World Class Poetry Blog

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.

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