Marius Grose
Poet and filmmaker Marius Grose is a dedicated volunteer with Satellite of Love, the poetry and open mic events organization in Bristol, UK. As part of the team, he ensures the sound system runs smoothly for our bi-monthly Poetry Film Night—no small feat in a venue that sees a variety of users! In addition to his technical resiliance, Marius creates his own poetry films. We'd like to take a moment to showcase a few of his works.
Marius Grose began his career in television post-production in 1983. He worked as a tape operator and assistant editor in Bristol and London for the BBC and ITV networks. Marius has cut programmes for all the major broadcasters in the UK as well USA companies such as National Geographic and Discovery. He has worked on projects that range from wildlife documentaries, factual entertainment shows, current affairs such as Channel 4’s Dispatches, and feature films. Marius is also a screenwriter and published poet.
What poem can't you live without?
What is your favourite poetry event:
What is the best advice ever given to you:
Let the poem tell you what it wants to do.
Burial Rites is a prose poem that explores ideas of mortality, renewal, bones and gardens. The poem was first published in issue forty eight of Dream Catcher magazine.
Both Aftershock the poem and the film are a response to the traumas of Covid19, lockdown and the climate crisis. Once lockdowns were lifted I started to go out into the city intent on taking street photographs as I had done prior to Covid. When I did I found that I felt uneasy about pointing a camera at people on the streets in a way that I hadn’t before the pandemic. I noticed I was looking at life through shop windows and other barriers. The need to have a screen between myself and people had been normalised by the virus. These feelings of unease and distance coalesced into the poem that inspired the images of the film and its atmosphere of distance and dislocation. Marius Grose
Iktsuarpok was made in collaboration with the Cypriot poet Nora Nadjarian. Nora’s poem was a finalist in the 2021 Mslexia poetry competition. It was originally published in Mslexia Magazine in 2022. The film explores this sense of restless anticipation through images of clock hands, pendulums and the sounds of clocks ticking while a woman watches and waits at a window.
Garden and Zone are collaborations with poet Caleb Parkin.
Caleb Parkin is a day-glo queero techno eco poet, tutor & facilitator – and Bristol City Poet, 2020 – 22. He’s published widely in journals including The Rialto, The Poetry Review and Magma – and won or shortlisted in major competitions, including second prize in the National Poetry Competition 2016. He tutors for Poetry Society, Poetry School and Cheltenham Festivals, and holds an MSc in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes (CWTP). He previously worked in BBC TV and Radio production and as a Senior Inclusion Worker. His debut pamphlet, Wasted Rainbow, was published with tall-lighthouse in February and This Fruiting Body is his debut collection out in October.
This poem is from Caleb’s 2021 collection ‘This Fruiting Body’ with Nine Arches Press.
The poetry film garden was made during April 2020 which was the beginning of the Corona virus lockdown in the UK. This meant that the production process was a bit different to how I would expect to work in normal times.
Caleb and I had discussed making a film towards the end of March and when lockdown happened, we suddenly had time to start a project. Using the internet we were able to work remotely and to collaborate using email, Zoom and the telephone. As the poem is set in a garden we did not need to go out to get footage, so we could work and maintain the lockdown rules. For me the main challenges were learning to use my DSLR camera to shoot movie footage and finding visual equivalences to the images in the poem. Household objects, from feather dusters, plastic tubing and dental floss, were pressed into service. In discussions with Caleb the blurring of boundaries between the human body and nature became a theme that influenced how I approached the edit. Layering of images, keying and masks are central to the look of this film. I was able to get a first cut together fairly rapidly and send it to Caleb via the internet. This was what I termed the kitchen sink cut, I threw everything I could think of at it to see what would stick. We then discussed the cut in detail. Caleb came up with a palette of images which clarified the visual structure. Certain colours and motifs repeat at distinct points throughout the film. As an editor I’m used to working by myself on programmes but usually there is a point where a producer or director comes into the edit suite to view and give direction. We could not do this because of the pandemic, however I realised in a way Caleb was giving direction through his reading of his poem. I had enormous fun working on this film, it was a bit of a kid in a sweet shop experience. After forty years in television postproduction I pretty much had carte blanche in the edit. Marius
More of Marius's work, including his photography, can be found on his website.