Surface Tensions: Framing the Flow of a Poetry-Film Collaboration

Abstract

The article is a record of collaboration between a poet and a filmmaker – one undertaken under several people's gaze, becoming aware of itself through the perspectives of the visual and the verbal artist, of the critic and creative maker. It observes the process from the poet's and the filmmaker's sides of the interface, in the language and thought processes that come naturally to each, exploring particularly the use of metaphor to throw light upon the collaborators' investigation of poetry-film. As the project progressed it revealed the tensions between the participants' allegiance to the idea of collaboration and the urge to retain control of one's own medium and ways of working. Tracking the collaboration throughout each stage of development, from initial conversations, through false turns and periods of apparent impasse, the article records the inputs and shifts that led to a final synthesis and publication in an unexpected form.