“River Poetry” Video Project with Two Aqua Bound Ambassadors
9-minute read + 3 short videos
Two Aqua Bound Ambassadors from Europe—Jacob Kastrup Haagensen and Jeremie Lamart—have been collaborating on a unique media project that combines whitewater paddling and poetry.
Jeremie Lamart and Jacob Kastrup Haagensen, Aqua Bound Ambassadors, friends and artistic partners
Not your everyday combo! But for these friends, it’s a fun passion project…and we wanted them to share it with you.
We’ll hear from each of them about their background and why they chose to embark on this unique series they created together. And interspersed, we’ll include their first three “River Poetry” videos, as well as drawings by Jeremie.
Paddling Friendship & Partnership
Jacob shared this about his friendship with Jeremie:
“Jeremie and I met 10 years ago at the first Swedish Packrafting Roundup back in 2016 at the river Voxnan. But before we met, we knew of each other through our online blogs and social media.
“Back then, Jeremie always wore blue and yellow clothes—the national colors of Sweden—so I thought he was Swedish. Hence, I was a bit surprised to find out he was French and didn’t respond to my broken Swedish!
“The same summer, we went on a packrafting trip together to the Balkans. I was a bit anxious about spending a whole week with a guy I had only met for a couple of days at a roundup, but the trip was a blast and cemented our friendship.
“Since then, we have been on several longer trips, founded the Swedish Packrafting Association together, hosted a handful of roundups, and had plenty of weekend paddling trips together. We live in different parts of Sweden, though, so we usually only see each other a couple of times a year.”
Jacob on one of his numerous packrafting trips
Jeremie shared his perspective on their friendship as well:
“Jacob and I have been friends for ten years now, and it’s a friendship I value deeply. It’s rare to find someone who shares the same passion for rivers and paddling, but also a similar cultural sensibility. We have many interests in common, especially when it comes to art, creativity and the process of making things.
“Poetry may be more central to my life than it is to Jacob’s, but we both care about artistic expression and storytelling. I think that’s one of the reasons our friendship has endured through the years and through so many adventures together.
“Even though we no longer live close to one another, and even though we don’t necessarily go on big expeditions together anymore, we still feel the need to create meaningful projects together. In many ways, these projects reflect who we are more deeply than any adventure ever could.”
Jeremie kayaks in Voss, Norway (photo courtesy of Marina Rockstroh-Hovsveen)
How Jeremie’s Poetry and Paddling Backgrounds Complement Each Other
Jeremie grew up surrounded by books. He shared:
“My parents are both intellectuals. My father is a writer and poet, and we still collaborate on creative projects today. Literature has always been part of my life, so bringing a little poetry into the world of paddling feels both natural and meaningful. I’m especially happy to introduce it into a sporting environment, where it may not always be expected, but where I believe it has a place.
“To me, poetry and river paddling belong together almost naturally. Both are built on rhythm. A poem finds its meaning through cadence, pauses, repetition and flow. A river has its own rhythm as well: currents, eddies, waves, moments of acceleration and moments of calm. When you’re paddling well, you’re listening to that rhythm and moving with it rather than against it.
“So I have always been surprised that poetry and paddling are so rarely associated. The connection feels obvious to me.
“Rivers have inspired writers, poets and artists for centuries because they are such powerful metaphors for life itself. They are constantly moving, never exactly the same from one moment to the next, carrying us forward while inviting us to pay attention to the present. Poetry often does something similar. It takes ordinary experiences and reveals something deeper within them.
“What I love about both poetry and paddling is that they ask us to slow down and become more attentive. Modern outdoor culture can sometimes focus heavily on performance, achievement or the next big adventure. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I am also interested in what happens when we simply spend time on a river and allow ourselves to observe, reflect and feel. A poem creates that kind of space. A river can do the same.
Jeremie is also an artist. He shares: “My artwork almost always incorporates poetry in some form. I often work with excerpts from poems and integrate them directly into my drawings and visual pieces. Combining images and words has been a central part of my artistic practice for many years, so in a way, River Poetry feels like a very natural extension of the work I’ve already been doing as an artist.”
Jacob’s Uses His Filmmaking Expertise To Complement the Poetry
We’ve featured Jacob many times here on the Aqua Bound blog. It began with his Urban Packrafter identity, which he’s carried into his numerous wilderness packrafting trips in Scandinavia.
