Theater video tags: video poem

Shailja Patel

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“I’ve said so often that I’m hoarse with it: Kenya is cities, towns, as well as wilderness. See us.” Shailja Patel, author of Migritude (Kaya Press, 2010), contributes this video poem for Queer Check-Ins, a series curated by poet Franny Choi with support from the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Kundiman, and Lambda Literary.

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The Transformation

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“It wasn’t fair that fish could see color, / and whales could not, but I was okay: I loved my new body. / I don’t know what kind of whale I was. In the ocean / there were no mirrors.” Emily Jungmin Yoon’s poem “The Transformation,” which appears in her debut collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species (Ecco, 2018), has been adapted into a Motionpoems film directed by Malin Sandberg. 

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Gay Boys and the Bridges Who Love Them

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“It is not what drove your body here like a stolen car. / why you abandoned it on this unreasonable ledge....” This Button Poetry video features sam sax’s poem “Gay Boys & the Bridges Who Love Them” from his second collection, Bury It (Wesleyan University Press, 2018), and is directed by Seth Moore and Cole Smothers with choreography by Matthew Bovee and Sarah Adam.

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Angel by Kathleen Flenniken

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“I am hovering over a 1950s America: chrome fins, picnic tables, hydroelectric power.” In this installment of Joseph Fasano’s Unamuno Poem Project, which presents pairings of poem recitations in English and Spanish, Kathleen Flenniken’s poem “Angel” is read by Clarissa Watson in English and Javier O’Donnell reads his translation in Spanish.

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Mary Oliver’s Wild Geese

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“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, / the world offers itself to your imagination.” In this video poem, produced by We Are Wildness and Live Learn Evolve, Mary Oliver reads her classic poem “Wild Geese.” Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver (Penguin Press, 2017) is featured in Page One in the November/December 2017 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

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This Is Not a Fairytale

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“In between, your mind is full of trees. / And it’s quite dark despite the moon.” This short film of Laura Kasischke’s poem “This Is Not a Fairytale” was created by Laurent Barthelemy and Shizuka Kusayanagi for Motionpoems. Kasischke’s most recent collection, Where Now (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), is longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award in poetry.

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