June 6, 2011

Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana

HOT AFTERNOONS HAVE BEEN IN MONTANA is a poem by Eli Siegel that won The Nation's Poetry contest in 1925.  I love the beginning lines:

  Quiet and green was the grass of the field,
  The sky was whole in brightness,
  And O, a bird was flying, high, there in the sky,
  So gently, so carelessly and fairly.

 Along with its beautiful music, the visual images created by the words are amazing. These images, accompanied by Eli Siegel himself reading this great poem, are powerfully together in the film Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana, by Emmy award winning filmmaker, Ken Kimmelman


This film will be shown this coming week at Temple University.  If you are in the Philadelphia area, check out the times it will be screened.