Videopoem contest

In case you missed the announcement earlier in the week, Moving Poems is sponsoring a videopoem contest.

In order to showcase and celebrate diverse approaches to making videopoems and poetry-films, I thought it would be fun to have a contest where everyone would use the same poem in its entirety, either in the soundtrack or as text (or both). Please join us! Post the results to YouTube or Vimeo and either email me the link (bontasaurus[at]yahoo[dot]com) or put it in a comment below, no later than April 15. I’ll post the winners to the main site.

Stop by and check out the poem we’re using —“Fable,” by Howie Good — read the rest of the guidelines, and explore a new page of helpful links for videopoetry makers, including sources for free and Creative Commons-licensed film and video, spoken word, sounds and music. So even if you don’t own a video camera, you can still made videopoems (though they do have to be actual films/videos, not successions of still images with a soundtrack).

The good news is there’s no entry fee. The bad news is there’s no prize. But Also, Howie has volunteered to help judge the contest and give copies of his chapbooks to the winners. (See comments.) It’s probably worth noting that his scholarly books include include several studies of film and culture. I’ve revised the last paragraph of the announcement accordingly. It now reads:

You can enter as many times as you like. From all the entries, we’ll select an indeterminate number of finalists to feature on the main site. Howie has offered to give copies of his books Rumble Strip, Anomalies, and Disaster Mode to his top three favorites, with the first place winner getting all three, second place the first two, and third place getting the last. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, I’d love to hear them.

Do consider taking part. The deadline is April 15.