Australian singer and artist Marie Craven is one of my favorite makers of poetry videos, so I was flattered and pleased last month when she surprised me with a video based on one of the first poems in Ice Mountain:
She used some of my own still photos for a slideshow-style video with the text in subtitles and an instrumental track by Josh Woodward. It all hangs together rather well, I think. Then today she released another video based on the book:
This time, she collaborated with her composer friend Paul Dementio to turn my words into a song, and built the video around it using stock footage. Here’s the text:
7 March
paper birch trees can only bend
so far before they break
under the weight of freezing rainrhododendron leaves
tough as old scrolls are stripped
by starving deerbut some always resprout from the roots
having who knows how many
lifetimes of practice
It’s always such an honor to have one’s words incorporated into other artists’ work. Thanks, Marie and Paul!
Visit Phoenicia Publishing for more about the book, and to order.
Nice!