1.22.2007

Visual Poetry at YouTube

To check out: the Nick Carbo-founded Visual Poetry group at YouTube. Created on 01/01/07, there are 86 videos so far. Contributors include Carbo, Shin Yu Pai, miporadio/Didi Menendez, Nico Vassilakis, and others. A mix of visual poetry videos--pieces written for the medium--and "videos" for poems: the audio is a poet reading her work, the visual is associated images. The first college project I was proud of was a video I created for Margaret Atwood's "Speeches for Dr. Frankenstein"--I was a freshman, and paid my geeky high-school ex $30 to record and edit me with his at-the-time hi-tech film equipment. I'd kill for that VHS tape now, which the professor kept and has probably since taped over or chucked. The video sampled "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" and "Bambi Meets Godzilla," but was mostly original content overlayed with cheap video effects--for Atwood's line "The specimens/ranged on the shelves/applaud," I had 24 grinning Spaghettios cans in the frame, cycling through poppy color changes like Warhol's Maos. Sigh.

Here's a creepy little video of Plath reading "Lady Lazarus" by mishima1970.