Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Holly Corfield Carr's 'Aft' (Videopoem)


As you will see below, Holly Corfield Carr's poem "AFT", an October "Poem of the Day" at The Poetry School, lends itself beautifully to film treatment.

Spike Island, a contemporary art and design center in Bristol, England, and Bristol Ferry commissioned the site-specific poem. According to Carr, she wrote the poem while listening to a 1950 recording of a Bristol sailor's sea shanties. Its couplets, she points out, "were measured to fit thirteen windows of a passenger ferry called Matilda". The film itself was shot through Matilda's windows and the words then set as a sea shanty. (For additional information about Carr's research and the production of "AFT", see Carr's blogpost "bark safely".)



Carr, who has been Writer-in-Residence at Spike Island, has taught for The Poetry School, Bristol Poetry Institute, and Cambridge University and has conducted a number of poetry workshops. Her work has been broadcast on the BBC and appeared in magazines and artist books, as well as many nontraditional locations, including a crystal grotto, a car park, former factories, and a floating island. She has been honored with the Frieze Writer's Prize (2015) and Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors (2012). (See Carr's Projects page to learn more about her books, collaborations, commissions, installations, performances, residencies, and writing. Also see Publications.)


Text of "AFT" (The text also appears in the blogpost "bark safely", as indicated above, and on the Commissions project page of Carr's Website.)



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