MMU Poetry Library Project

Alongside ‘Grimmfest’, I also worked on a project for Manchester Metropolitan University’s Poetry Library, transforming one of the poems into an illustrated zine and animatic/slideshow! I decided to focus on the poems of Philip Larkin, as these poems were some of my favourite to study during my A-Level English Literature classes. I picked ‘Toads’ and ‘Toads Revisited’, as these were the ones I best remembered from my English class, as well as having the bonus of being from two separate collections of Larkin’s poetry (yet linked in theme). I also requested narrative audio from my GCSE + A-Level English teacher, Simon Hoyle, which I personally feel makes me feel it’ll sound more formal and fitting to Larkin himself than if I were to narrate it.

The first video below is the aforementioned animated slideshow of my zine. The second video below it, however, is my further experimention with the Adobe Character program, which features a puppet I made of Philip Larkin, motion tracked to my head movements, and lip-synced with Simon Hoyle’s narration of ‘Toads’ sequel poem: ‘Toads Revisited’.