Visible Verse Festival 2013 programme!

from "Something" by Keith Sargeant

Whew! Alright, announcing the 2013 Visible Verse Festival programme! As with last year, we recieved a record number of entries, over 200. The little festival that could keeps growing and like we always say, we’re proud to remain the sustaining venue in North America for artistically significant videopoetry and film. This year will be our 14th!

We received stellar works from South Africa, Thailand, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Canada, the U.S, Ireland and the UK. With only one night of screenings, I am unable to include a lot of video poems I like.

Fortunately the program does include Literary Movement, a discussion with R.W. Perkins on the process of creating videopoems and the integration of modern filmmaking techniques, Q&A to follow. We will be screening his videopems Morning Sex & Blueberry Pancakes and Small Talk & Little Else. R.W. Perkins is a poet and filmmaker from Fort Collins, Colorado. His work has been published in the Atticus ReviewMoving PoemsThe Denver EgotistThe Connotation Press, and The Huffington Post Denver. Perkins’s work has been featured at film festivals all over the world, including an 18-state U.S. tour with the New Belgium Brewery’s Clips of Faith Beer & Film Tour in 2012 and at the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin, Germany. Perkins is also the creator and director of The Body Electric Poetry Film Festival, Colorado’s first poetry film festival, which held its inaugural event in May of this year. For more information on Perkins and his work, visit www.rw-perkins.com. We’re thrilled to have him!

The festival is Sat, Oct. 12 at the Cinematheque in Vancouver. My son has promised to edit a trailer for me, I’ll post it asap. *See* you there!

1

Underground No One Famous/Blair Dykes Vancouver, BC 2011

Language of Desire Kathryn MacLean Edmonton, AB 2013

When Walt Whitman Was a Little Girl Jim Haverkamp Durham, NC 2012

Lapis and Centaurs Frank Müller Hamburg, Germany 2013

Something Keith Sargeant/Charles Bukowski poem London, UK 2012

Day Is Done Swoon Bildos Mechelen, Belgium 2012

Textual Assault Placards Wally Keeler Cobourg, ON 2012

Last Words of the Condemned Diane Arterian Los Angeles, CA 2013

‘1-poem-6’ Pablo López Jordan/Vangelis Skouras    London, UK & Murcia, Spain

Like So Alan David Pritchard   Isle of Wight, UK 2011

I thought I was more memorable James O Leary   Cork, Ireland 2013

Camel Matt Robertson Vancouver, BC 2013

Suburban Sylph of Crying Owls Gavin Jones North Yorkshire, UK 2013

PDA Kal Estrel   Kingston, UK 2012

Onion of Love Kirk Ramdath   Calgary, AB

Covered In Grass Aaron Samuels    Cranston, Rhode Island

expect something and nothing at once Michelle Elrick   Winnipeg, MN

Morning Sex & Blueberry Pancakes R.W. Perkins   Fort Collins, Colorado

INTERMISSION

On Meeting A Fox Janette Ayachi Edinburgh, Scotland

Full English Christopher Stewart Middlesbrough, UK

Not Death but Love: Tracing the Heart of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Gerard Wozek/Mary Russell
Chicago, IL

With Only My Hands Sergej Bezuglov/ Zakaryia Amatoya/Cece Nobre Bangkok, Thailand

Crow Morphologies Tara Flyn/Daniela Elza/Soressa Gardner Vancouver, BC 2013

Through The Eyes of the Wind Adam Jacobs/Forrest Casey Golden Valley, MN 2012

Futures of the Past Ray Hsu/Michael Parks/Chloe Chan Vancouver, BC 2013

To This Day Shane Koyzan Pentiction, BC 2013

Requiem for Lithium Jason Staggie Capetown, South Africa 2012

Small Talk & Little Else R.W. Perkins Fort Collins, Colorado 2013

Thief Behind The Mask CR Avery Vancouver, BC 2013

Love Gang Tara Evonne Trudell Las Vegas, NM

The Poet Is Artificially Removed Jordan Abel Vancouver, BC

I Love The Internet Kevin Barrington Dublin, Ireland

Rhythm of Structure John Sims New York, NY

Appraisal Melissa Diem Dublin, Ireland 2013

From Within Alexandre Braga Lisbon, Portugal 2013

Orange Taien Ng-Chan Montreal, QC 2005

Innisfree Don Carey (based on the WB Yeats poem) Dublin, Ireland 2013

MANHUNT…It appears one has finally surfaced, offering himself up

1

Roan Capote
1

MANHUNT

1

Colonel defiantly bird limes,

Favours the icebox

Clothesline, sideburns.

