I am delighted to announce that “Buttons” won the judge’s prize in the 2014 Southbank Centre Poetry Film Competition “Shot Through the Heart” children’s category. It will premiere at the prize-giving ceremony on July 18th at the Purcell Room in London.
Buttons
Buttons themselves are a kind of love token,
they fasten your coat to keep out the damp,
and love is each stitch sewn tight and unbroken
sticking them down like a well-licked stamp.
Buttons make eyes for your stuffed toys to see,
which bulge when you squeeze them right up
but love holds them on through the teddybear tea
or they’d fall with a splash–in your cup!
The things that we love we keep close as we can
sewn into our pockets and stitched on our sleeve
but one day, time’s tick-tock will unravel our plans
and a button will fall down, roll on, and just leave.
Buttons make eyes for your stuffed toys to see,
they fasten your coat to keep out the breeze,
the things that we love we keep close as can be,
but sometimes our love means we let them go free.
So, goodbye to the buttons, both pearly and black,
you fastened our trousers, you picked up the slack,
we will miss your bright shine, and miss your click-clack
we love you, goodbye now, and we hope you come back.
Process Notes
When Valerie and I read the call-out for a film-poem competition with a children’s category happening here in London, we had to give it a try.
I wrote and recorded the poem, and then began playing with stop-motion animation. I used Christmas ornaments made of teasel, blue tack, coloured paper, a Raspberry Pi with LEGO-mounted camera arm (my own creation, at right), and of course lots of buttons. Valerie wrote and recorded the music at the end.
After more than forty hours of painstaking animation work, it was so gratifying to discover that the judges–a group of London school children–really liked the result.