Sarah Watkinson is Wytham Woods’ first poet in residence. She leads us through a delicate maze of woodland and words, weaving together nature, research and poetry. In their work, scientists are objective: they don’t express opinions, they don’t talk about themselves. Poetry would seem science’s diametrical opposite: it’s traditionally inward-looking and self-reflective. Sarah’s writing combines her scientific background and her love for form and words in the most delicate and unexpected way: observing the world, for her, is a form of poetry.
Tag Archives: Poetic Short Films
New Poetic Short Films: “The Mushroom Hunters” Written By Neil Gaiman, Read By Amanda Palmer
“The Mushroom Hunters” is a Cinematic Poem Short Film With Original Poem Written By Neil Gaiman, Directed By Caroline Rudge.
Artwork, Animation, Direction and Storyboard by: Caroline Rudge
Production, Storyboard and Additional Mushrooms: Alexandra Casswell Becker
Editing and Special Effects: Dann Casswell
The Mushroom Hunters Original Poem by: Neil Gaiman
Read by: Amanda Palmer
Bass, Percussion, Vibraphone, Piano and Original Score by: Jherek Bischoff
Cello: Aniela Marie Perry
Violin: Paris Hurley
Viola: Marta Sofia Honer
Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Jherek Bischoff at Sweethaven
THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS
by Neil Gaiman
Science, as you know, my little one, is the study
of the nature and behaviour of the universe.
It’s based on observation, on experiment, and measurement,
and the formulation of laws to describe the facts revealed.
In the old times, they say, the men came already fitted with brains
designed to follow flesh-beasts at a run,
to hurdle blindly into the unknown,
and then to find their way back home when lost
with a slain antelope to carry between them.
Or, on bad hunting days, nothing.
The women, who did not need to run down prey,
had brains that spotted landmarks and made paths between them
left at the thorn bush and across the scree
and look down in the bole of the half-fallen tree,
because sometimes there are mushrooms.
Before the flint club, or flint butcher’s tools,
The first tool of all was a sling for the baby
to keep our hands free
and something to put the berries and the mushrooms in,
the roots and the good leaves, the seeds and the crawlers.
Then a flint pestle to smash, to crush, to grind or break.
And sometimes men chased the beasts
into the deep woods,
and never came back.
Some mushrooms will kill you,
while some will show you gods
and some will feed the hunger in our bellies. Identify.
Others will kill us if we eat them raw,
and kill us again if we cook them once,
but if we boil them up in spring water, and pour the water away,
and then boil them once more, and pour the water away,
only then can we eat them safely. Observe.
Observe childbirth, measure the swell of bellies and the shape of breasts,
and through experience discover how to bring babies safely into the world.
Observe everything.
And the mushroom hunters walk the ways they walk
and watch the world, and see what they observe.
And some of them would thrive and lick their lips,
While others clutched their stomachs and expired.
So laws are made and handed down on what is safe. Formulate.
The tools we make to build our lives:
our clothes, our food, our path home…
all these things we base on observation,
on experiment, on measurement, on truth.
And science, you remember, is the study
of the nature and behaviour of the universe,
based on observation, experiment, and measurement,
and the formulation of laws to describe these facts.
The race continues. An early scientist
drew beasts upon the walls of caves
to show her children, now all fat on mushrooms
and on berries, what would be safe to hunt.
The men go running on after beasts.
The scientists walk more slowly, over to the brow of the hill
and down to the water’s edge and past the place where the red clay runs.
They are carrying their babies in the slings they made,
freeing their hands to pick the mushrooms.
This poem was written by Neil Gaiman and read by Amanda Palmer for Maria Popova’s “The Universe In Verse” event in 2017 (you can read about that here: https://www.brainpickings.org/2017/04…).
The brilliant team at creative connection in the UK hand-drew this animated video to accompany the poem, and the music was composed and recorded by jherek bischoff. read about the making of this whole film on patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/31517040
Top New Travel Videos: “Iceland – The Prophesy” By Henry Behel (2019)
Filmed, Edited and Directed By: Henry Behel
Voiceover: Júlía Hannam
Music: Sam Plotkin
Percussionists: Amin Malekpour, Sam Archer, Kris Wismer
I filmed this in four days while traveling around Iceland alone. The sun set at midnight and rose at 3am, but it never really got dark. I shot as much of the day as I could, stopping everywhere that caught my eye. I found places off the road and slept on a pad under the stars. I got rained on and blasted with wind, but I felt alive.
I have made a habit of traveling alone in wild places. I feel magic in the howling wind, the ice on my face, the sand in my shoes. My mind can drift back to the beginning of time or out to the stars where the earth is just a dot. I finally feel the connection and peace I so long for, and yet is so elusive in my daily life.
No place has inspired me like this more than Iceland. This film is how it feels to me. Beautiful and serene, but dark and violent as well. Time moves differently here. The land still exists in some ancient forgotten epoch, when earth was still lava rock soup.
Website: http://henrybehel.com/
New Travel Videos: “Never Stop Exploring” In Italy By Michael Cherkashin
“Never Stop Exploring” is a Cinematic Poem Short Film Directed By Michael Cherkashin.
Filmed, Edited and Directed by: Michael Cherkashin
Narrated by: Hollye Sangster
A visual ode to curiosity, to explorers and to the magnificent beauty of our world. Location is the Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy.
Website: https://inhalefilms.com/films.html
Poetic Travel Films: “Where The Sun Is Born – Japan” Featuring Charles Baudelaire By L’oeil d’Eos
Filmed, Edited and Directed by: L’oeil d’Eos
Against tide and on the sidelines of the crowd, it’s a confidential Japan that we present to you in this video. Condensed from our two recent trips to the Land of the Rising Sun, this film is an ode to the connection to nature and urban harmony that characterize Japan so well.
The words of Charles Baudelaire respond to the images, or rather is it the opposite ?
There are atmospheres that you imagine more than others, and if someone had asked us the question earlier, it’s exactly with these images, these moments that we would have described Japan.
Where the sun is born, where effervescence becomes a sense of appeasement, where meditation and lifestyle become one.
“GET DRUNK” by Charles Baudelaire
ONE SHOULD always be drunk. That’s the great thing; the only question.
Not to feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and bowing you to the earth, you should be drunk without respite.
Drunk with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please. But get drunk.
And if sometimes you should happen to awake, on the stairs of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dreary solitude of your own room, and find that your drunkenness is ebbing or has vanished, ask the wind and the wave, ask star, bird, or clock, ask everything that flies, everything that moans, everything that flows, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask them the time; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird and the clock will all reply: “It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be perpetually drunk! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please.”
“An Ode To The Land Of Little Rivers”: A Poetic Short Film Tribute To Fly Fishing In The Catskills
“An Ode To The Land Of Little Rivver” is a gorgeously filmed promotional short film celebrating the beautiful Catskills region of New York State. Filmed on location at the Livingston Manor Fly Fishing Club for the design and lifestyle firm Homestedt by Peter Crosby of Bullrush Films.
Boomers Daily 