ATG Book Launch Chaucer Cameron and Cheryl Moskowitz

Against the Grain Press present In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered by Chaucer Cameron and Maternal Impression by Cheryl Moskowitz

Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of being one of many (126 attendees), at this book launch. It was lovely to see people I know and spend a few hours listening to and celebrating poetry.

I have known about Chaucer’s pamphlet for a while and was able to celebrate the publishing contract with her (virtually, of course) in 2020, I saw her International Guest Reading and have heard many poems from this pamphlet. It is a difficult and necessary subject and I am delighted for her that ATG picked it for one of the 2021 Pamphlets.

This was such an amazing event, I am struggling to put my feelings into words. It will take a while for my mind (and heart) to settle. It was remarkable, a phenomenal reading of poems from four skilful poets. The subject matter of much of the work had my emotions staggering, I was prepared for In an Ideal World I’d Not Be Murdered but I hadn’t readied myself for what I have just experienced. I don’t think I could have.

As far as Book Launches go, we all witnessed something so much more. I felt we had been churned by a rough sea voyage and sprinkled with the relief of a shower after a long, muddy trek. We were taken to some incredibly dark places and also bound to cherished, unconditional love.

I feel like I spent the afternoon in some sort of immersive performance piece. These books carry stories which are difficult to read. As humans it is always hard for us to be open to the truth of what we do to each other, our potential to harm and destroy. They are also mighty pamphlets brimming with monumental poems.

Abegail Morley introduced the event and Cheryl Moskowitz. Cheryl introduced us to her Guest Poet, Isabelle Baafi, who gave us an incredible reading from her pamphlet, Ripe which was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice: Spring 2021 Selections. I can see why it was selected.

“Ripe is a pamphlet which draws on the mundane to forge beauty, using sensual tones to deal with and address harsh subject matter. Baafi’s poems are great inventions in terms of their use of form. Throughout this book, her use of language is never laboured in its endeavour to draw the reader’s attention. […] Overall, Baafi’s poems often step outside the rational and waking consciousness in order to investigate other realms, be that paranoia, dream states etc. […] Through her lyric poems, prose poetry, erasures and much besides, Baafi offers us a complex world worth savouring, as she revels in language both sacred and profane. This is a pamphlet to enjoy and a poet to watch.”
— Nick Makoha and Mary Jean Chan, PBS Pamphlet Selectors

Her work is wonderful, powerful and honest. Stunning poems. Something special. Isabelle’s work spoke to Cheryl’s work well. And was a perfect set.

PHOTO BY SARAH KIKI NYANZI

Cheryl Moskowitz shared work from Maternal Impression. Cheryl’s work was both enthralling and epic. She talked generously about the inspiration behind the poems and some of the places, narratives and people featured throughout her work. Cheryl also shared an astonishing film poem produced by her filmmaker son for ‘A Son Awake’.

“Every time I have heard Cheryl Moskowitz read “The Donner Party”, strange things have happened – a bell has rung with no-one at the door, candles have guttered in a church setting, and shivers always run down my spine. Moskowitz’s poetry summons spirits and spills beyond the words on the page into a mystical space where we are all connected in body and mind. These are poems that once read or heard, leave their mark. Mesmeric, soul-feeding, uneasy, I come back to them again and again for reassurance, admonishment, and recognition of what it is to hang onto the maternal in our collective journey. Maternal Impression is a call to arms – maternal arms – and all that implies in the Anthropocene. It has a beating heart that needs to be heard, felt, and heeded.” – Lisa Kelly

“Reading Maternal Impression is to have the feeling of walking on nails with bare feet, with the assurance of trust. I go tenderly where these fine poems take me, knowing they will advance my pleasure, my empowerment.” – Daljit Nagra 

Jessica Mookherjee introduced Chaucer Cameron, both poets spoke highly of their editing experience with ATG. Chaucer talked about an interview with Jeffrey Sugarman ‘Voicing our Silences‘ about the impact of prostitution and trauma on the body. Chaucer introduced Lucy English as her Guest Reader.

