DeaD Poets finD new life on Youtube series
They love the fact that they get to engage in a really creative way.
Isabella Wang, Dead Poets organizer
A quick spin around social media it is as clear as the call to social distance that artists everywhere are trying to find ways to pivot projects away from live events to online.
One such home-grown plan involves dead poets and the people who love them.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the popular Vancouver Public Library Dead Poets Reading Series has moved to YouTube, and according to one of the organizers, Isabella Wang of Port Moody, more than 100 videos from Canada and around the globe were submitted in the first two days after putting out the call.
Each day a new person reading a poem or poems is posted to the Dead Poets Reading Series YouTube channel.
“People are so supportive,” said 19-year-old Wang, a student at Simon Fraser University. “They love the idea. They love the fact that they get to engage in a really creative way because we have no restrictions about what you can submit or how you do it. So they’ve been really creative.”
Submission criteria are simple: Make a video three to 10 minutes in length of a poetry reading in any language and email it to Wang at w.isa368@gmail.com with the titles of the poem(s) you are reading and a brief bio.
You don’t have to be a poet to submit, you can just be a fan of a dead poet.
“I would say most of our readers and audiences, they aren’t poets,” said Wang.
“They’re involved in writing in some way, but many of them do not really write poetry themselves. They write fiction, they write novels, they’re journalists, they’re teachers by day. But they still love poetry.”
Wang is working on her own video.
“I think I’m going to do a collage of ghazals,” said Wang.
“It’s a very beautiful poetry written in Persian and Urdu. And it kind of travelled, I think, in the past century or so to Canada and Germany, United States.
“So many, many Canadian writers have taken up the form, and have written (in) it,” said Wang. “I want to read a few of my favourite poems by these writers and bring them together.”
One of the writers Wang is considering for her submission is Simin Behbahani, an Iranian feminist poet and activist who died in 2014.
The YouTube series opened with 2019’s CBC poetry prize winner Natalie Lim reading the work of American poet Jason Shinder, who died in 2008.
“He came to mind immediately when Isabella asked me to choose a dead poet for this series,” said Lim, who lives in Vancouver. “Shinder was writing the book I chose, Stupid Hope, right up until he died of cancer. His poems tackle the subjects of death, reflection and trying to find comfort in difficult times — all themes that have suddenly become much more relevant than they were when I decided on the book back in January (for the live reading series), so I decided to keep that same book for the virtual reading.”
Having such a broad reach through the online videos has opened her eyes and her ears, says Lim.
“Something Isabella mentioned on Twitter recently has resonated strongly with me,” she said.
“(Wang) said that a lot of the poets being featured are people she knows through social media but she’s never heard them read before. It’s been the same for me — it’s always a cool moment when I watch a video of a poet reading and realize it’s the first time I’ve ever heard their voice, even though we’ve talked on Twitter.”
It’s that connection to a poem through voice that Lim said inspired her to begin to write poetry. and she thinks that the Dead Poets online series may do that for others.
“I was inspired to start writing poetry seriously after I discovered spoken word poetry by writers like Shane Koyczan and Sarah Kay, so hearing poetry read aloud has always had a profound effect on me. Often, I’ll read a poem on the page and enjoy it, then hear it read aloud and fall completely in love with it,” said Lim.
“I’m always amazed by how many funny moments, insights and turns of phrase you can emphasize or pull out of a poem just by reading it aloud.”
When this COVID-19 madness abates and life hopefully heads back toward normal Lim hopes the Dead Poets Reading Series both continues online and comes back to life in its original live form.
“I want to hug my friends again, to look into people’s eyes as I’m reading and feel the room respond to each poem in real time,” said Lim.
“That energy is magic.”