ILLUSTRATED POEM
Bridge
Total run time, including credits: 2 minutes.
Text of poem:
sometimes
you think about demons
and other things that start with d
shadows and blurs
of everything
and nothing
fluid as memory
fluid as time
they scare you
because
they come without reason
into your stomach
into your hands
you try to remember a life without them
but there’s no bridge back
to that place in your mind
you wonder if anything ever was real
how you became this you-but-not-you
you know you should know
you know it should matter
but there’s no bridge back
from this place in your mind
you can’t even remember the sun on your face
can’t even remember
the sun
Madeira from the sea
God's Favour, Anne
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the death of Anne Hathaway in summer 2023, this poem was commissioned for publication by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. The composite personality of the faithful and apprehensive Anne references a range of Shakespeare's female characters as well as Tudor Royalty . (The opening quote is Shylock’s from ‘The Merchant of Venice’.) This poem recalls young Anne Hathaway as it recalls lost wives - Shylock's Leah and his daughter Jessica - as a way of thinking about poems lost and lives left unrecorded: disappearing poetic moments in all our lives we have given away to others.Production techniques include animating flat puppets using an antique bottle as a lens and shadow play of hands and objects set into animated textures created under the camera with oil paints.