FilmPoems by Alastair Cook

I recently discovered the work of photographer and filmmaker Alastair Cook through Anon Magazine (we both appear in Anon7).  He wrote about a project he calls FilmPoem, which are short films he’s made based upon contemporary poems.

“The combination of film and poetry is an attractive one,” writes Alastair. “For the poet, perhaps a hope that the filmmaker will bring something to the poem: a new audience, a visual attraction, the laying of way markers; for the filmmaker, a fixed parameter to respond to, the power of a text sparking the imagination with visual connections and metaphor.”

His project reminds me (in spirit if not in style) of some films I made in Super 8 back in the mid-1980s — I called them “cinepoems” — two of which were shown at an independent film show at Cleveland State University in 1985. One was based upon Kenneth Patchen‘s “I Went to the City” and the other was called “Through the Glimmerglass (And What We Saw There).”   (I really should digitize those films and make them available.)

I have always been fascinated by the combination of film and poetry and it’s great to discover Alastair’s work.  Here is his film “Adrift,” based upon a poem by the fabulous Juliet Wilson (whose work also appears in Anon7):

Adrift from Alastair Cook on Vimeo.

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