By ELIZABETH
VALENTIN
Arts Editor
Scott Laudati is a New York writer, who has released a new collection of poems, one of which he created an accompanying video for.
The video for the poem “Buffalo Bones” features the voiceover of a woman, who is reciting the poem. It starts with a man in front of a television smoking a cigarette, while music begins to play to accompany the girl’s narration of the poem.
The video then follows the same man out of his house and into the New York City train station. He travels into Times Square, where people are shown walking and smiling towards him. While the video shows the scenes in Times Square, it also flashes between this and images of him back in his home and clips where the man removes a postcard from his fridge.
Perhaps the strangest part of the video is the images of a person wearing a horse mask sitting on the floor of room, making a banner that says “Bone House.” This later is shown to be a flag, which a small gang of people congregate around and salute to.
While this video continues, the words of the poem and the music bleed into one another, which makes the words difficult to hear, but adds an effect that entrances the viewer.
This, overall, is a strange video, but not necessarily in a bad way. It creates an unconventional way to experience poetry and allows for a visual and audible expression of what the poem is trying to convey.
The poem itself is interesting and doesn’t appear to be outright connected to the visuals. Despite this, the poem does reference shooting a gun at a random location on a map and going there. This can easily be connected to the postcard and the images of Times Square, which is a high tourist hub.
The poem also mentions the thawing of winter and the blooming of spring. This is a positive and uplifting line from the poem, but is followed by “don’t worry, eventually we all shiver in the sun.” This is something that stands out and is pretty powerful to think about.
The poem overall is well written and captivating. The accompanying video is interesting in its own right. This poem and others written by Laudati can be found in his new book “Bone House,” which is available for purchase.
