The Portable Poetry Workshop: Connecting Content - Cinematic Techniques

"Poetry is everywhere; it just needs editing." - James Tate

In this section, Jack Myers uses film as a metaphor for poetry, and through identification and explanation of various cinematic techniques such as cuts, visual transitions, alternate views, angles, and movements, one can see how a poem can be a film in its own right and in accordance with Tate's quote above.

I recently read "Jasper, 1998," a trilogy of poems by Saeed Jones. The poems employs a staggering of views from low-angle to bird's eye then returning to low-angle. The movement of these poems are that of a moving shot, "creating a sense of action to, through, and away from a scene." Hear Jones read this poignant and heart-breaking collection of poems.  (And I highly recommend purchasing his chapbook When the Only Light is Fire at that same link. It was an incredible read, one still haunting me days after I've read it and I'm sure will continue throughout the year.)

Jack concludes the section by stating that poetry is "one of the most eclectic forms of art since it contains many aspects of the other arts..." What other art do you see most in poetry? What are your favorite techniques to employ?

In closing, here is one of the exercises offered at the end of this section, and since I am heavy into revisions lately, I am going to try this myself tonight:

"Cut shot - Crosscut technique: Next to an event in a poem of yours, juxtapose a simultaneous event that parallels or enhances the original event."

Happy writing! Andrea

P.S. If you like what you've heard from Saeed Jones, please read Jonterri Gadson's interview with him for Eclectica Magazine.