The Poetry of Cinema

One of my favourite of all films, Cinema Paradiso, inspired my eponymous poem recently published in The Spectator. Film can be a prism for ideas and emotions in much the same way as poetry: an admix of the visual and the visceral. How to capture, in a few lines, the essence of a film which has affected you deeply? As so often in poetry, it’s what you leave out that matters.

Thank you to Hugo Williams for selecting my poem to appear in the 10th July issue of the magazine. You can read it on-line at: https://www.spectator.co.uk/poem/cinema-paradiso

Other poets recently published there include Fleur Adcock, John Levett, Richie McCaffery and Claudine Toutoungi.

If you’d like to submit your poems to Hugo for consideration, send them c/o Arts & Books editor Claire Asquith at The Spectator, 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP. Hard copies + SAE required.

Another, more surreal, cinematic poem of mine, My Night as a 50-Foot Woman, is featured in the New York based anthology, Poetry Inspired by Film, edited by Jennifer Maloney and Bart White; a fantastic bunch of poets and cinema enthusiasts, gravitating around The Little Theatre of Moving Images. They organised six Trans-Atlantic video launches for the anthology (it’s a big book!) so all contributors had the opportunity to perform their work live.

“Years before I identified and pursued my love of poetry, I was in love with movies,” writes Bart White in his foreword. “The filmmaker explores qualities of storytelling and of time, slowing time down or speeding it up . . . and now we might be speaking of the poet who looks in wonder at the world, absorbs light and sound, then shapes a form to hold an experience. . . or are we speaking again of the filmmaker? Between them there is a deep resonance”

“A community of artists was the impetus behind this anthology,” writes Jennifer Maloney. “Watching movies, during this pandemic year, soothed me, distracted and uplifted me.”

The anthology includes images of specially commissioned paintings by David James Delaney, including ‘And Toto Too’.

You can purchase a copy of the anthology for $11 (warning: postal charges from the US are astronomical!) by emailing Kenneth Kelbaugh at movies2020holo@aol.com

If you’re interested in exploring the rich heritage of film, I can thoroughly recommend Alan Price’s regular blog (vastland) where he puts his erudition to work on all manner of creative questions. Here he writes about films which have influenced him: https://alanprice69.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/blessay-4-three-films-that-shaped-me/

Poems for The Good Earth – film, art and music too

Mountain peaks, lush meadows, oceans and estuaries – even the moon took part in The Art Project’s poetry, film and music evening ‘Song of the Earth’ at St Pancras Hospital’s Conference Centre last Friday.

It was all part of London’s Creativity and Wellbeing Week. Poets and musicians performed in front of an ever-changing screen which celebrated the richness of our planet – including acclaimed novelist and poet Maureen Duffy, Lisa Kelly, John Gibbens, Ken Champion and Claire Booker.

Lisa Kelly reads from her pamphlet ‘Bloodhound’

‘Song of the Earth’ was curated by Camden poets, Alan Price and Louise Warren as part of ‘The Good Earth’ exhibition of landscape paintings, photography and sculpture by artists Tim Bradford, Michael Connell, Peter Herbert and Amanda Taylor.

“Whether it be sky above or mud below, we live in a unique world,” says Peter Herbert of The Arts Project. THE GOOD EARTH offers artwork that responds to the often transient beauties and evolving surfaces and shapes of the world created by nature and often influenced by mankind itself.”

Maureen Duffy

Live music was provided by Armorel Weston and John Gibbens (The Children) whose lyricism with voice and acoustic guitar kept the audience enraptured.  

 

THE GOOD EARTH exhibition is free and remains open until Thurs 24th June (Mon-Fri 9.00am to 5.00pm in the Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital, 4 St Pancras Way, London, NW1 0PE. For details of future events planned by The Arts Project, contact its curator manager, Peter Herbert, on pbherbert@gmail.com

Alan Price’s collection ‘Outfoxing Hyenas’ is published by Indigo Dreams. Lisa Kelly’s pamphlet, ‘Bloodhound’ is published by Hearing Eye. Louise Warren’s collection ‘A Child’s Last Picture Book of the Zoo’ is published by Cinnamon Press. 

Dickens turns up at ‘Poets Off The Shelf’!

Did you know that Charles Dickens experienced a record 12 white Christmases during his childhood?  Or that there really was an Old Curiosity Shop – but only because the canny owner of a local store decided to get in on the act?

After a fascinating illustrated talk at Swiss Cottage Library on the great author by Camden archivist, Tudor Allen, five poets were invited to read their specially commissioned poems inspired by Dickensian characters or themes.

Claire Booker, Lisa Kelly, Alan Price, Pauline Sewards and Louise Warren had some real fun and games with ghosts of past and future.  The newly minted poems included ‘In the Beginning I am Bored’ – a very broad interpretation of the brief by Claire Booker.  She chose to recount her childhood tussles with ‘David Copperfield’. The novel was used as a punishment book from which she had to copy out a page for every major misdemeanour.

PARENTS PLEASE NOTE:  this is not an effective way of encouraging a love of the arts!

Poets Off The Shelf’ is a poetry event held every other month at Swiss Cottage Library (the Gallery, 88 Avenue Road, London NW3 6ER) from 6pm to 8pm. Cost: free.  Further details from Alan Price 0207 419 7819