My year in 2022

[Reading time: 20 minutes]

Highlights

2022 was a year of travels for Lilián and me, and also for our films. It's not easy to choose one highlight. Normally I'd say publishing my collection of poems La rebeldía del sol (Rebellious Sun) would be the best moment and a lot of the spring was spent re-reading and editing in both English and Spanish, building up to the publishing and presentation with Olifante Ediciones de Poesía in Expoesía—the poetry book fair of Soria at the beginning of August—or my first experience of acting in front of the camera with Spanish director Jesús Pulpón—a bonus that it was in Munich and Lilián was acting alongside me—, or making the poetry film Mom Asks Me to Write Her a Poem About the Sky with a poem by Christine Jones, which went on to win third prize in the Filmetry Festival in Michigan, or my film The Exhibition, made in 2021, finally being selected for festivals in Berlin, Mexico City and Granada, or participating in the Poetry Festival of Cartagena, Colombia, but outshining all of these, and perhaps the biggest challenge as well, was spending a month with a Poetry Fellowship together with Lilián giving creative poetry workshops in a school and the Our Little Roses orphanage for girls in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. But back to the start of the year…

Bestial

Lilián's show Bestial, based on the poems from her collection of the same name (you can read four poems here in translation), premiered at the end of 2021 and she had two performances at the beginning of 2022, in Sala Tarambana, Madrid and Teatro Montalvo, Cercedilla.

After the presentation of Bestial in the Sala Tarambana, Madrid,
with Denisse, Daniel, Syla, Lilián, Nar, Fabrice and me

I was involved with the stage lighting and photography of the show at both presentations. I had planned the lighting for the show but each theatre has a different set-up and mixing desk so I was learning on the job each time, although I only made a couple of small mistakes. Note to self: you will have problems with the cameras and the lights at the same time—always keep one eye on the stage!

The theatre in Cercedilla had a huge stage so I could have fun with the lights, but it was freezing cold so the performers (and the audience!) had a hard time of it. Nevertheless the show went well and the audience was captivated right to the final applause.

Curtain call for Bestial in Teatro Montalvo, Cercedilla,
with Nar, Syla, Daniel, Lilián, Marisa and Fabrice.

Poetry events continued, with Lilián being the guest poet at the February Poetry Slam, and then we both took part in the 5º Festival Internacional Febrero Poético (FIFP) Oriente - Occidente in Casa Árabe, Madrid, where two of our poetry films were shown.

Journeys in time

We were very lucky to be asked by Abdul Hadi Sadoun to film a documentary about the book Las Muallaqat para Millennials (The Mu'allaqat for Millennials). This involved us travelling in March to Alicante, Malaga and Cordoba to interview the translators of the poems into Spanish. I particularly looked forward to Cordoba as it was the first city I visited in Spain, way back in 1993 or thereabouts, when I did a flamenco course with Paco Peña. As we walked from the station into the old part of town suddenly the streets became narrower, emptier and darker and it felt like we were going back in time.

Arriving in Cordoba.

Taking photos in Malaga.

It was also fascinating hearing the stories of these pre-Islamic poems and the different considerations of the translators with their translating. Making a documentary about poetry was great for us as we could include poetic passages between the interviews that captured moments of our travels.

Still from the documentary.

Acting in a film

2022 was the year I had my first acting role, in a film being made by the young Spanish filmmaker Jesús Pulpón. It meant Lilián and I were able to travel to Munich in the Spring and we had some free time to explore the city and wander along the river, which was busy with people enjoying the sun and some taking a dip in the icy water.

Munich, May 2022

You can read more about the experience in Lights, camera, action… in Munich. The film is still in the process of being made and edited, so I don't even know the final title yet.

Jesús Pulpón and Karla Bauer filming, May 2022

Jesús made a short trip to Madrid a month later to film my painting Los tejados (The Roofs), for possible inclusion in the film. Lilián filmed this short clip of Jesús filming while I practise one of Philip Glass's piano etudes:

Awards for Lilián

Following on from the two awards Lilián received in 2020—from the Embassy of Colombia and the Rumiñahui Association—we were invited to the award ceremony of Gladiadores en el Extranjero (Overseas Gladiators) organised by the community of the Dominican Republic in Madrid. Lilián was presented with an award for 'Cultural development (Art and Culture)' for her artistic trajectory in Spain.

Lilián before the presentation of Premio Gladiadores, 25 June 2022

I also accompanied Lilián to poetry recitals in Moralzarzal for the I Festival Internacional Imprescindibles, to Vallecas in Madrid for Poetry in Ensanche, the presentation in Madrid of a translation of Pat Parker into Spanish, for which Lilián wrote the foreword, a presentation of her show Cuentos bajo el sol (Stories in the Sun) in the Cultural Centre Gloria Fuertes, and together, we took part in a homage to our friend Ángel Guinda in the Complutense University of Madrid.

