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The Teesside poet has won this year’s competition with his project Ars Moriendi
Congratulations to Teesside poet and performer Chris Stewart, who has won this year’s Read Our Lips: Filmpoem Competition! The competition, set up by Apples and Snakes and Writers’ Block NE, challenged poets to create their own “filmpoem,” which combines the artists’ own poetry with sound and vision to create a new experience. This year there were a huge number of entries, but the overall competition was won by Chris Stewart for his filmpoem Ars Moriendi.
Chris himself said: “This is the third year in a row I’ve entered Read Our Lips so winning was especially sweet.” He also explained the concept behind his mini-masterpiece: “The term ars moriendi means ‘the art of dying’ and is the name given to medieval deathbed dialogues written by monks. The dying person bargains with Death (or the Psychopomp). Inevitably, Death talks the dying person round so I wondered what you could say to Death to get one over. The poem is a sarcastic ode bringing up Death’s biggest inadequacy – personifications have no body. The poem is an example of the ubi sunt and the filmpoem itself is in the tradition of the memento mori.”
Chris has recently been touring his latest show Palace of Varieties – a poetic monologue set in a Victorian variety hall converted into a nightclub – including a recent stop at Newcastle’s Alphabetti Theatre. You can catch him performing Palace of Varieties at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe at the 238 Clerk’s Bar between 8th to 15th August.
Find out more about Chris from his Twitter page and watch Ars Moriendi below.