1

Nobbles me at every party.

Blunderbuss, star philosopher

Flip flops across the sand

1

To opine. Flap, flirt.

Surf my turbulence.

Three armholes required

1

Overweening egghead

Lowers to my level

To parse. Probe, fix

1

My diabolical lump.

Easy to spot men. Easy

to track. Easy to lose.

1
1

INSOMNIAC . . . Courting the muse, I mean, moth

1
Photo: Darryl Dennis Deegan
1

INSOMNIA

1She sips her black tar fizz

She sips her black tar fizz

Remembering

Batik, macramé, totems,

A beaver upon a plinth.

 

As sturdy and useful

As a shorthorn bull

She prefers to reside

In her head and wonder,

Who will thwart the meteorites,

 

Who will save the future?

Rain pelts the window,

Mothra softly dying

To reach lamplight,

To deliver sleep.

1

HOW TO DODGE LIMBO

1

Not for Catholics only.

1

1

HOW TO DODGE LIMBO

She is a fossil, suspended
In amber. On display.
Before Shot,
Example of what not to do
When you know not what to do.

Limp hill-headed escapist
Maiden in name only
Took his offer
Got his goatee but not intent
To trample. Renege.

Do not go there in your mind.
Lurking invites infestation.
Do not wait for the next move.
Do not descend into minutiae.
Do not kill time.

There is no glory in the coffin.
Do not hang on the line.
Do not wait for the perfect fit.
Do not wait.
Do not do nothing.

1

MONSTER LOST . . . It seems there is no logic to these things.

1

1

MONSTER LOST

1

Godzilla years
Vagabond phase
Rampage days
Punch & Judy Show
Nights. Wild west
Pastiche. Bang
Locals. Streamline fate.

No coastline suits
No dwelling
Can contain him.
Latent crush
She did not choose.
He fell into her
Living room

Woozy from flight
Parsimonious talker
Familiar, fragile, giant
Pocked with luck.
Collisions. Pain.
She did choose to look.
To see. To harbour.

1

SEEKER . . . “Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.” ― Albert Camus

1

1

SEEKER

She found him
Verbose, wondered
Why he was gargling,
Carving salt with his uvula.

Too much tongue?
She was the type
To fondle q tips
Groom his climax.

Swish. Swallow. Marvel.
The questioning type
Blessed or cursed
With a savant prone womb.

She found slums
More frightening than marsh,
Collarless dogs
And red grapes

Dozing, frozen in the sun.
Then she found me
Long after she’d quit
Seeking answers. Clarity. Peace.

1

MIRAGE . . . Verse alluding more to the optical phenomenon than the Vegas hotel

1

When I write and think I feel like EveryWo-Man, that I am nothing more than bits of all and other people talking to myself. Them. Us. And today please bear in mind that which we desire can kill us before we reach the oasis.



MIRAGE

1

Strive to wake slowly

To answers, to morning

When I hear best

When I am best heard.

1

So, what’s my weather?

Clammy Kurt Cobain,

Decapitation dreams

Verdant commotion

Microchip dread.

1

Don’t shy away she said

Pretend you can’t see

What you see.

Here comes your tall order

1

Last Coke in the desert,

What you thought out loud

Sacrifice bunted,

Bent light rays for,

Made manifest, integral

Part of the landscape.

1

In dubious collusion

With your dawdling beau

Inspirational quotes

Make you puke,

1

The unsaid, uneasy.

There is no rain.

No water.

No lake.

1

SCIENCE OF LIFE . . .

. . . even when you’re not looking; especially when you’re not looking.

SCIENCE OF LIFE

1

Take umbrage.

Sour all I have.

I used to allow it.

Did not rock kismet

Delight in peals of spring.

1

I mired. Flickered,

Got the dirt on

A waif, wily, perverting

High school rituals

Claw hammering rivals

1

Blind to the nests

Cocoons, hives, shells

Snoozing in biology class

Oblivious to living organisms

Living in, on, through us.

All escaped our attention.

1

Now I name stars

Species, ripen salmon

Salvage withered pines

Old friends, repair things

Beyond repair

Sail toward a ship.

1