Animated poems recited by the poets themselves brought me a whole new appreciation for the genre. The talents of both the poets and the animators come together and create something wonderful.
A particular favorite of mine is Chris Amhaus’s animation of Lisa Jarnot’s Poem Beginning with a Line by Frank Lima. I should say “how terrific” it is, since that is a line repeated again and again. The poem talks about how “terrific” it is to be able to dream whatever you want. Chris Amhaus makes you feel like you are in a crazy dream. He makes you feel as if you are sailing through the sky, walking down a street alone at night and then free falling from the sky, just like the feeling of a dream. Cows that are slightly misshaped jump across the scenes. On the Poetry Everywhere website there is a quote by Lisa Janot as saying about poems, “I think poems are always collages on some level. Collage is a way to force awareness out of the random flow of information that’s constantly bombarding us.” I think that may be true to some extent for animation as well. I believe it is exactly what the animator brought across. He created a collage of images showing the stream of sub consciousness a person may experience while dreaming. The camera’s movement and angles make the viewer feel that they are moving along with the character. The camera movement is why this animation worked. With the help of the color palette mostly black and white with pops of color, and the fast camera movement I felt like I was in this dream. The pace of the animation and the soft music was timed well with the poet’s voice. The music did not overwhelm the piece but gave it a light happy dreamlike quality. What I really like about it is how it combines stock-motion and 2-d animation to display it. I found it pretty cool to watch because the different styles of animations helped make the character that I believe was dreaming stand out. I would use this method to do just that. I think it is a great way to differentiate the character from the background. The clay makes the characters soft looking and very likeable. I would also use the same camera movements to make the characters move from one frame to the next. I would also pace the movement of the character timed with the movement of the music.
Another animation of a poem that I liked was animator Tommy Simms’s Branch Library, narrated by Edward Hirsch. This had probably the most fluid animation out of all the animations I watched. The drawings were simple but the movements of the boy flying through the stacks of books and out into the blue sky gave the sensation of flying like a bird. I believe the poet may have written this about himself. I would have liked if the balding man narrating had a beak-like nose too. I think that if I were the animator I would have drawn him that way, leading the viewer to believe that the man is talking about his younger self. The animator chooses to make the boy fly like a bird, emphasizing the limitless adventures and joy the books brought to him. What makes this animation work for me is the use of color and the simplistic drawings. The primary colors pop from the page and remind me of children’s picture books and cartoons. It gives a happy childlike quality to it, reminding the viewer the innocence that only a child has. In my own work I will keep in mind the importance of the color palette. In this animation we see the boy flying through the book-stacks like a bird with his shirt shaped like wings and his nose shaped like a beak. I would use this method of giving humans animal characteristics to show what the character can be. I also like the movement of the older man’s mouth and eyes. It is very simple. His very small upward eye movement directs the viewer’s eye to the next scene. That was very simple yet very effective. I would use this to move my animation along.
The animations of poems that I viewed were all fun to watch. I have not read this many poems in a very long time and I have never enjoyed poetry like this before.
Works Cited
Amhaus, Chris. “Poem Beginning with a line by Frank Lima.” Cartoon. Poetry Everywhere. National Endowment for the Arts, 3 Mar. 2011. Web. 8 Oct. 2011. <http://www.pbs.org////>.
Simms, Tommy. “Branch Library.” Cartoon. Poetry Everywhere. National Endowment for the Arts, 3 Mar. 2011. Web. 8 Oct. 2011. <http://www.pbs.org////>.
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