Filming his adventures seems to come as naturally to him as poetry does to Jeremie, and he’s done well with them, with one winning “Best Danish Film of the Year” in 2020’s Nordic Adventure Film Festival.
“I think we both are drawn to each other's abilities and see something interesting in each other's creative urge,” said Jacob. “I am, for one, impressed with Jeremie's artistic drawings—and his ability to teach whitewater—and I guess Jeremie thinks likewise of my video filmmaking skills.
“We both like to create something artistic, and that is one of the driving forces behind the River Poetry project. I like that River Poetry gives us a chance to work together and combine our superpowers.”
Exploring the “River Poetry” Series from Both Perspectives
We’ll hear from Jacob first about the making of the River Poetry videos (three so far):
“What I really like about River Poetry is that, in an odd and unexpected way, it combines two unusual niche subjects—poetry and whitewater paddling—and turns those two into something new and beautiful.
“Even though I like to read, I am not especially interested in poetry. But it really interests me creatively that Jeremie likes poetry and the complex layer it brings to his personality. In my filmmaking, I find it interesting to explore my characters showing their unpredictable sides, rather than just being super athletes. In my opinion, that's what makes us human and where the magic shows.
“I also like the informal, spontaneous and fast format of our River Poetry project. My other longer paddling films usually take years with post-production, editing and distribution, but River Poetry consists of short films where editing and post-production are done within a week or two.
“If Jeremie has prepared a poem when we’re on a trip, he recites it, and I film it, together with the paddling. Afterwards, Jeremie draws the titles, I edit them together, and then it's done. Sometimes we talk about doing a River Poetry video in advance; other times it just happens that Jeremie has a poem memorized and I film it. That said, I have a thought that maybe, one day, we can make this into a longer film.”
(Jacob)
Jeremie expanded on this while emphasizing how these seemingly unrelated pursuits go so well together:
“River Poetry is very much an expression of the similarities of rivers and poems. Jacob is a filmmaker with a strong visual sensibility, and I have always been passionate about creating images as well. I’ve been an artist all my life—first as a painter and illustrator, and now through different forms of visual creation.
“I’m happy to contribute to the visual identity of the series through the handwritten titles and graphic elements. I feel that our styles complement each other well: Jacob’s use of vintage lenses and cinematic imagery, combined with my handwriting and graphic design work, creates an aesthetic that feels authentic to both of us.
“The poems themselves are also a very personal part of the project. The authors I choose are writers I cherish deeply, and their work has shaped the way I see the world. I believe that art in general, and poetry in particular, helps us pay closer attention to life. They offer another way of looking at things, another lens through which to experience the world. At least for me, everything feels richer when viewed through art.
“In that sense, River Poetry is not really about combining two unrelated worlds. It’s about bringing together two practices that share the same qualities: attention, rhythm, presence and a sense of wonder. Both invite us to see the world a little differently. And both remind us that there is meaning to be found in experiences that might otherwise seem ordinary.
“We don’t have a long-term roadmap for the series, and I’d actually like to keep some spontaneity in the process. The poems tend to emerge from things I’m reading, thinking about, or revisiting at a particular moment rather than from a strict plan.
“That said, I already have an idea for the next video. I’d love to feature Silent Wood by Elizabeth Siddal, one of my favorite poems. Siddal was a fascinating figure of the Pre-Raphaelite movement in nineteenth-century England. She was not only a poet, but also a painter and artist in her own right. Today, she is often remembered as the model for Ophelia in John Everett Millais’s famous painting, but her own creative work deserves much more attention than it usually receives.
“What I find particularly inspiring about Siddal is that she was a complete artist. She wrote, painted, and lived at the center of a remarkable artistic circle while maintaining a unique voice of her own. Her poetry has a quiet, haunting quality that I find deeply moving, and Silent Wood is a poem I return to often. It feels like a natural fit for the atmosphere we’re trying to create with River Poetry.
“Looking further ahead, I’d also love to include one of my father’s poems in the series. As a writer and poet, he has had a profound influence on my relationship with literature, and sharing one of his texts through this project would be a meaningful way of connecting my personal history with the themes we are exploring.”
Our thanks to both Ambassadors for pulling us into their River Poetry story! You can learn more about and follow Jacob Kastrup Haagensen at UrbanPackrafter.com and Jeremie Lamart at InjuringEternity.net.
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