I realized this morning that my most recent videopoem was my 100th upload to Vimeo, so in celebration I created a new album for my videopoems there. It contains 45 videos so far, including those I’ve made for poems by others (Nic S., Dick Jones, Peter Stevens, Federico Garcia Lorca, Pedro Salinas, Czeslaw Milosz, Cesar Vallejo and Juan Ramon Jimenez). The Flash player at the head of this post (probably not visible to RSS or email subscribers) displays everything in the album in reverse chronological order. Once you start viewing videos, it will continue playing them in order unless you click on something, which allows you to resume browsing. (If it starts giving error messages, refresh the page.) I’ve also stuck this player at the top of the Videopoetry category page here, since I do store almost all my videopoems on Vimeo.
Vimeo calls this a Hubnut widget, and says it offers “a TV-style viewing experience.” I guess being able to change videos with one click of the mouse is kind of like changing channels with a remote, assuming there’s someplace with 45 channels devoted to poetry.
Speaking of channels, I do still also maintain the amazing Undiscovery Channel for wildlife videos, though many of my best are actually hosted at YouTube. (Since until recently I didn’t have a paid account at Vimeo, it was faster to get videos processed at YouTube, and like most bloggers I’m often in a hurry to post. I still think YouTube is a great free service and an indispensible website, albeit increasingly junked-up with ads.)
As time permits I’ll be making and uploading higher-definition versions of some of my older videos, and maybe even fixing some problems with soundtracks, sub-par readings and the like. One of Vimeo’s chief virtues is that it allows one to swap in a new file for an old one while keeping the same URL and embed code, and without losing accumulated statistics, comments and likes. And see, this is why I prefer the freemium model for web services: once I’ve committed to paying $60 a year for something, it makes me want to get my money’s worth and stop being so goddamned slap-dash about everything.
Go, you!! I daren’t start another project right now but all this sure makes me want to!
Well, I’d love to see you get into videopoetry. I’m sure you’d excel at it. But barring that, I think there’s a high probability I’ll be bugging you to use more of your great readings. (Looking at my list of poets I’ve made videos for, I see to my shame that it is overwhelmingly male. Gotta do something about that.)
You never have to ask me to use anything I put on the web – consider this blanket permission to use any and all of my stuff out there, any time. In the case of Whale Sound recordings, though, I would ask that you check with the original authors as well to be sure they are ok with you using the recordings.
As I said: Go, you!
Awesome. Thanks.
Oh, and if you find a poem for which you don’t have audio and you think my voice might work for the soundtrack, will always be happy to record for you.
I may just take you up on that! Thanks for the offer.