THE VIDEO POET

The whole idea for “video poetry” began with this piece. I wrote a poem for Wilma Jakobsen (my priest at All Saints Church Pasadena), when I learned she was leaving us to become rector of a church up in Cupertino, California. I workshopped the poem with the folks in the All Saints Writer’s Group, and my closest friend in that group – Keith Holeman – suggested that I give the poem some exposure by making a video out of it. Instead of just handing the poem to Wilma as a gift, “supersize” her gift with visuals and music – then post the video on the web so everyone can celebrate Wilma with me.

The whole idea of telling a story in three different languages (poetry, imagery and sound design) – the conceit of all my video poetry – finds its beginnings here. I adapted a poem by Maya Angelou (“Phenomenal Woman”), edited a song by Maranatha Singers (“Make Me a Servant”), and married both with images of Wilma’s ministry to young people (20s/30s of All Saints), provided by Will Gatlin.

Within an hour or two, the piece had a hundred hits on YouTube. Keith was right. My poetry would never be the same.

Miss you, Wilma!

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The world was still spinning from the news of the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, and it was spinning for meaning. Victor Frankl says that meaning actually comes from suffering, because meaning seeks to explain our pain, and in so doing, allows us to endure more of it. This piece was born of that notion. I wanted to find some purpose to the horror, some kindness in the cruelty, some syntropy in the entropy. My best art rises out of a need for meaning, and – by the time I’d finished this poem, in the 90 minutes I spent at Islands Cafe over a dozen refills of Diet Coke – I found something that worked for me.

Even though “Phenomenal Servant” was the first piece I slated for a “video poetry makeover,” it was Newtown’s piece that ultimately hit the internet first. And I think it was the response from family and friends who reposted the video a million times over that ultimately gave me the courage to continue. Who knew I could pull off a voice over?

Not me.