Jul 26
The Carbon Culture Review (CCR) poetry film competition winner and finalists will be announced shortly. I enjoyed watching the 85 international submissions and was delighted to be invited to judge this wonderful competition celebrating creativity.
I was delighted to be invited to curate the “Poetry” strand of the Daata Editions Series Two commissions. More details coming soon.
“Daata Editions commissions artist video, sound, poetry and web. This new and innovative way to collect art is designed specifically to be a native platform to a new generation of artists who work with moving image and sound. Limited edition artworks can be viewed and acquired as digital downloads.” https://daata-editions.com
Exposed by Jess Lee and Alice Coe (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
I was delighted to return to Millfield for a third time in June, this time to judge the student Film Poetry Festival. Thank you to James and the team at Millfield for the invitation – this was an exciting project and it was thrilling to see the range of creative approaches. The quality of the film poems was astonishingly high and extremely impressive, and the students’ enthusiasm and passion came across. Also impressive was the subject matter explored in these films – challenging personal emotional topics, and active engagement with political issues and the big questions. An introduction written by James Baddock (Head of English, Drama and Media) is below, and the winning films have been uploaded to the PoetryFilm website for viewing.
Film Poems
Always ready to embrace innovation and experimentation, this year the English and Media teaching teams at Millfield School in Somerset took their students down an exciting new path, that of film poems. In April, Zata Banks visited Millfield to introduce the art form to an appreciative audience of A Level English Literature and Media Studies students. Subsequently, film poems became the theme of our summer Poetry Festival; pupils in Years 9, 10 and the Lower Sixth were invited to make their own film poems, individually or in groups. Many used smartphones and tablets to film, edit and present their work, and several made good use of our media studio and equipment to realise their ideas. The results were diverse and inspiring! Submissions included delightful stop-motion animations, time-lapse mood pieces, striking text-on-screen films and performances of original poetry.
This venture was an experiment for Millfield, and one we are keen to repeat and develop! Film poems unlocked our students’ imaginations, and gave them an opportunity to express their ideas in exhilarating combinations of words, images, sound and music. My thanks go to Zata for inspiring and championing our students’ work, some of which is presented here. All of the pieces were created from scratch by the students themselves. I hope you enjoy them.
James Baddock
Head of English, Drama and Media
Millfield School, Somerset
Winners
Year 9
Summer by Tamara and Eloise
Year 10
Depression by Grace and Elenice
Fear of the Unknown by Igor Ledecky
Audience Award: A Love Story by Cameron, Matt, Will and Max
Lower Sixth
Exposed by Alice and Jessica
Time to Forget by Domino
The Beauty of Racism by Michael, Alex, Ellie and Jack
Time to Forget by Domino (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Fear of the Unknown by Igor Ledecky (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
The Beauty of Racism by Michael Kay (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
A Love Story by Cameron, Matt, Will and Max (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Depression by Grace and Eloise (Millfield School Film Poetry Festival Winner 2016).
Baroness Prashar (seated), Yogesh Patel and Lord Parekh presenting ZB with gift and accolade following the keynote speech.
By Dr. Debjani Chatterjee, MBE
LONDON: On the eve of the momentous Brexit referendum, 22 June 2016, the House of Lords saw another colorful and history making occasion for English language poets of the Indian diaspora. The evening was hosted by Lord Bhikhu Parekh, a distinguished Indian diaspora non-fiction writer and a patron of the non-profit Word Masala Foundation and poet Yogesh Patel, the founder-Director of WMF. The ambitious event was Patel’s brainchild and was tightly packed with speeches, book launches, poetry readings, award ceremonies, slide presentation and networking. It attracted some sixty people, including well-established and rising poets, poetry publishers and journalists.
In his welcome address, Patel stated his intention of bringing together and honoring eminent Indian diaspora poets from Britain and the US, as well as British publishers who support diaspora poetry. He announced a few exciting publishing initiatives, among these, talks with the prestigious ‘Poems on the Underground’ project, who were seriously considering contributions picked up from the Word Masala Award Winners 2015 anthology launched at the event and published by Patel’s Skylark Publications website.
Patel was particularly proud of a publishing contract for Isle of Man-based Usha Kishore whose next poetry collection will be brought out by Eyewear Publishing, announced with great flair by Dr. Todd Swift, the publisher.
Patel, who omitted himself from the readings, is known for his literary activism and publishing, and is also a fine trilingual poet and translator. Just a month ago he received an ‘International Accolade for Outstanding Achievement in Poetry and for Promoting Poetry’ at Vatayan’s annual award ceremony.
Zata Banks treated the gathering to an inspirational keynote speech on the ‘creative opportunities at the intersections of poetry and film’. Banks is the founder of Poetry Film, an influential research art project that was launched in 2002 and has an archive collection of over 1000 films.
Lord Parekh and Baroness Usha Prashar presented awards, first to the American poets: Meena Alexander, Usha Akella (based in Austin, Texas), and, in absentia, Saleem Peeradina and Pramila Venkateswaran; and then to British poets: Shanta Acharya, Siddhartha Bose, Kavita Jindal, Daljit Nagra, Usha Kishore, Reginald Massey and Debjani Chatterjee. Word Masala’s first Crowd-Funding Award was given to Mona Dash to support the publication of her next poetry collection. All the award-winning poets read briefly from their work, accompanied by a slide-show highlighting their achievements and poetry.
