Thanks to poet, essayist, and photographer Dave Bonta, (Via Negativa) there is now a growing collection of spoken and animated poetry on his new site, Moving Poems. Some of the videos are interpretations of poets reading their work, as in Sylvia Plath’s reading of her poem Daddy.
Other videos are the poet’s visual representations of their own work, as in Ren Powell’s Miss Dix Opens a School for the Indigent, a beautiful poem read by the poet, illustrated with stunning animation and photography. (I’d really like to know how she made this one! Care to reveal your secrets, Ren?)
As the founding editor and managing editor of the literary magazine Qarrtsiluni, Dave Bonta has already been collecting and publishing original video. And on his own blog, Via Negativa, he has posted his original video poems, which are delightful. The one I’ve embedded here from Vimeo is one of my favorites, and I think it belongs on Moving Poems, whose tag line is an on-going compendium of the best video poetry from around the web’
The Good Question from Dave Bonta on Vimeo.
The list of video poems on Moving Poems will provide you with hours of entertainment and inspiration. I’ve only looked at four or five of the videos so far, but plan to view them all as we enter the summer months.
Balanced On the Edge 
Ren’s video is stunning. I also really enjoyed the most recent video of Jane Hirschfield’s poem. Thanks, C.
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so are you going to submit some of your video stuff.. you really should some of yours are excellent,, and you have a perfect readers voice….
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J, you’ve always been so nice to me about my videos. Dave has posted one of my videos on his new site, I just didn’t link to it because it’s on my blog. But thanks for suggesting I submit. I should ask him if he’s even looking for submissions. I think he’s simply navagating the web in search of what he likes.
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Okay, now that I know your video is on there, it’s another reason to look! “The Good Question” is excellent. I’m glad you posted it here. I also checked out the link for Moving Poems and was thrilled. They have an amazing video and reading of Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues.” Thanks, Christine!
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Great, I’ll look with my coffee later…..I’ve seen some incredible examples of these recently. And I think your vids are wonderful, C.
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C, I can’t thank you enough for that tip-off. Ren’s poem is stunning, it’s blown me away and made my day.
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Hey Christine, thanks for the very generous plug! I really appreciate your kindness and your enthusiasm for poetry. I hope you’ll be making more video poems soon.
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I should add that I’m also pretty dazzled by Ren’s technical expertise. I should maybe create a separate category at Moving Poems for video poems made by the authors. There aren’t very many, but some are pretty impressive. For example, check out this claymation video poem by Victoria Shank.
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Oh, thanks for the link, Dave. My son made a claymation vid once, and they are very time consuming.
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I really appreciate the support!
I love the moving poems site- the Anne Carson “lectures” really are inspiring.
So is the claymation video. Wow. I couldn’t do that with ten grants.
(Oh, the photos I use – some are my own, but most are public domain and photoshopped.)
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