Creative Collaborations

God’s Favour, Anne

I wrote God’ s Favour, Anne (2023) as a way of thinking about Anne Shakespeare as a metaphor for all the lost wives and daughters in literary and biblical history. And then as a way of thinking about the exigencies of poetry and the craft of the poet which compresses and reduces autobiography for the sake of the tight - you might even say cruel - craft of poetry. So here, in this poem, life and love are traded in for the poet's commitment to his art. Meanwhile, Anne has a life of her own which is not seen or heard: after all, there have been many Annes in history forsaken by the will or status of their husbands. Disappearing Annes. This poem recalls young Anne Shakespeare as it recalls lost wives - Shylock's Leah and his daughter Jessica - as a way of reflecting upon poems lost and lives left unrecorded: disappearing poetic moments in all our lives we have given away to others. What you might call the Romance of Life which takes but doesn't always return.

The Blue from Heaven

The Blue From Heaven (2019) is a short animated interpretation of poet Stevie Smith’s eponymous poem. The film works directly with Smith’s own drawings to portray the legendary world of King Arthur and Guinevere. The voice of Glenda Jackson narrates the poem. With kind permission of Hamish MacGibbon for the Stevie Smith Estate. Sally advised on this project and helped generate some of the story-arc.

In 2019 The Blue from Heaven won the Strand Bookshop (New York City) Film Festival Best Edited Film award. The film has also been selected for the ZEBRA POETRY Film Festival, Berlin, November 2020; and the High Peak Indie Film Festival, October 2020, where it has been nominated for Outstanding Animated Short and Best Short-Short categories. In February 2020 it was screened at the LOVE FILM FESTIVAL, Covent Garden, London; in 2019 it was screened at the Gibraltar Literary Festival. 

Proem - To Brooklyn Bridge

Proem- To Brooklyn Bridge (2013) is a 5 minute animated representation of poet Hart Crane's iconic 'Proem' from his epic work 'The Bridge'. Suzie Hanna animated the film using hand cut stencils imitating some graphic aspects of contemporaneous 1920s New York artists who were in Hart Crane's coterie, such as Joseph Stella and Marsden Hartley. The voice of Tennessee Williams, who was an ardent admirer of Crane, is taken from a 1960 recording. Sound composer, Tom Simmons, has built this into a resonant dramatic soundscape which interprets the materiality of the bridge, the surrounding land and waterscape and the 'prayerful' qualities of the Proem. Sally was producer of this film.

The film won first prize for music and sound and second prize for best editing at the Liberated Words Festival, Bristol, in 2014. In 2015 the film was selected for the 12th London Short Film Festival, the 8th British Short Film Festival in Berlin, the Panorama programme at Melbourne International Animation Festival, PoetryFilm 2 at Kosmopolis CCCB Barcelona, Marathon screening at Athens Animfest, New York Short Film Fridays Festival, and Best of Zebra 2014 at the POETRY festival Munster, Germany 2015. 

Letter to the World

Letter to the World (2010) is a 9 minute animation created for the Emily Dickinson International Symposium in partnership with sound composer, Tom Simmons, Norwich University College of the Arts and film maker, Suzie Hanna. The film is inspired by Dickinson's experiments with hybridity and dual identities, by which the poet creates a vast imaginary landscape with an extraordinary microscopic perception of nature. Sally partly commissioned and devised the narrative of this film.

The film was screened at The Emily Dickinson International Symposia, Oxford University (2010) and selected for the 6th ZEBRA Poetry Film Festival, Berlin (2012) and The Sylvia Plath Symposium Indiana University, Bloomington, USA (2012).

The Girl Who Would Be God

The Girl Who Would Be God (2007), is a 6 minute short animation depicting the artistic coming of age of poet and artist, Sylvia Plath. The film’s inspiration is a journal entry made by Sylvia Plath on November 13th 1949, alongside two early poems, 'Cinderella' and 'Aerialist', her teenaged drawings and paintings and her own musical interests. Sally commissioned and helped devise the structure, content and narrative of this film.

The film was screened all over the world at the following events: Woodstock Literary Society (2012); Sylvia Plath Symposium, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA (2012); Magdalen College School Arts Week Oxford (2011); Beyond Words Arts Festival, University College School Hampstead (2009); FilmFest, Dresden, Germany (2008); Bologna Centre, John Hopkins University, Bologna, Italy (2008); Words by the Water, Derwentwater Literary Festival (2008); Charleston literary Festival, (part of Brighton Festival) (2008); Oxford Literary Festival (2008); Sylvia Plath interdisciplinary event, Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK (2007); Sylvia Plath's Art of the Visual, Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, London, UK (2007); and the Sylvia Plath 75th Year International Symposium ‘Creative Process and Product’, Oxford University, UK (2007).

I Wish I Had a Sylvia Plath

Sylvia and the Robin

In 2007 Sally commissioned an original portrait of Sylvia Plath from the pop artist, Stella Vine. The portrait - ‘Sylvia and Robin’ -  was shown at the South Bank Centre as part of a 75th year celebration of Plath’s artistic life.

Poppies

In 2007 I commissioned Kate Flatt, Choreographer and Movement Director, to create a dance piece responding to Sylvia Plath’s ‘Poppies’ poems. Kate worked with dancer Natalia Thorn (below) and the piece was performed at the South Bank Centre. Photographs by Oliver Lamford.
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