Poetic Films Get Poetic Blogging

HARD EDGE/ HARD WORK Short films by Kate Gilmore and Maya Deren
Posted by Tall Matt Haynes

PROLOGUE: It’s 12:07am on Friday, September 17th. Tall Matt Haynes doesn’t think he has any use for the short films of Kate Gilmore and Maya Deren (screened muuuuuuuch earlier between 6:30 and 7:30pm). Nonetheless, Tall Matt Haynes knows that he’s responsible for reporting on these films. After 10 false starts,Tall Matt Haynes finally comes up with a strategy: Just report the content of the films and use poetic forms to have some fun with it. Here we go:
Kate Gilmore: “Walk This Way”
(Limerick)
A wall is confining Miss Kate,
Unaware of its now-certain fate.
She bashes right through
With her gloves and her shoes:
Such is modern womanhood’s state?
Maya Deren: “Witches Cradle”
(Haiku)
Strings slither and wind.
A doe-eyed witch looks stressed out.
The strings bind Duchamp.

Kate Gilmore: “Standing Here”
(Blank Verse)
Kate’s climbing up the walls, quite literally.
She pounds out holes to give her grips and steps.
The goal is not to bash full-though as in
The last short film, but to climb up and out.
Maya Deren: Ritual In Transfigured Time
(Couplets)
This is a story of a nervous young sweet
Who at a socialite dance party meets
A lean muscled man who follows her, leaping
As the nervous young sweet takes flight, nearly weeping.
She throws here self into a lake, she’s so frightened.
She floats down and opens her eyes (now enlightened?)

Kate Gilmore: Between A Hard Place
(Six Word Story)
She finally breaks through to yellow.