direct link: Wear White Paint for the Moon (*this video is subtitled* -after you hit play, hover your mouse over the CC in the playbar, when it turns red, the subtitle file is loaded and you can read along with the prosepoem if you wish- red is on; black is off)
This reading of my prosepoem, Wear White Paint for the Moon, took place at the CENtRAL last night, a pub in Mirvish Village in Toronto, and while I wasn't particularly happy with it, I did have enormous fun making the video, and quite like it now.
With tripod on camera, the angle was unchangeable. I layered multiple tracks of the same clip with lots of filters and then pulled in some footage I had shot of the full moon last August. The moon is quite bouncy in parts, and yet matches the words in those parts, which I found delightfully synchronous.
The background of moon and clouds was my wild imagination at home when I was editing the video. While it would have been wonderful to encase the poets that night in a stage set of lunar light and wispy cloud moon veils, alas, no, we stood on a small stage with a screen behind us. The scenery is a product of the magic of film editing.
I spent hours making detailed by-the-second subtitles for this video so you can read the words while you listen, if you like, and have Google translate into another language if that is better for you.
Background music - 'Satellite Two,' by Professor Kliq, from his album on Jamendo, "Athene's Theory of Everything: The Original Soundtrack."
Wear White Paint for the Moon is a poem that represents jump starting a drained engine. This poem was originally written in response to a prompt at the now defunct Big Tent Poetry. One of the hardest pieces I've ever written due to a writer's block. So I used a technique. While walking on dark streets staring at the moon, I spoke into the 'voice memo' on my iPhone about the moon and later transcribed it. From that jumble, I wrote the poem (Yeats wrote all of his poems this way -prose first, from which he crafted his brilliant poems). You can read the original prose passage and responses by the Big Tent community of poets (who I miss) here: The Blocked Poet Strips Herself. Further, getting myself to the venue on Saturday night to read was very difficult, and I have to admit, I was into my 2nd large 'Creemore ale on tap' by the time I got up to read. :giggles:
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Further note on the subtitles: Once I learned how to make a subtitle file, no matter how time-consuming, I promised I would do this for all my future videopoems. It's not just the languages (Google offers translation into 25 languages), but I also have received complaint that watching a video with a voiceover of poetry, which is condensed, rarified language, packed with meaning in sparse phrases, is too difficult without the text. This way, the viewer has a choice to watch with, or without. It's the perfect solution!
If the subtitle file is not working, please let me know. If you don't like it, hover your mouse over the CC in the playbar until the CC turns black (red is on; black is off), and then the text is gone. Thanks!
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