viz.

Video Credit: "Women of Troy," Susan B.A. Somers-Willett and Brenda Ann Kenneally, In Verse

H/T to Noël Radley for introducing me to this project

Last week I posted several video animations of poems read by their authors as part of a recent project by the Poetry Foundation. Today I’d like to draw your attention to In Verse, a series of “documentary poems” put together using the resources of Association of Independents in Radio, Incorporated and Virginia Quarterly Review (VQR).

The first installment, seen above, features the work of UT English Department alum Susan B.A. Somers-Willett and photographer Brenda Ann Kenneally who focus on working mothers in the low-income community of Troy, New York. See also this two-part collaboration ("Congregation, Witness" and "Congregation, Believer") between Pulitzer Prize winner and Gulf Coast native Natasha Trethewey and Joshua Cogan: 

I’m struck by the slight variations in sound technique within these “documentary poems.” There’s the very moving moment toward the end of Somers-Willet’s poem when the reader sighs, overwhelmed and very moved, as she exerts some effort to get out the last few lines. In the second piece featuring Trethewey’s work, the reading of the piece is amplified by the inclusion of comments from the woman struggling to rebuild her house, and  at the end of the short clip, a train whistle lows.

While I’m used to hearing a supplementary sound track in public radio pieces, it’s a new approach to a poetry “reading” and one that, I think, argues for poetry’s continued use in the world as a way of calling attention to neglected communities. The addition of these various sounds widens the possibilities for affecting viewers, and I’m wondering how much we will see these kinds of multimedia projects as poets seek new ways of reaching and maintaining captive audiences.