A beautiful and moving video by Jim Avis, pairing my comics adaptation of Gerard Manley Hopkins’s poem “Spring and Fall” with a musical interpretation of that same poem by Natalie Merchant.
The original comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing).
With Halloween around the corner, here is a suitably eerie video adaptation by Jim Avis of my own comics interpretation of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s poem “Conscientious Objector” (1934). The poem is read by Natalie Rushing.
The original comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing).
My comics adaptation of one of my all-time favourite poems, Stevie Smith’s “Not Waving But Drowning”(1957) appears today on the Plough.com website. The comic was created last year for inclusion in “Poems to See By,” (published by Plough Publishing in March of this year) but ultimately didn’t make the final cut.
The south shore of the St. Lawrence River around Montmagny and l’Islet is in places lacking in topographical variety. There are no cliffs nor steep slopes, but rather grassy beaches burgeoning with wild rice and sedges, murky from the fine clay of the tides. Towards the north are vast horizons, along which the Laurentians are visible when the weather is clear. In the morning, the fog hides them away and drowns them in the ephemeral cottony mist that rises from the waters, and after nightfall, one may discern them by the illusory beacons that the fires are always lighting here and there upon their granite slopes.
L’Islet is an old village, a “bourg” as they say over there, slumbering peaceably by the tranquil waves, guarded since time immemorial by its rocky island, “l’Islette,” which is generally deserted. At most, a schooner may sometimes happen to moor there. A few barrels are unloaded, a few planks of wood carried aboard, and that’s the end of it.
The inhabitants of l’Islet, a population of old-timers, have many legends, and none is better substantiated than that of the Rocher Panet (“Panet’s rock”). This rock forms a pair with “l’Islette,” and is the visible outcropping of a little mountain submerged under the mud, surrounded by the tides, and which almost disappears at high water. It is really next to nothing, but this next to nothing has its own legend, which is perhaps only a tall tale. Everybody there knows it off by heart (or almost). It was written down in a little booklet by J. T. Jemmat, who relates it with great enthusiasm. Listen:
“A wretched woman, whose name and shame the legend has suppressed, had dared to sell her immortal soul and her eternal felicity to the devil, in exchange for dishonorable passions. The impure spirit appeared unsatisfied by this bargain, and wished to also possess the body of his unfortunate victim. Abusing of his power, his infernal malice cast her upon the rock, which had not the gloomy appearance that it has today: One would have thought it was an emerald floating upon the waves, resplendent in the greenness of its shrubbery and the brilliant hues of its flowers. No sooner had that cursed foot made contact with the island, however, that the petals folded inwards and wilted away, the shrubbery shriveled up and died. Continue reading
Two scenes from near where I live – an alley in Côte-Saint-Paul and a view along the aqueduct in Verdun – rendered in a style that tries to imitate that of the nineteenth-century Japanese ukiyo-e prints by such artists as Hokusai and Hiroshige.
I think one of the reasons I always find myself so captivated by those classic prints is that they remind me, in an odd, refracted way, of the environments that I grew up in in Montreal. The simple, often straight lines, bright primary colours, low lying buildings, and striking superimpositions of green and urban spaces are characteristic of both. 
A beautiful anime-adjacent video interpretation by James Avis of my comics adaptation of William Butler Yeats’s poem “When You Are Old.” The drawings are a homage to the Japanese shojo manga tradition, and particularly to the work of the CLAMP collective. The digital screen tones effects are by the brilliant Maryse Daniel.
The original comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing): https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/poetry/poems-to-see-by
A delightful interpretation by Jim Avis of one my poetry comics, this time my adaptation of “may my hear always be open to little” by e e cummings.
The original comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing): https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/poetry/poems-to-see-by
A new video interpretation by Jim Davis of my comics adaptation of William Ernest Henley’s classic poem “Invictus” (1875). Avis has added a surprise flourish to the final drawing, one that I feel is in keeping with Henley’s theme of thumbing one’s nose at the tyranny of fate, if not perhaps with Victorian propriety.
This comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing): https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/poetry/poems-to-see-by
A very sensitive video adaptation by Jim Avis of my comics interpretation of Christina Rossetti’s poem “Somewhere or Other.” I find this one makes particularly effective use of Avis’s signature zooming technique. The terrific reading is by “the Wordman” and the musical accompaniment is a piece by Charles Ives.
This comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing): https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/poetry/poems-to-see-by
Another video interpretation by Jim Avis of my comics interpretation of the poem “Those winter Sundays” by the American poet Robert Hayden (who by the way studied under W. H. Auden, who was featured in the last Jim Avis video here). The images are accompanied by a wonderful reading of the text by the poet himself.
This comics adaptation, along with 23 others, can be found in my new book, Poems to See By: A Comic Artist Interprets Great Poetry (Plough Publishing): https://www.plough.com/en/topics/culture/poetry/poems-to-see-by
