sequences are based on extraction methods—mining, violent and toxic removal of resources—alongside abstracted bodily forms and more personal symbolic elements. This animation is comprised of 550 individual frames printed on a Vandercook press.
3) Singularity (2m24s) Directed by Matthew Thompson; written by Marie Howe (United States): American poet Marie Howe performs her poem "Singularity" against the backdrop of New York's Storm King Art Center.
4) Hiding Place (2m9s) Directed by Sami Miranda, Ellie Walton; written by Sami Miranda (United States): Hiding Place is a video poem that speaks to the need to find the spaces where you can become comfortable enough with yourself to come out of your shell and how necessary it is to find your voice.
5) The Voice in Isabel Fleiss's Office (6m24s) Directed by Jim Haverkamp; written by Virgil Renfroe (United States): A woman with an unusual malady--cobweb buildup in the throat--receives an even more unusual treatment in this adaptation of a surreal poem by North Carolina writer Virgil Renfroe.
6) Oh Hong Kong My Love (24s) Directed by Christie Widiarto; written by Ken Chau (Australia): Using Chinese characters and symbolic depictions of neon signs, "Oh Hong Kong My Love" is an expression of love and longing for the city of Hong Kong.
7) Permacrisis (2m15s) Directed and written by Daniel H Dugas (Canada): You know there something wrong when birds are smouldering.
8) When it feels hot, that rage against me (1m50s) Directed by Helmie Stil; written by Rebecca Goss (United Kingdom): Inspired by Rebecca Goss' poem of the same name—and winner of the '22 Sylvia Plath Prize—"When it feels hot, that rage against me" is an artistic rendering of the transition from being a girl to a woman from the perspective of a mother who wants to protect her daughter and, at the same time, let her go.
9) Ci Kanam (3m35) Directed and written by Natou Fall (United States): A mini-doc about an artist's journey. There are three different meanings for the word kanam in Wolof: face, front, future. Read in this order they take on the form of a command: Look forward, pay attention, become.
10) deer (3m13s) Directed and written by Davida Singer, Anney Bonney (United States): Using collage animation (hand-drawings, photos and live action), “deer” invokes the deer’s heightened sensitivity, grace and unwavering determination to help us navigate these uncertain times.
11) Natural Disasters (4m20s) Directed and written by Tiffany Jiang (United States): "Natural Disasters" by award-winning Chinese-American filmmaker Tiffany Jiang reflects on personal histories and trauma through the lens of so-called natural disasters. The film has been screened in Paris, New York, and Milwaukee.
12) We Are the Dinosaur (2m49s) Directed by H. Paul Moon; written by Bob Holman (United States): *In-person Only.* A street-rant lament for the state of climate crisis delivered to an unsuspecting public, including a Courthouse, an Anonymous Businessman, and Times Square itself.
13) S.he (3m40s) Directed by Joanna Maxellon; written by Claudia Spanhel (Germany): The film S.he seeks ways to capture our Anthropocene era. It leads to the thin line between reality and abstraction and poses the recurring question of our possible future. But who is "S.he"? Our planet, we or one of us? "S.he" is based on a poem by Claudia Spanhel and deals with memories of a future that has not yet happened, a story of dystopian future plans and lost utopias.
14) Lentil (7m55s) Directed and written by Kim Trainor (Canada): An experimental poetry film on the sixth mass extinction and the importance of eating lentils.
15) we pilot the blood (6m18s) Directed by Quenton Baker (United States): Quenton Baker’s “we pilot the blood” considers the position of blackness and the ongoing afterlife of slavery in this cinematic adaptation of their poem by the same title, crafted from redacted U.S. Senate documents detailing the 1841 revolt of enslaved people aboard the brig Creole.
16) Flying Carpet (6m24s) Directed and written by Leila Honari (Australia): Inspired by philosopher Attar’s Conference of Birds (1177) and using the structure of a phenakistoscope Farsh-e-Parandeh (Flying Carpet) shows the effort of a group of migratory seabirds trapped in the frames of the looped universe of an animated Persian carpet. The work provides a window into an alternate history of animation when the circle rather than the rectangular screen was foremost.