A Most Remarkable Video Project: We Need Your Help!

A new project is afoot at HFR, and we need your participation! We're determined to bring the latest issue to life in a new and exciting way. You've perhaps heard of music videos? You've heard—from us—about Motion Poems, and now we've got it into our heads to make our own kind of music-video-poetry, inspired by work in our current issue and with your help.

Here's the first poem chosen for the project, "Modern Medicine" by Michael Brooks Cryer:

Modern Medicine
-for JA

To be of help to its contemporaries, an artificial heart learned to sing during the last desperate moments before a transplant operation. The heart explained, before being placed into the human's chest, why fake hearts can sing and real hearts can only pump blood. "Real hearts have trouble singing because their muscles don't form good acoustics. Artificial hearts, like myself, made of plastic and exotic metals, nurture sound like a cathedral or the Albert Hall. I think all fake organs should sing, especially the shy ones." A beautifully crafted pseudo-kidney sat at the back of the operating room listening to this. It had heard earlier that day a chorus of hearts practicing "America the Beautiful" in a utility closet. The kidney turned to the organ at its left and said, "This is ridiculous. I can sing. Listen to this." The testicle was astounded the kidney could talk, let alone carry a tune, so it threw itself into a bedpan and took a nap. "Will somebody shut that heart up," an anonymous organ pleaded. "Good god!" a small intestine exclaimed as a large on clapped. "I heard the eyes are learning to juggle," whispered a pancreas. "America, America..." sang the hearts.

We'd like YOU to send photographs, sound bites, drawings, or music either inspired by this poem or that somehow speaks to the poem. Your favorite bedpan? Awesome. Your patriot rendition of "America, America"? Yes, please. Grab your camera, and get snapping! Think you know what a signing heart sounds like? Sing it!

Send these as mp3, jpg or tif files to HFR@asu.edu or through Twitter to @haydensferryrev. Sound bites should be under a minute, and images should be saved for the web (72 dpi). The deadline for your submissions is September 16, and we can't wait!

We'll choose our favorite images and sounds and create a lovingly curated mini-movie for you to view. We're certain many more hearts will be singing by the end of this.