Parekh and Prashar commented on the excellence of the readings and the high quality of the poetry. Parekh spoke of the ‘immense pool of talent’ that is contemporary Indian diaspora poets, and called for a mutually beneficial meeting of two great literatures: English literature and Indian diaspora literature in English, which itself is enriched by its heritage of multilingual Indian literature. He encouraged diaspora writers to capitalise more on their experience of migration and of dual cultural heritage. He urged British publishers to consider publishing and publicising diaspora writers’ poetry and suggested opportunities for cooperation with Indian publishers.
Word Masala awards were given to seven British poetry presses: Arc Publications, Emma Press, Eyewear Publishing, Faber & Faber, Limehouse Books, Nine Arches Press and Valley Press. Three poetry books were launched at the event: Glass Scissors, a debut collection by writer-publisher Bobby Nayyar of Limehouse Books; Saleem Peeradina’s collection Final Cut, from Valley Press; and the anthology, Word Masala Award Winners 2015, edited by Yogesh Patel and published by his Skylark Publications.
The event was a milestone for Indian diaspora poets as it represents a pioneering attempt by WMF at trans-Atlantic connections. While there have been some exceptional achievements in publication and major prizes by poets, significant gaps and omissions still remain. And there is a need for more such global cooperation that will certainly benefit Indian diaspora poets and the wider world of poetry.
Dr. Debjani Chatterjee has had over sixty books published in various countries and won many prizes for poetry, literary translation and writing for children. She is Word Masala’s Consultant Editor, Pratibha India’s Associate Editor, Gitanjali and Beyond’s Advisory Editor, Survivors Poetry’s Patron, The Healing Word’s Founder, and Associate Royal Literary Fellow.
Press Release copied below describing the special event at The House of Lords, London, on 22 June 2016.
‘It was an inspirational evening-truly wonderful to meet and hear such remarkable poets’ – Baroness Prashar.
‘The event went splendidly well and brought together several interesting people. Yogesh, you have every reason to be proud of yourself’ – Lord Parekh, Patron, Word Masala Foundation.
London-based non-profit Word Masala Foundation’s innovative vision was very evident in its major celebration of Indian diaspora poetry on 22 June 2016 at the House of Lords. Poets received awards for excellence in poetry and the British publishers reaching out to the South-Asian diaspora internationally received awards as the Champion of the South-Asian Diaspora Poetry allowing them to be distinctly proud for the work they are doing to include BAME authors and poets in their publishing programme.
In his welcome address, Yogesh explained that it was an occasion to bring together to honour selected Indian diaspora poets from Britain and the USA, and British publishers, large and small, who have brought out work by diaspora poets and are committed to giving fair consideration to work submitted by such poets in the interest of both cultural diversity and the highest literary standards. He also announced a few exciting publishing projects, and then introduced Zata Banks, founder of Poetry Film, whose inspirational keynote speech was about ‘creative opportunities at the intersections of poetry and film’.
Yogesh Patel, Foundation’s founder-director and poet, said, “The diaspora writers have a huge problem finding publishers and agents. There is a general apathy against them, and Page 2 Word Masala Foundation takes Diasporic poets to the mainstream deep-rooted attitudes deny them a fair opportunity. The Foundation will strive to bring the diasporic writers to the mainstream by working with publishers and other organisations active in the British literary field, and give them the recognition they deserve.” Lord Parekh, the Foundations patron, and Baroness Prashar presented awards to two American poets Meena Alexander and Usha Akella who had flown in from the USA, especially for this occasion, and in absentia, to Saleem Peeradina and Pramila Venkateswaran . The British poets receiving awards were Shanta Acharya, Siddhartha Bose, Kavita A. Jindal, Daljit Nagra, Usha Kishore, Reginald Massey, Bobby Nayyar and Debjani Chatterjee. Mona Dash, a London-based poet whose novel was just published in India, received Foundation’s first Crowdfunding award with the contract of publication with Skylark Publications, Yogesh’s publishing arm. To introduce the quality of their work, poets were showcased with the brief reading from their work, to the accompaniment of an excellent slideshow highlighting each speaker and poet’s poetry and achievements. The Foundation is about taking diasporic writers to the next level.
The Word Masala Awards are conferred on published South-Asian diaspora poets with a substantial quality of work, upholding their achievements to the highest standards, akin to ‘Lifetime Achievement’.
For more information, please contact Yogesh and visit www.skylarkpublications.co.uk
Press release copy and photo provided by Skylark.
Left-Right: Zata Banks of PoetryFilm (seated); Poet Yogesh Patel, Founder-Director of Word Masala; Baroness Prashar; Lord Parekh; and poet-publisher Dr Todd Swift of Eyewear Publishing. The photo shows Dr Todd Swift receiving the Champion of the South-Asian Diaspora Poetry award and making an announcement of awarding a contract to Usha Kishore for her next poetry collection.
PoetryFilm 