‘The Book of Hours‘

Burning Eye Books

This book has recently become a filmmaking project with 27 filmmakers involved. Lucy wanted to create it in three-dimensional form. You can discover more and watch here.

Lucy shared some of her Lockdown writing, after expressing how difficult creativity has been at this time. Her poetry was brilliant, cinematic, microscopic, the specific and this new work captured the feeling of being trapped well.

Chaucer Cameron read an epic set, strong, brave, vulnerable poems which hinge around characters in the industry, including Crystal. It is an incredible body of work and like nothing I’ve ever read. As Chaucer says ‘the characters have their own reasons for being in the industry and only they know where they stand at any given time‘.

In an Ideal World I’d Not be Murdered is part memoir/part fiction and is Chaucer’s debut pamphlet. The poems explore the impact of prostitution.  

“These poems ring out like gunshots in the night; they will wake you from your sleep. Yet despite its distilled directness, this book is lifted by both mystery and surprise. Listen for the songs emerging from the dark centre of this transformative work of experience and survival.’  Jacqueline Saphra.  

Chaucer also shared a film poem made by Helen Dewbery ‘Hooked (with internal song)‘. Another amazing work.

Both poets spoke of their connections to each other having never met they discovered amongst other things, giving birth to their children in the same hospital.

Every reading was outstanding! I love being introduced to new-to-me poets and Isabelle Baafi and Cheryl Moskowitz are now both on my reading list. It was a joy to watch two new poetry films. ATG asked for our questions and plan to produce blog content with the Q&A. It was such a rich and full afternoon of content I am glad they didn’t add a Q&A on. As audience we were stunned and needed time to sit in the sensations we felt. I look forward to reading the Q&A from the ATG poets soon. Instead we heard extra poems from Cheryl and Chaucer.

There really are no words to express this Book Launch, those lucky enough to have been there, know.

BUY the books here.

REELpoetry Festival, Houston TX

This post brings me joy! In 2019/20 I was commissioned by Elephant’s Footprint to produce 10 animated poetry films for Poetry Renewed. Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron are currently on the panel at REELpoetry and they have taken lots of their work to show. Also worth checking out is the Poetry Film work of Kathy Gee and Lucy English.

I was delighted when Helen told me they would be showing Territory – one of my favourite animations and also one of my most liked recovery poems. It was shown on the 24th February on the opening day of the festival, as part of the Short Segments programme. The good news? You can still watch the festival videos until 6th March, ticket details and information can be found here. http://www.publicpoetry.net/#SE

Huge gratitude to Helen and Chaucer for the opportunity to do something creative with my failing body and for taking Territory on a road trip!

https://poetryfilmlive.com/tailspin/

Territory is one of the three poems published in an up and coming anthology The Brown Envelope Book – Caparison Books in collaboration with Don’t Go Breaking Our Arts and Culture Matters, edited by Alan Morrison. It is the first time anything from this body of work was submitted for publication, so I am delighted they took all three!

INKSPILL 2018 Guest Writers Elephant’s Footprint Poetry Film.

Elephant’s Footprint create superb Poetry Films. See the previous post for the Interview with Helen Dewbery & Chaucer Cameron.

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https://elephantsfootprint.com/film-poems/drive-through-the-night/

https://elephantsfootprint.com/film-poems/the-future-is-here/

https://elephantsfootprint.com/film-poems/links/ Clean Lines

 

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You can enjoy more Poetry Films on their website here.

https://elephantsfootprint.com/film-poems/

INKSPILL 2018 Guest Writers – Elephant’s Footprint Interview

Our final Guests for the day are Helen Dewbery and Chaucer Cameron who are Elephant’s Footprint. It is a pleasure to have them join us for INKSPILL 2018.

Here they join me for an Interview which includes EXCLUSIVE video work. Enjoy!

What draws you to poetry film?

When Chaucer was writing a vision statement for Elephant’s Footprint, she came across an article by visual artist Mary Russell and author Gerard Wozek. Chaucer was delighted to discover that we shared a fundamental belief that: visual and literary art carries spiritual, political, and sociological messages and that ‘visual poetry is a physical manifestation of ‘what it means to be a human being engaged in seeking community’. And, that the medium of film poetry is intrinsically alchemic—magic.

