The final segment, “may syma 1” — the filmmaker appears as a reflection in a puddle, whispering “May symmetry one” — a nod to kaleidoscopic structure: the film loops four times, each with slightly altered frames. Alternatively, “fylm” might be a misspelled “file” — as in an early hypertext poem on CD-ROM. In 1996, platforms like HyperCard, Storyspace, or Macromedia Director allowed poets to create nonlinear “poetry in motion.”
The film opens with a typewriter carriage returning with a ding . On-screen text: “For Cynara, gone with the dial-up tone.” We follow a woman (Cynara, maybe a librarian) through rain-slicked Brooklyn streets, reciting fragments of Dowson into a handheld tape recorder. Overdubbed is a minimalist glitch soundtrack — sampled modem handshakes, slowed-down poetry readings. fylm Cynara Poetry in Motion 1996 mtrjm - may syma 1
One plausible identity: = May Simmons + Yma (an anagram of “May” + “Syma” = “Amy Samy”). The “1” might indicate this was her first public work — a student film at NYU or CalArts, never commercially released. Part 5: Why This Lost Work Matters In an age of algorithmic recommendations and hyper-accessible everything, the unfindable artifact holds a strange power. Keywords like ours remind us that culture is not only what is saved but also what is forgotten, misfiled, or intentionally obscured. The final segment, “may syma 1” — the