Poet and filmmaker Richard O’ Moore immortalised ten classic American poets in his documentary series.
Not only is using poetry as dialogue extremely difficult in film, but recording footage of poetry readings can be a painful experience. It’s similar to recording a dance or a live musical performance. The performers make mistakes, but filmmakers also often feel a need to spice things up, to add frills and frivolities to what could be a straightforward recording. Richard O’ Moore, an American poet during the 1950’s, taught us how art should be captured on film; clearly.
His documentary series, USA: Poetry, aired throughout 1966, and showcased some of the brightest and most popular talents in the American poetry scene at the time. O’ Moore himself being a talented and published poet was well known and regarded among the people he interviewed. This mutual respect, along with O’ Moore’s interest in the cinema verite style, may have led to the pure, unpretentious and honest short films he created.
USA: Poetry consists of ten short films, most featuring two poets. O’ Moore captured the writers in their homes, their studios or out and about in daily life, and also encouraged readings from their popular works. These poets included internationally recognisable names such as Allen Ginsberg, William Carlos Williams and Robert Duncan, as well as names beloved by devoted poetry readers such as confessional poet Anne Sexton and centre of the artistic circle in New York, Frank O’ Hara.
What is most apparent in these short documentaries is the mutual respect between people and the high regard for art as a practice. By filming poets reciting their work with barely any cuts, straight-on and without farce, O’ Moore and his subjects permeate the screen with their respect for the written word and deep, almost religious devotion to artistic creation. This is not done in a holier-than-thou or glamorised way, however. We see Frank O’Hara talking on the phone, smoking, making jokes and then reading his poetry with fervour and passion. The poet is humanised whilst being serious about their work.
This would be a difficult thing to emulate. Poetry is hard to define and often neglected in the modern world. In some ways, everything is poetry, in other ways nothing is, unless it is written, published and stamped as a poem by a poet. Yet all writing, whether fiction or non-fiction prose or even screenplays and biographies, can be considered poetry. What O’ Moore captured in his films was a time when poetry was more defined because it was blooming. There was an understanding of the written word as it was formatted and as it was named, rather than the melding of multi-media into single works of confused genre that we see today.
Furthermore, rather than keeping his scope narrow, O’Moore showcase a wide berth of poets in his films. We see the more traditional and literarily focused readings of William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley and Kenneth Koch, whilst also entering the passionate and lyrical world of Anne Sexton. Sexton’s portrait is particularly spectacular, as we are presented with the true bond between the poet and her craft, her whole personality on display both in the film and in her words. We see the friendliness of Frank O’Hara and his true, unerring passion for the art world as well as his playfulness in his own poems. O’ Moore makes sure, by shooting events as they occur and without any visual trickery, to present us with portraits of real people.
Documentaries are popular today, but only when they are excitingly edited highly glamorised stories about murder. Richard O’Moore’s subtle, simple and sophisticated documentaries are testaments of a different time in regards to art and filmmaking. There is little information available as to how successful the series was at the time, however most would appreciate it now as invaluable, an immortalisation of the connection between people, poetry and the world.
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