Chaucer’s Wild Whispers is an international film-poetry project that began with one poem and led to fourteen versions, in ten languages, and twelve film-poems. The poetry versions and film-poem adaptations were ‘whispered’ from one to another, across the world. It is a great demonstration of how film-poetry works and we consider it to be the perfect vehicle for exciting collaborations and for fostering strong, positive connections between countries and across the world.

Our poetry-film life began in New York on Brooklyn Bridge in 2009. We were both drawn to merging visual images and poetry after Helen took some holiday ‘snaps’ and Chaucer wrote a poem. The result was Arrival – we rarely show it, but here it is, for this weekend only!

https://vimeo.com/296626395 password: INKSPILL

It is the potential of film-poetry, to offer creative opportunities for exploring and communicating poetry in new ways, that’s exciting. For instance, last year Helen’s work was been shown at the LiKE festival in Slovakia, which focused on various forms of contemporary literature and more importantly was seen by wide audiences in Slovakia including, high schools, universities and other communities.

Similarly, Chaucer’s film-poem Pearls was screened in Kritya International Poetry Festival 2017.

 

How long does it take to create a poetry film?

Film poems, like any other poetry, it can be created almost instantly or can take many months to produce even years.

 

Can you tell us about some of the Festivals you have shown at?

Film-poetry has an international community and network of festivals. We’ve shown film-poems in many of these and have visited two in Germany: Zebra in Münster and Weimar.

We also went to The International Video Poetry Festival 2016 held at the Free Self-Organised Theatre EMBROS in Athens. The festival creates an open public space for screening contemporary visual poetry and is part of the counter-culture activities of Void Network and + the Institute [for Experimental Arts]. The evening started at 9pm and ended at 3am with a continuous screening of visual poetry! It worked – the theatre was packed for the whole six hours!

Our first experience of showing our work was at Liberated Words Poetry Film Festival 2013, in Bristol – when we found out about it we couldn’t believe our luck that a festival of this sort was on our doorstep and we attended the whole festival.

In recent years we have preferred introducing our work at poetry events, rather than specifically poetry-film festivals.

How did your work with Nine Arches start?

We are both passionate about film-poetry and we are constantly looking for new channels to promote film poetry as a genre of poetry. We have produced two thirty-minute film-poetry collections, Nothing in the Garden and I Live my Life Through Windows, and have worked independently with poets on single poems but we wanted to reach more poets and work more collaboratively. However, we wanted to reach more poets and were coming to the end of our partnership with the poetry magazine The Interpreter’s House. Helen had just finished filming Angela France performing her collection The Hill and we had become more familiar with the work of other Nine Arches poets and had great admiration for the press. Helen emailed the editor, Jane Commane and a partnership was formed.

We’re still finding our feet with this work as the film-poems are a hybrid form,

a cross between promotional videos and film poems. We are still trying new ideas and testing the balance between the two distinct genres, but the result is exciting. People new to poetry engage more easily with visual and auditory content, making film-poems an ideal medium. The film-poems are not only viewed by Nine Arches existing readers and online audiences, but are a tool for their poets to engage more easily with their existing and new audiences.

 

Have you got any workshops coming up?

This year we trained ten poets (only one had any prior experience) over a six-month period, meeting monthly. The group worked together as a collective whereby each person was responsible for creating at least one film-poem,

but they also worked together using the skills of the rest of the group. This resulted in a final show of sixteen film poems to an audience of fifty people. It was very well received and the whole collective film-poems are going to be screened in Athens in November. We are hoping that we can repeat this model of training in Worcester next year or any location convenient to a core group of people.

We are also available for one-to-one training and mentoring if anyone has a particular project they want to work on. We can also provide drop in sessions that were well received at saboteur’s awards.

 

What advice would you give people starting out with poetry film?

Find your own starting place. We started with Arrival. The video poet Lucia Sellars said recently on Facebook: “My experience with video-poetry, started with my fondness of music and certain landscape circumstances that struck me deeply in my daily routine at the time. ….. the first few videos I made where an investigation about blending only sound and image.”

