That’s the video I made for “God Bless Johnny Cash” which is now part of Highway Sky. It’s the first video poem I ever made, and while it’s a bit rough, I still kind of dig it. Along with “Chasing Westward,” I’ve made two videos for the Highway Sky poems, but what really excites me is the idea of creative remix, which is why the poems in Highway Sky are all licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike-NonCommercial license.
I was inspired by the example of The Poetry Storehouse and its radical sharing/remix culture based on the same Creative Commons license used for Highway Sky. I participated in The Poetry Storehouse as a poet, reader, and remixer and found the whole experience to be so wonderful that I wanted to release Highway Sky under the same terms and see what, if anything might come of it. (Incidentally, “For Gasoline” and “angels” are available for remix there along with a few of my other poems).
So, for anyone interested in remixing anything in Highway Sky, I offer the following resources:
Text
Free PDF version of Highway Sky (please note, the cover photo is copyrighted by the photographer and the Creative Commons License does not apply to it). Please contact me if you would like a free pdf copy for review or creative remix.
Additionally, early drafts of many of the poems can be found here under the tag highway sky draft poems
Audio
These are all of me reading some of the poems:
“For Gasoline” (text available at The Poetry Storehouse)
“Angels” (text available at feathers & The Poetry Storehouse)
“Night at the Interstate Diner” (text available at qarrtsiluni)
U.S. Highways
Chasing Westward
Of course, please abide by the terms of the license, and if you want to make a hit song, broadway musical, or some other commercial product out of any of my poems, you’ll need to get in touch with me. But we’ll be able to work something out.
And, while we’re at it, here’s the video I made for “Chasing Westward” which is also included in my short collection Birds Nobody Loves.
“Chasing Westward”
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
[…] My academic background is in film production and screenwriting so the idea of having my words interpreted and reimagined and ultimately produced into a different medium by other artists doesn’t seem at all unnatural to me. I know that it may be uncomfortable for many poets working with a model that strangely exalts poetry, but this kind of thing seems so right to me. It’s why I released the Highway Sky poems (and everything on this blog for that matter) under a creative commons license. […]