So before I get started with this list, I have to admit a huge bias. This is going to end up being a shout-out to some of my O-town friends, particularly Ian Keteku who recently released his album, Lesson from Planet Earth (Re-Evolution), along with a series of incredible video poems. In my humble opinion, over the past year there is no one (that I know of, which is admittedly not saying very much) that has been able to create video poems of the same quality that Ian has. He overwhelmingly dominates my top five simply because the work seems to stand so far above the vast majority of video poetry I have seen, not only this year, but ever.
Ian is the 2010 world slam champion and member of the 2009 Canadian champion team which went on to become the touring performance poetry troupe, The Recipe. He also works with local multi-talented folk-poet Brad Morden as Atomic Wednesday (who just returned recently from their second european tour) and an Ottawa-based electro-funk-hip-hop-rock band called Daughters of the Revolution.
5. El Amor Mata – Ian Keteku & Balam Santos
This video was released, appropriately, on Valentine’s Day 2011. For me it set a new standard for video poetry. Balam Santos composed and performed the music accompanying Ian’s poem. Balam is a good friend and a gifted guitarist living in Ottawa who I used to train with. He also makes amazing beats and raps like a magical being from another dimension.
“El Amor Mata” by Ian Keteku & Balam S. (Canon EOS 5D Mk II) from Pascal Aka on Vimeo.
4. Nightmares – Ian Keteku
I absolutely love this video. A poem taken from the new album, this video was another holiday release that went up just before Halloween. The cast is mostly friends so again, I am clearly biased, but c’mon, who doesn’t love muppets, reptiles and arachnids on Halloween?
3. Poetry in Motion – Brandon Wint feat. Claude Munson
Brandon Wint is a wonderfully talented Ottawa poet, also a member of the 2009 Canadian slam champion team The Recipe. He has toured across Canada and has recently been devoting his energy to providing workshops for poetry-enthusiasts looking to study the art and improve their craft. This is one of my most favourite poems from him and this video was met with much acclaim, being nominated for a local film festival award shortly after its release. Local master folk artist Claude Munson accompanied him with guitar for this poem, and master video maker Craig Allen Connoly (whose videos have been featured on this blog before) of Partus Films made it all come together.
2. Right Side Up – Ian Keteku feat. Brad Morden, Chloe Perrault & Gabrielle Giguere
There is so much awesomeness in this one video. Brad Morden who makes up the other half of Atomic Wednesday brings in some ukelele while half of the much beloved Boys of Bytown provide some vocal ambience and autoharp. When performed live, I’ve only ever seen Ian do this poem while standing on his head, but this animation is almost as entertaining.
1. The Path – Atomic Wednesday
This is definitely my favourite video poem to have come out this year. Filmed while on their latest european tour, Atomic Wednesday (Ian Keteku and Brad Morden) rather spontaneously put this piece together and a filmmaker they met on the road brought it together in a way that is simple yet profound. The natural beauty really does it for me and there’s a sort of minimalist flavour to it that brings the focus to the words, which are just gorgeous.
Honourable Mentions
Chris Tse – Greatness
You know it’s not really fair to have a top five list in a year when Ian Keteku got an art grant to produce such high quality videos. There are so many poets (and I’m still talking about my biased insulated Ottawa community here) who have been making excellent work out of pocket. One of those poets is Chris Tse, member of the 2010 championship team at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Chris went on to take 2nd at the world slam in 2011 and consistently blows away Ottawa audiences and takes perfect scores at slams for his poetry. He’s created a series of poems with the help of some filmmaker friends which you should definitely check out. He is truly, as you will see, great.
Ahmed Knowmadic – A Single Gunshot
Finally I can get out of my little Ottawa-bubble, at least for a moment. Ahmed is a gifted poet who was a member of the 2011 championship team at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. He did everything for this video, which is highly impressive alone, not to mention the beauty of the poem itself. This man has a lot of very important things to say and I can tell he is going somewhere with his words. I am really looking forward to getting out to Edmonton and connecting more with the community there after being blown away by the performances I saw at this year’s Canadian festival of spoken word.
That’s it from me. I know I missed a whole bunch of awesome video poems so please, post them in the comments or send me a message to let me know what you saw this year that blew your mind and opened your heart.
Love from Loh