If you already have some technical skills there are many apps you can download on your phone to make simple films. You don’t need expensive equipment, and there are online resources of images, film and sound.

Find someone with the skills that you don’t have and ask for their help.

Think about collaborating with a filmmaker – but keep fully involved in the process.

Join our next collective!

 

Add anything else you wish to

What’s in the name? – Attempts to define film poetry or to even agree on what terminology to use, is a developing field. We use the term film poetry as a generic term to encompass any other term that might be used. It seems to fit in a poetry context: surrealist poems, long poems, love poems, performance poems, page poems, film poems …

We are starting a new Film Poetry Competition which will be launched in January. We are planning a section for ‘first film poems’.

INKSPILL 2018 Guest Writer Elephant’s Footprint

Elephant’s Footprint 

Chaucer Cameron & Helen Dewbery 

Elephant’s Footprint Poetry Film.

Chaucer Cameron

Chaucer is a poet living in Wiltshire. her work is published in anthologies and magazines including The Interpreter’s House, Amaryllis, Quest Gallery Catalogue, Haigaonline, Poetry Shed, MPT Online. She is a founder member of Poetry Factory, a critical poetry collective and has worked as a co-editor. Chaucer Cameron has worked with Poetry Film for many years.

• Poetry film selected for the 5th Sadho Poetry Film Festival in New Delhi.
• Poetry films selected for screenings at Liberated Words International Poetry Film Festival in 2013 and 2014.
• Poetry film selected for Atticus Review, 2015.
• Poetry films screened at
  • Cheltenham Poetry Festival (2013, 2014)
  • International Video Poetry Festival, Athens (2016)
  • Festival Silênci, Lisbon (2016)
  • Swindon Festival of Poetry (2014, 2015)
  • The University of Gloucestershire (2013, 2014)
  • The Dymock Poets Conference (2015)
  • Film Weston (2014)
  • Bristol Spring Poetry Festival (2015)
  • Green Light at Bordeaux Quay in Bristol with Inkling Productions (2016)
  • The Berkeley Square Poetry Review, Bristol (2016)
  • The Masons Arms London NW10 (2016)
  • Writers in the Brewery, The Tivoli (2014)

Helen Dewbery

Helen is Co-Director of Swindon Poetry Festival and co-edits the online poetry film journal Poetry Film Live.

Helen is an Associate member of the Royal Photographic Society and approaches poetry film as a contemporary photographic artist, combining still and moving images. Helen has worked collaboratively with a number of poets and has been screened regularly in poetry festivals. She has also exhibited in solo and group photographic exhibitions. Helen is also an editor of two poetry anthologies and currently lives in Wiltshire.

Films shown at:

• Athens International Video Poetry Festival 2016
• Festival Silêncio in Lisbon 2016
• Visible Verse Poetry Film Festival in Vancouver, 2015.
• Sadho Poetry Film Festival, New Delhi, 2015.
• The Lighthouse Film Poem competition in Poole, 2015.
• Liberated Words International Poetry Film Festival in 2013 and 2014.
• Cheltenham Poetry Festival (2013, 2014)
• Swindon Festival of Poetry (2014, 2015)
• The University of Gloucestershire (2013, 2014)
• The Dymock Poets Conference (2015)
• Film Weston (2014)
• Bristol Spring Poetry Festival (2015)
• Writers in the Brewery (2013)
• The Tivoli (2014)
• Green Light at Bordeaux Quay in Bristol with Inkling Productions (2016)
• The Masons Arms London NW10 (2016)
• The Berkeley Square Poetry Review, Bristol (2016)

Helen created collaborative poetry films with Martin Malone (editor of The Interpreter’s House), Anna Saunders (Director of Cheltenham Poetry Festival), Lucy English (Reader in Creative Writing, Bath Spa University), Hilda Sheehan (Director of Poetry Festival Swindon).

“Poetry film harmonises words, images and sound to create a new poetry experience … it’s more than spoken words, visual images and sound being in the same room together, it’s their ability to talk to one another that creates the magic in poetry film.”

– Elephant’s Footprint 

https://elephantsfootprint.com/