Applause at the intersection

Eager to drive in the traffic of creative space, I am giddy with the intersection of art and words at Action Poetry.

Simple and brilliant, the website features 11 poems written and read by Billy Collins, with each poem paired with a short, animated film.

A prolific writer and a former U.S. Poet Laureate, Collins is considered one of the nation’s most ‘accessible’ (code: he writes poems that are easy to enter, understand and enjoy) poets.

Produced in 2007, the animated poems were initially intended as filler between programs on the Sundance Channel. To that end, advertising powerhouse J. Walter Thompson commissioned a variety of artists who created a blend of wry, amusing and unexpectedly touching poems-on-film.

As with Poetry in Motion (the New York program that posts poems on subways and buses) and Poem in Your Pocket Day (celebrating National Poetry Month), Action Poetry shows what happens when words climb out of books to lift off the page and soar into a larger world.

Poetry lives in the everyday — and what a beauty when it emerges in such unexpected ways.

Comments

[weilworks]

Amazing! Thanks for the tip... this is great stuff. :) t

[drew]

Hey Tracy -
I thought you would appreciate the animation. Do I see another Weil-Myronn collaboration in the future????

- drew