Deliciously loopy, and very cool – poetry in stop-motion

I realise I’ve already posted something this week, but I had to share this video. Two of my writing friends entered a collaborative piece in the 2018 Digital Writers’ Festival  Poetry in Motion event (no, I didn’t know about it either, curses!) and it’s really gorgeous. Gail and Rata are both disgustingly talented writers, and even more creative than I had realised in other ways too. (Even their bios – seriously, here and here.) And for this event, they not only wrote a poem, but also turned it into a short-short film. Have a squizz for yourself:

I love the back-and-forth of it, and the way that the alternating lines feel different enough to be definitely two voices, but also close enough that the poem gels as a single utterance too. Having been involved in a collaborative poetry project many years ago (Four Tellings), I can tell you that it isn’t easy to pull that off. And it’s an intelligent conversation – there’s some depth to it, not just a funny mother/daughter exchange. I really liked the decision to set the house plan on fire – it makes you pay attention more closely to the undercurrents in the poem. Funny, yes. Quirky? My giddy aunt, yes. But also something to make you think.

And to cap it all, they’ve also produced a The Making Of … video, which I highly recommended as well:

Ok. Maybe if I start working on an idea now, I might be able to have something ready to enter next year.

Pens? Check.
Paper? Check.
Video-able phone? Check.
Matches? Check, but probably not a good idea, so Uncheck.
Ideas?

( … sound of crickets … )