Photo by Alysse Einbender

Just had to share this beautiful mix of word, sound, image and movement. It’s called a video poem — a testament to the potency of mixed media.  The last four lines are especially poignant for writers. Enjoy. 

And if you’d like to read along:

Reticent Sonnet

A pronoun is a kind of withdrawal from naming.

Because naming is heavy, naming may be slightly shaming

We live much more lightly than this

we address ourselves allusively in our minds –

as “I” or “we” or “one” – part of a system

that argues with shadow, like Venetian blinds

Speaking of Venice, called “the Shakespeare of cities” by a friend of mine

reminds me how often the Sonnets misprint “their” for “thine”:

beware the fog in Venice.

Beware those footsteps that stop in a hush.

I used to think I would grow up to be a person whose reasoning was deep.

instead I became a kind of brush.

I brush words against words. So do we follow ourselves out of youth

brushing, brushing, brushing wild grapes onto truth.

Anne Carson