TY - BOOK

T1 - Boudica & field notes towards a dynamic film-poem form

AU - Haw, Matthew James

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - The thesis comprises an original, book-length sequence of poems, Boudica, and a film-poem of the same name. Boudica engages in a topographical mediation on East Anglia, specifically the landscapes of Norfolk and north Suffolk. The subject of the sequence is Boudica, a young woman trapped within a stifling suburban upbringing and her dead-end job at the pub in her village. Structured in four parts, the poem explores her adolescent ennui, her ambivalence towards place and her small acts of existential rebellion against this condition. The verse itself is constructed of images from cinema and after cinema, images bound to the physicality of cinema. Poet and narrator are allowed access to the viewfinder: lines, images, and stanzas attempt to frame themselves within the logic of cinematography, a logic which asks that the poet’s eye becomes the camera lens, exploiting cinema and ekphrasis by projecting meaning without making it explicit. The film is composed of images which have been suggested by the lyrics, the cinematic sequencing of these images has then dictated the order in which the lyrics appear in the collection. The thematic and structural links between the film and the sequence of poems are the subject of the supporting reflective essay. This paper explores my practice-led methodology and approach to the making of Boudica, offering key definitions with regards to ekphrasis and the hybrid film-poem form. It explores dynamic points of intersection between film and poetry in Boudica as well as case studies in recent writing and practice on ekphrasis, poetry and cinema.

AB - The thesis comprises an original, book-length sequence of poems, Boudica, and a film-poem of the same name. Boudica engages in a topographical mediation on East Anglia, specifically the landscapes of Norfolk and north Suffolk. The subject of the sequence is Boudica, a young woman trapped within a stifling suburban upbringing and her dead-end job at the pub in her village. Structured in four parts, the poem explores her adolescent ennui, her ambivalence towards place and her small acts of existential rebellion against this condition. The verse itself is constructed of images from cinema and after cinema, images bound to the physicality of cinema. Poet and narrator are allowed access to the viewfinder: lines, images, and stanzas attempt to frame themselves within the logic of cinematography, a logic which asks that the poet’s eye becomes the camera lens, exploiting cinema and ekphrasis by projecting meaning without making it explicit. The film is composed of images which have been suggested by the lyrics, the cinematic sequencing of these images has then dictated the order in which the lyrics appear in the collection. The thematic and structural links between the film and the sequence of poems are the subject of the supporting reflective essay. This paper explores my practice-led methodology and approach to the making of Boudica, offering key definitions with regards to ekphrasis and the hybrid film-poem form. It explores dynamic points of intersection between film and poetry in Boudica as well as case studies in recent writing and practice on ekphrasis, poetry and cinema.

KW - poetry

KW - film

KW - landscape

KW - Norfolk Broads, UK

KW - Boudica

KW - Boudicca

KW - Boudicea

KW - research as practise

U2 - 10.17635/lancaster/thesis/284

DO - 10.17635/lancaster/thesis/284

M3 - Doctoral Thesis

PB - Lancaster University

ER -