Trying for funding

I began the year with an application for funding from Creative New Zealand to study the current state of poetry film in Aotearoa New Zealand. I'd only heard of two or three other New Zealanders who made poetry films so I began researching and connecting with people. It wasn't easy at first, but gradually I've begun building a picture of what is happening in the country. As part of my preparation I set up the Facebook group Poetry Film Aotearoa for New Zealand poets, filmmakers, artists and musicians interested in the subject, which has slowly been growing.

After receiving notice that I hadn't been granted funding I continued the next step on my plan of action and reached out via private Facebook pages to New Zealand filmmakers. This led to an invitation to give a poetry workshop in Wellington and participate in the first Aotearoa Poetry Film Festival there in November 2023. The call for films is going to open shortly and I'm looking forward to my first visit 'back home' in 21 years.

I have always dedicated my time to creative projects, despite there being no money. In 2011 I set up the poetry competition in Spanish, Palabras Prestadas, which I ran for six years. Then in 2016 I started the Given Words competition for New Zealand's National Poetry Day. Both projects have received support in kind from publishers donating books as prizes and I've had wonderful feedback from the participants. Given Words, with its class plan for teachers, has also been very popular in schools.

Statistics from seven years of Given Words – from funding application, 2022.

I have an offer to publish a collection of the poems from the eight editions of the competition—including this year—, and applied for funding towards the preparation of the book and of this year's competition, including workshops. In one of the most competitive Creative New Zealand funding rounds ever at the end of 2022, we weren't successful. I don't know how I'm going to find the money to make this happen, and the idea was to take advantage of the impulse, given the enticement of the future book, to reach a larger audience and participation, especially in schools. So I feel a little trepidation thinking about all the extra work this will involve in 2023.

The goodbye

Ángel Guinda in Lavapiés, 23 October 2019.

I took this photos of our dear friend and neighbour Ángel Guinda when we bumped into each other with my parents in Lavapiés on my fiftieth birthday (23 de octubre, 2019) as he was on his way to a lunch with friends. A day or two before his death on 29th January I had a dream where Ángel lay in a bed. I had a strong sensation of terror which lasted a few seconds, then I took his hand and we both felt a profound calm. I don't usually remember my dreams, but shaken by the emotion I told Lilián as soon as I woke up. After hearing the news I understood it as his goodbye.

Ángel was a very important presence in both Lilián's and my poetry and artistic journeys. We made the poetry film Libro de Huellas (Book of Traces) with him, which was one of our first pieces to be shown in the ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival in Berlin. He participated in the article I wrote for the book The Poetics of Poetry Film (Intellect Books, 2021) and so I offered the Maldito Festival of Video Poetry in Albacete, Spain, a special version of a documentary I'd made the previous year as a homage to Ángel, including the poetry films he made with us and Sándor M Salas. This was shown in Maldito Festival in October 2022.

Documentary 'Video poetry in Portugal and Spain' for Maldito Festival, October 2022.

Connecting

One thread that runs through my work is that of joining dots. With the Given Words online poetry competition, the search for poetry filmmakers in Aotearoa New Zealand, my study of poetry film in Colombia—which was published in two parts in WMagazín on 1 March 2022 (in Spanish) and includes 11 examples of poetry films—, I'm interested in connecting people together and seeing what can come from these communities. 

My poetry film The Exhibition was also a collaborative work exploring different audiovisual languages and ways of working. The Exhibition didn't get selected for any festivals last year but this year it found its way to the FilmArte Festival in Berlin—a festival dedicated to films related with art and artists—then Fotogenia in Mexico City and Cinemística in Granada. We were in Honduras and Colombia when the festivals were taking place; close to Mexico but not quite close enough! 

In the spring, I was invited to be one of the judges of the first ekphrastic poetry film prize Frame to Frames—Your Eyes Follow, organised by Sarah Tremlett as part of the LYRA Bristol poetry festival. As both an artist and filmmaker it was fun watching all the entries and thinking about the different ways poetry film can respond to paintings. Something to think about next time I'm in a gallery, or with my own paintings.

A number of poetry film festivals ask for submissions based on a poem or from a selection of poems, as is the case of the Filmetry Festival in Michigan. I hadn't entered in one of these before but I connected with Christine Jones's poem Mom Asks Me to Write Her a Poem About the Sky and I had images and sounds I'd recorded in Malaga and Munich which I thought might work with the text. It was fun to make and was a lovely surprise to not just be selected, but to win third prize in the festival. You can watch the film Mom Asks Me to Write Her a Poem About the Sky on the Filmetry archive.

