Anna Bergland video, and Octavio Paz

Anna Bergland, 16, has made a really gorgeous video. It lasts a little over 7 minutes, about the time it takes to paddle out and catch a wave in Palos Verdes or to a read a long poem by Tomas Transtromer or Nanao Sakaki, two poets whose long poems are never longer than 2 or 3 pages.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFZHcyXDKpY

I don't know how Anna made the piece other than she used GoPro and her new iMac birthday gift. The music's by an Israeli singer/songwriter, Asaf Avidan, I think.

There's something magical happening here in Anna's video. I'm not sure what, but I know it's magical.

I know I should know, I've reached that time in my life when I'm supposed to know why something is good or not good. Maybe it's because Anna's piece doesn't pretend to be art that I don't quite know what to say about it, other than to say I like it more than anything I've seen in a long time, even stuff that pretended to be art.

There's this sort of visual and aural energy between the images of Anna and her friends, all the smiles of happiness between them, the flow of water images, the fire, and the gravitational pull of the refrain from the song she's chosen as soundtrack--"one day baby, we'll be old."

Watching Anna's video, I remembered how when I was 16 I wanted to be 20, and when 20 then 21 and so on. But that was me. I never feel Anna going that way in her video, she's far too immersed in the present.

To completely understand why I like Anna's video so much, I'd have to turn 15 again and be as watercentric as I was then, when I'd spend all day on the beach and in the ocean, all by myself and with my friends.

Watching the video one more time, it occurs to me that it's impossible to feel old when you're in the water. When you're in the water you're just who you are, young or old, and the water always feels good once you're in. It's like the water knows who you are and is happy about it.

Near the end of his life, Octavio Paz said that if poetry had a future it would be video.