Poetry Film

Adventures in poetry continue

Back in October I took a workshop with Helen Dewberry, poetry film aficionado and poetry film editor of Spelt Magazine. It’s a form I’ve always been fascinated by and one that sparks that flutter of excitement. After two hours with Helen I was transformed. My excitement was cemented and I had enough basic knowledge to inspire me to work on my own film. It’s a medium that takes care and patience and one that I am looking forward to developing over the coming year.

Each of these films is created using poetry recently published. I gather images from friends, my own photographs and from stock media. You’ll find more detail and transcripts of each poem on my main Substack page.

To get the best from these films I’d recommend watching with the sound up and on full screen.

These Melting Shapes that Vanish - published in Dreich season 6.

Images by Andrew Fusek Peters and Bob Ford

These melting shapes that vanish

What if             these displays are not

to charm us                    but instead to

harm     us to                mesmer             eyes    

murmur  signs   manipulate

the right to flight            emphasise  

our land born state        land

                                    locked

                                             land                 

lost

The taking back of cities’ stench               

of guano riches

workers  wings unclipped

the raking    the retaking

amorphous warning

let us be 

Kathryn Anna Marshall

title inspired by 2016 Guardian interview with Alice Oswald

The Tiny Owl in the Rockefeller Centre

A found poem, built from a 2020 CNN report of the same name. Published on Sledgehammer Lit in 2021.

My Death will Grieve Foxes

A poem inspired by my first significant poetry success - being part of the shortlist for Paper Swans press single poem prize in 2020. Sadly the final collection of poems never made it to print because of the pandemic. I’m glad this poem can live on in film.

Poetry films from Dust

These films are the final part of my work that both mourns and pays tribute to my brother, who died in December 2014. It’s a work that explores grief, family, suicide and hope. These films are an ongoing project and first appear as part of my main Substack page.

To date Dust has raised over £700 for two important mental health charities and you can read more about it here.

Dust

The night you hear

Eleven hours after the first call

Camera

A lifetime of training for the crisis olympics

The trouble is with living you dream of the dead

Astronomical Observsations

When I think of my heart

(these are the beats that made me)