Video and Poetry: Some Background Info

David Bengtson, Mr. Bones, and Media Mike Hazard

Video and Poetry: Some Background Information

•I taught English at Long Prairie-Grey Eagle High School in Long Prairie, Minnesota, for 33 and 1/2 years. Long Prairie is a city of 3,040 located two hours northwest of Minneapolis. About 30 years ago, I became interested in using films and Super-8 filmmaking in my English classes. During the time that we offered quarter electives, I created classes in film study and filmmaking. I'm also interested in poetry and write poems and prose poems. So, at the same time, I was teaching poetry classes.

•When our school district switched to semester classes, I was told that I couldn't convert both the poetry and film study classes to semester courses...that one would have to go. So...to beat the system...I offered a semester class called Film and Poetry and taught film study for nine weeks and poetry for nine weeks. I began to realize how connected the two art forms are. We could use the language of poetry to talk about films...the language of films to talk about poetry. And the lines between the two became more and more blurred. (The course was later called Film/Video and Poetry.) So I came to the idea of combining video and poetry by accident. At the time, I had no idea anyone else in the world was doing this kind of thing.

•About 15 years ago, I was invited to be on a panel at a conference for artists and writers held at the University Club in St. Paul. I spoke about the importance, from my perspective as a teacher, of having artists and writers in my classroom. I told the audience that I could promise three things to any of them willing to come to my school in Long Prairie. First, they’d be featured in an article in the Long Prairie Leader. They’d stay at the fabulous Flamingo Motel right on Highway 71 in Long Prairie. And third, they’d help me save my life. I was serious about all three.

•After the session, Mike Hazard, a media artist from St. Paul, Minnesota, came up to me and told me that he’d like to help me save my life... and that began a collaboration and a friendship. We wrote a State Arts Board grant proposal for the first video poetry residency. He came as a visiting artist in 1992 and returned every year until the fall of 2001, when he completed his 10th residency. Part of the challenge of each residency was to collaborate to produce a new video poem. Mike came in as producer...used one of my poems...students in FVP class became the creative team, the production crew, helping with ideas, props, shooting, editing.... This collaborative team of visiting artist, writer-teacher, and students created a collection of ten video poems. Each video poem was completed in one week or less.

•The first video poem, "The Cows Nearly Make It," was sent to the Chicago Video Poetry Festival and included in the "Best of the Fest" tape. In addition, some of these productions have been shown at the National Poetry Film and Video Festival (San Francisco), Video Shorts (Seattle), the People’s Poetry Gathering (New York), and at National Council of Teachers of English conventions in Chicago, Milwaukee, and Baltimore.

•At the same time, some of my students were making video poems. Most of this work was done in a semester class called Video Production. The class did not include any work in studio production––but rather focused on video poetry...and, at times, video documentaries.

•During this time I began to discover a nationwide network of people experimenting with video poetry––from Bob Holman in New York (whose United States of Poetry aired on PBS in 1996) to Herman Berlandt and George Aguilar at the National Poetry Association in San Francisco, which has been promoting poetry films, video poetry, and now Cin(E)-Poetry for more than 30 years. I began calling around trying to get my hands on as many video poems as I could. That’s how I first met George Aguilar, the former president of the National Poetry Association. I’d call and ask for tapes of the winners of recent festivals...he’d send them to me. Eventually, this led to George doing a week-long residency in my high school in the spring of 2001. In April of 2003, with funding from SASE: The Write Place, the Jerome Foundation, and the Five Wings Arts Council, I was able to spend a week in San Francisco working with George on two new video poems.

Cinepoet George Aguilar and David Bengtson

(Long Prairie Leader, May 16, 2001)

•I really discovered this genre of the video poem...or poetry video...or Cin(E)-Poem by accident. I had little or no understanding of what I was doing by combining two seemingly different art forms. I just knew that I liked what happened when we tried to create interpretations or translations of poems using moving and still images and sound.

•For those students who are really interested, this means reading many poems to find the ones they want to make into videos...poems they might not have read otherwise. Also, it means reading and rereading the poems...analyzing, interpreting... and trying to figure out which images and which sounds, literally and figuratively, can be used...and in which order. The video poem projects integrate, among other things, technology; literature; writing; music and sound; visual images; color; creative thought; organization; cooperative planning, problem solving, and decision making. And, we try, as best we can, to be true in our interpretation of the poem, to what we believe the intentions of the poet might have been.

•Many of the poems we have used have been by writers from Minnesota and the midwest. We have been able to show the videos we have made to many of the poets. And they seem pleased that we have read and selected their work for these projects.

•As the word has gotten out that I have this growing collection of video poems by students and others, I have been asked to do video poetry presentations at colleges and universities in Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Illinois, and Maryland...primarily for teacher education classes and writing and poetry classes. I've also helped teach media workshops during the summer for teachers in any discipline K-12 who might be interested in using media in the classroom. In addition, I've done workshops and presentations at four national conventions and three Minnesota Council of Teachers of English conventions.

•Let's face it, though...without the student work...and other examples of video poems I've been able to get my hands on...I wouldn't have much to present. The work speaks for itself!

•Although I’m retired from classroom teaching, I continue to team-teach a video class with Mike Hazard at the Minnesota Institute for Talented Youth at Macalester in the summer...and I am available for workshops and presentations.

Rock sculpture, Black Hills, South Dakota