Snow fell across London last night. We used a 5th-century plainsong (“A Solis Ortus Cardine”) and before-and-after photographs from the woods behind our house as the basis for a new film-poem.
Snow Den (Film-Poem)
Posted in Poetry Tagged Film-Poem, London, North London, Valerie Kampmeier Comments (6)
Pushcart Prize Nomination II
On my way out the door this morning, I nearly stomped on a thin letter posted through the mail slot bearing the logo of Pushcart Press and notifying me that I have been nominated by one or more members of the Board of Contributing Editors for the 2011 Prize. I recognise a number of the names on the Board, and am deeply honored to be considered again this year. Last year one of my poems was nominated by Paul Fericano of The Broadsider. This year, I will again be watching out for the announcement list once, but this time from across the Atlantic. Between this good news, and layers of snow dusting London tonight, it has been quite a special day.
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“A Game of Sevens” (Film-Poem)
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Numerology of Grief (The Sixth Year)
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me lay an invincible summer.”
-Albert Camus
Six is my favourite number. It is the number of years between my younger sister and me. It looks like the lovechild of zero and “C”. The only single digit that is divisible by two as well as three, it seems to encompass both even and odd with a swirling, round-bottomed equanimity.
This tadpole, half of a yin-yang symbol, is also the number for idealists. Six years ago today, I counted myself among them when our son was born. I was determined to be the ideal father to an ideal son. Three days, eight hours and forty minutes later, when the doctor pronounced him dead, that idealism shattered, not by twos and threes, but into innumerable pieces.
Continue Reading “Numerology of Grief (The Sixth Year)”
Posted in Fatherhood, Grief Recovery, Life Tagged Albert Camus, James Valentine Peake, Statistics Comments (7)
“Same-Day Return” (Film-Poem)
This evening, we collaborated on another film-poem. We live near the end of the Northern Line, and our evenings are pleasantly haunted by the sound of the train.
Posted in Poetry, Video Tagged Creative Collaboration, Film-Poem, Valerie Kampmeier Comments (5)
Long Poem Magazine Launch Reading
Readers will know I don’t generally consider myself a long poem poet. At the T.S. Eliot Shortlist Reading last weekend, Sean O’Brien remarked that one of the most dreaded phrases in a poetry reading is (said darkly), “and now for something longer.” Recalling this, I descended the stairs of the brutalist Barbican Theater into the music library, recalling the Vogon dungeon from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in which the protagonist is forced to listen to the “third worst poetry in the universe” as torture.
Fortunately, owing to great variety, imagination, and craft, the evening was anything but a Vogon experience. I was pleased to read my own poem, “In Pieces”, after The Lewis Chessmen, alongside nearly a dozen others. Continue Reading “Long Poem Magazine Launch Reading”
