Dionisio D. Martínez Remix Contest

1st Place:

 

2nd Place:

 

Runners Up:

 

Honorable Mention:

 

Prizes

Vegas 4.0
Five Loops for ACID loop libraries
An autographed copy of 'Climbing Back.'

A message from Dionisio:

This has been a most enjoyable and unique experience. I've worked with musicians on numerous occasions, but setting a poem loose in cyberspace and encouranging people to remix it was a leap I'd never taken. My reading came back dressed in every conceivable outfit. Judging was an extremely difficult task. There were many inventive entries, many subtle twists; my words were manipulated, at times significantly altering the meaning, essentially making a new poem; now and again, there was a minimalist gem. Compositions ran the gamut from uplifting to dark. All along, I felt honored to be associated with everyone at Sony/Acid Planet as well as with the hundreds of contestants from numerous countries whose work I heard. From the beginning, Mike Baluja has been a significant contributor to this project. With a musician's perspective and proficiency with loops technology, he helped me approach the remixes with a broader understanding of what the artists themselves were trying to achieve. It was humbling to hear all these takes on my poem. I sincerely wish every participant the best of everything now and always.

About the Contest

Let us go then, you and I, where the spoken word is spread against ACID^® loops like a patient, dancing upon a table…

A first for ACIDplanet.com—your opportunity to score a work from acclaimed poet Dionisio D. Martínez. The work offered for scoring is "Every twelve years, give or take this moment," originally posted at Slate™ Magazine. Dionisio has provided ACIDplanet.com a full, uninterrupted reading, and individual stanzas for downloading.

Dionisio has requested that we provide as little structure as possible; he's seeking true, unbiased sonic explorations of his work. You may use his reading of the poem, or record your own. The only requirement: the entire poem must be used.

The poem:

Every twelve years, give or take this moment

Every twelve years, give or take this moment, there are horses within
reach-wild, nameless horses like beasts before the flood, their hoof-

beats provoking the disheveled winds to mark an unremarkable spot
where the lesser roads become the plain; it's not a stampede or the swish

of a drummer's brushes or even imaginary breathing; it begins like
a story, which is to say: it begins by disappointing. Paper horses cut

out of comic books, their riders calling out their own names from what's
left of them on what's left of the pages. Each of the rooms in the house

is swept according to tradition, dust neatly piled in the center. It is some-
times possible from this vantage point to see the difference between

wholeness and a semblance of wholeness, to understand the duties of a
bystander when dark grass rises through sheets of ice. One horse carved

out of wood too green for burning-in a nod to innocence, when it was
possible not to pay attention to detail: Is a child drawn to the intricacies

of the saddle, or is there an innate compulsion to ride bareback? We carve
the past as we see it, and our vision is, at best, no more reliable than

TV reception avoiding sunspots. There's always memory, of course-that
rented room paid in full before we move back in: if the horse were

hollow, we'd be thinking of places we know precious little about; we
would climb inside and wait for orders; we are willing to be that small.

___

Dionisio recorded "Every twelve years" with Mike BALUJA, a songwriter he collaborates with. Mike's comments on the recording:

"on the evening of july 17, 2003, d and i sat in the 6'x8' smithbilt i have anchored to my backyard, waiting for the rain to subside so that we could record a clean version of "every twelve years" for this much anticipated contest involving the fusion of ACID loop technology and his poetry. after several dozen takes, we finally got one where each inflection on every word was pretty much as it was meant to be, minus the noise from the rain hitting the aluminum roof, or the planes passing overhead, or the dogs barking or the cats whining directly outside the shed. i'd say we got pretty lucky, all things considered. we wound up with a very decent audio representation of what i would consider a classic work of art...as performed by the poet himself. enjoy your trip through this wonderful adventure involving d's calculatingly deceptive manipulation of the english language. and may the gods of fusion be exceptionally kind to your attempts at adapting poem to music. regardless, you're sure to wind up right where you started when it's all over...a little lost, yet better off for it."

And here are Mike's thoughts on the contest:

"a toast to all involved...

to the serious poet who was open minded enough to subject his work to the experimentation of others...400 others.

to you guys at sony for having the **** to try something different on your site...

and to the many contestants that took a chance on this idea...that put in their time and energy to try to conquer this new frontier...

i'd say everyone concerned gained from this venture...i'm grateful to have been associated with it."

___

Where will you take "Every Twelve Years?"

About the Artist

Dionisio D. Martínez was born in Cuba in 1956. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Whiting Foundation. His most recent book, Climbing Back, was selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Jorie Graham for the National Poetry Series. His book Bad Alchemy was one of twenty-five titles included in the New York Public Library's 1995 "Books to Remember" list, and History as a Second Language won the Ohio State University Press/The Journal Award for Poetry. His work has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including The Norton Anthology of Poetry, The Best American Poetry (1992 and 1994), The Jazz Poetry Anthology, Hard Choices: An Iowa Review Reader, In Brief: Short Takes on the Personal, The New Republic, The American Poetry Review, Tampa Review, The Georgia Review, and Kenyon Review. In 1999, Martínez was invited by United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky to read at the Library of Congress, where he also recorded his poems for the Library's archives; in 2000 he was on the faculty of Writers @ Work (Utah); in 2001 he was an artist-in-residence at the Seaside Institute (Seaside, FL) and participated in Prairie Schooner magazine's 75th Anniversary Celebration (Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln). Martínez conducts writing workshops throughout the country, and his essays and reviews appear in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Miami Herald, and the St. Petersburg Times.

(from Norton Poets Online)   (photograph by Don Cason)