Our poetry film Frozen Cry was selected for Cadence Video Poetry Festival in Seattle at the end of April. Our film Noho Mai was there the previous year. A hybrid in-person and online festival, they have an online event for film directors to meet and discuss their work. During this discussion I met two filmmakers whose films dealt with issues related with physical disabilities and thought it would be interesting to connect them with the Art and Culture department of the ONCE Foundation—a national Spanish organisation promoting the rights of people with disabilities. This led to me making a proposal to the ONCE Foundation and the curator of their Biennal of Contemporary Art included three of my suggested pieces in the exhibition and parallel screenings at the end of 2022. Part of the proposal was to run a three-day poetry film workshop in January 2023. This was also accepted and was something to look forward to in the new year.

Frozen Cry was also selected for the Bloomsday Festival in Ireland and the presentation FILM+GLOBAL CURRENTS in Melbourne, Australia, and our film The Calm Sea, made with our niece Mía, travelled to Nudo Festival in Tenerife and Barcelona.

When the dots join together and create a larger picture I feel like I'm on the right track. Maybe it's just an illusion, but there is a satisfaction that comes from seeing the results and being able to share these achievements with those who have formed part of this same journey.

Spain, Aotearoa New Zealand, Honduras

In August, I ran the Given Words competition for National Poetry Day and as Lilián and I were soon to go to Honduras to give creative poetry workshops in the Our Little Roses orphanage in San Pedro Sula, we asked if the girls would choose the words. I sent them a project to create and film artistic presentations of their chosen words, which I published on the Given Words website on 1 August. Poets in Aotearoa New Zealand had until the 26th August to send in their poems. You can read the winning poems on Read NZ Te Pou Muramura.

Also in August was the first Aotearoa Spanish Language Week (15-21 August, 2022) for which I shared the series Poem on the Terrace, which I'd created in 2017 with fellow kiwi and artist Anna Borrie to introduce Spanish audiences to Aotearoa New Zealand poets.

Then in September, my poem and poetry film 'Vertigo' was featured in the Spanish educational project Un Poema Cada Semana (A Poem Each Week) run by philosophy teacher and cultural coordinator Antonio Martín Flores. Each week he prepares an analysis of a poem and some questions for his students to investigate. Of Vertigo he writes:

'Olsen, therefore, has not arbitrarily created a poem, he throughly considers the structure and composition: each word has a unique allegorical power, and in addition, each word is in itself a metaphor in relation to the other words and to the poem as a whole.'

I think it is a wonderful project and I am hoping to coordinate with Antonio something similar to the words from Honduras for the next Given Words.

Our Little Roses

In October, Lilián and I flew to San Pedro Sula in Honduras to take up a month-long Poetry Fellowship at Our Little Roses, an orphanage for girls, where we spent the mornings giving creative poetry classes in the bilingual school from pre-kindergarten up to year 11. Then we would have lunch in the canteen of Our Little Roses before rushing off to more classes, returning in the evening to hang out in the courtyard to chat, listen, paint, or help out with homework. Or we'd all go to the 'cancha'—a covered football pitch and eating area—to play football, skip, or learn Tik-Tok dance routines. Lilián showed the girls some African dance moves and I taught some basic Jive dance. We also ran a poetry club and have filmed material together for a poetry film which we have yet to edit.

Storytelling in Holy Family Bilingual School, San Pedro Sula.

The above photo shows a fish I made with the girls on the day of the Halloween party. We were in the courtyard making things when I found this branch had fallen from one of the palm trees. Looking at it I thought we could turn it into a mask or an animal. With a nail I scratched on the scales and made slits for the fins and dorsal fin. One of the girls found the husks of a seed and brought glue to stick them on as eyes. We drew around the eyes in black felt tip to make them stand out. Finally we rubbed the red skins of seeds onto the surface to produce a warmer brown colour. It became my companion for my pirate costume at the evening's Halloween party, and the following day it was the star of the pre-school class where Lilián told the story of 'El pescaito' (The Little Fish). It also has a role in the aforementioned poetry film!

I still need to sit down and write down my experiences at Our Little Roses in full, but it has left a lasting impression on both myself and Lilián.

Before we travelled I looked up book fairs in San Pedro Sula and there just happened to be the second edition of the San Pedro Sula Book Fair the weekend after we arrived. Thanks to festival director Giovanni Rodríguez we were invited to participate in readings on the Saturday evening and Sunday morning, which was a lovely way to get involved in the wider community there.

Colombia

Lilián wasn't able to visit Colombia when her mother died during the pandemic so we took the opportunity to fly from San Pedro Sula via Panama to Barranquilla, to spend Christmas and New Year with Lilián's aunt Carmiña. We touched down late in the evening and arrived after midnight at the house where the neighbours were having a party on the front patio with music at full volume, and it went on until 4:00am… Welcome to Barranquilla!

