Organizing your writing life

I'M READY FOR MY CLOSE UP... Georgia Tech got permission from MARTA for us to film inside Peachtree Center station yesterday afternoon for the digital poetry project, so I hopped on the train and headed over there to meet Karen Head and cameraguy Jacob. Since I had recorded a static version just reading the poem to camera on Monday and had previously recorded an audio version, Karen and Co. will now take the footage and edit it together into the first video. The plan is to have a poem/video for each station on the MARTA network. It's an ambitious project, but MARTA has embraced it. The goal is to showcase the poems/videos inside the stations and on the trains, as well as create an anthology either online or in print.

We were able to shoot the footage we needed pretty quickly. I got back on a southbound train, went to the next stop and the rode north again so they could film the train pulling into the station and me exiting the car. By sheer luck, we went up to the mezzanine that over looks the platform and got a great (at least I think it was) shot of me looking down as two trains pulled in and departed the station simultaneously. Peachtree Center is famed for having some of the tallest escalators in the southeast and I reference this in my poem, so then we filmed a shot of me riding up until I disappear. The station is also deep under the city and the platform walls are made of solid rock left exposed when they were creating the tunnel.

Filming me at the station was basically a test to see how this is all going to work out. Other poets have been selected and Tech has permission from MARTA to do other filming. It will be a long process since there are 38 stations to cover. I have to admit, it would be pretty damn cool to get on the train or walk into the station and see and hear me doing a poem on one of monitors. I'll keep you posted on how the project is progressing.