Myriad Emotions of Video Poetry

There are so many different emotions that are summoned to me when I watch videos of poetry. It’s amazing all the different possible interpretations. In the Simpsons adaptation of “The Raven” I find myself laughing at the sardonic, mocking tone, yet when read by Christopher Lee I find myself shivering because, man, that crap is creepy! So much more than words goes into a performance of video poetry. Depending on how it’s read, what is playing on the screen, and if there is music/what the music is like, any poem can be beautiful or haunting, dazzling or just plain boring. My favorite rendering of video poetry so far is Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 (Shall I Compare Thee to a Summers Day?) sung by David Gilmore. It is a phenomenal rendering that allows one to get lost in the true meaning of the poem, with the music and Gilmore’s voice complimenting the somewhat magical nature of the poem, allowing us to truely FEEL more easily what the poem is trying to tell us. The scenery helps also, showing us a beautiful summer’s day on a lakeshore, helping us to not only see how a summer’s day looks, but also understand truly how beautiful the woman of the poem is.

Invasion of the Mind

All the different genres of poetry that I looked at, with the text was written, spoken, or both. They all showed me how alive poetry if, and how it has always been a source of expression. Whether it is a personal expression of feelings to share out loud with the world. Or in film talking about personal, but relate-able experiences with the time and culture. In the films where poetry was performed in clubs, not only was that an example of the performance nature of poetry that has continued, but mixing that with instrumentals gives it new life and vitality. With videos that put the text on the screen and/or mix it with images also give new ways to experience poetry which is really cool and caters to a changing, digitally oriented audience. This is also effective in the music adaptations, they give way to entertaining new ways of performance, and the chance for the artists to express the poetry in new ways. With new poetry (and some old) seeing it read aloud by their authors is also neat, although I've seen it be not as great for the poem, but it can also be very inspiring to hear the author's emotions or how they imagined it to be read. I admire all these different forms of presentation, and I love to see the passion and time that people put in to the performance and creation of this art.