Self portrait with aunty Carmiña, November 2022

I was looking forward to relaxing after Honduras, but we had a busy agenda in Colombia too. We were invited to give a presentation of our poetry films in the Esquina Festival, a festival dedicated to the legacy of Ernesto McCausland, with whom Lilián had worked on films and I had met at the offices of the newspaper El Heraldo on a previous trip. At the end of November with our friend Leo Castillo we gave the recital Poétage à trois in the wonderfully chilled out back garden of Casa Morón, and then with Miguel Iriarte we presented our latest books, Bestial and La rebeldía del sol, in the Biblioteca Piloto del Caribe. A few days later at the beginning of December we were on a bus travelling along the coast to Cartagena where we were guests of the Poetry Festival of Cartagena, an amazing experience which I've written all about here.

From Cartagena we travelled on to Rincón del Mar, near San Onofre in Sucre, to visit Lilián's friend Carmen and her family. They live at @casasurya, 3km from the coast on land which they have returned to an edible, sustainable forest, and where they provide accommodation or you can just visit for a vegetarian lunch and tour of the property.

Butterfly in the gardens of Casa Surya.

Living in an open-walled wooden dwelling (no windows to shut out the world) our daily routine became more natural, rising with the sun and going to sleep shortly after sunset. Waking in the night I listened for ages to the rhythms of the frogs and insects, or went downstairs to see the flashing points of light of fireflies in the adjacent land. It was lovely to see humming birds, large Morpho Blue butterflies, a raccoon, red squirrels, and also the different types of yam, cassava, potatoes that grow hanging in the air, the hibiscus flowers which we ate with lunch, the ovens made from termite mounds… I need to write up our visit and sort through the hundreds of photos…

Lilián also performed her show Afrolyrics 'poetry to the rhythm of the drum' in Rincón del Mar with Manuela Julio Guerrero and the group Octopus, and invited me to recite two of my poems with the group.

Photos on the beach in Rincón del Mar with spectacular clouds.

We spent Christmas and New Year with Carmiña back in Barranquilla, visiting some of the places where Lilián spent time as a child. Luckily the next-door neighbours didn't have any more parties, although on New Year's eve, walking around the block before midnight, there were many families out on their front patios with large sound systems blasting out salsa into the night.

Photography

I sometimes prefer to take a sketchbook and my watercolours rather than the camera, especially when we were out in Barranquilla. It is a different way of looking and relating to the surroundings. See for example my watercolour from our last day in Colombia. Of my photographs this year, one of my favourite series is one I did with Daniela, the daughter of a close friend, and Lilián at Almenara on the Valencian coast. You can see the album Summer Shadows on my website.

'Summer Shadows' with Lilián and Daniela in Almenara, July 2022.

La rebeldía del sol

And going back to August, Lilián and I travelled to Soria for Expoesía, where I presented, alongside my publisher Trinidad Ruiz Marcellán, my new collection of poetry La rebeldía del sol or Rebellious Sun. This collection began life during the III Antonio Machada Poetry Fellowship of Segovia and Soria, which I was awarded in 2018, and was five years in the making. Unlike most poetry books, I decided to include a community element with winning poems from competitions in Spain and Aotearoa New Zealand which I'd run, alongside my own poems inspired by my stays in Segovia and Soria.

After presenting La rebeldía del sol, with, from L to R: Maria Fuentes of Vaso Roto,
Polish poet Marta Eloy Cichocka, me and my publisher at Olifante, Trinidad Ruiz Marcellán.

I didn't see the book until I sat down for it's presentation in Soria, having just arrived a few minutes before by bus from Madrid. It was sealed in protective plastic and, as I wrote on Facebook in Spanish:

I love how it has turned out, the cover in olive green with my photo of the head of Antonio Machado by Spanish sculptor Pablo Serrano, the postcard with a watercolour I painted in the countryside of Alconaba, The poems in English and Spanish with their titles in the same olive green, the colour photographs from my visits in Segovia and Soria, the images of the poetry walks with groups in both provinces, the cream coloured paper, the smell…

It took a month or two before the collection was available to buy online and then we were off to Honduras, so I haven't done very much promotion, and have yet to organise a presentation here in Madrid. If you'd like to own a copy of La rebeldía del sol you can find details here.

La rebeldía del sol (Rebellious Sun, Olifante Ediciones de Poesía, 2022) by the River Duero.

I have missed out a few things, a recital in Voix Vives, Toledo, meeting the poet Trevor Hayes in Madrid,  looking after chooks and cats in Almenara, photographing a birthday party in La Granja, and lots of stories about all of the above! 

Ngā mihi, thank you, gracias to everyone who has been part of my journey in 2022.

Charles Olsen, Madrid, 30 January 2023