Video
Two very short segments of home video depicting Niedecker are included in the UWDCC material online. Both clips were shot during Millen family gatherings in the holiday seasons of 1964 and 1965 (these films do not include audio and comprise less than 30 seconds of total footage). This is the only known extant video footage of Niedecker.
In the early 2000s, Brent Notbohm directed a short film for Wisconsin Public Television featuring a reading of Niedecker’s poem “My Life by Water” by Sarah Day with archival photographs and footage filmed near Niedecker’s cabin on Blackhawk Island:
In 2008, filmmaker Cathy Cook released the director’s cut of IMMORTAL CUPBOARD: In Search of Lorine Niedecker, a 73 minute experimental documentary. A brief excerpt is available online:
In 2009, Cook appeared on an episode of the Wisconsin Public Television program “Director’s Cut” to discuss the film:
Audio Recordings
In November 1970, less than two month before her death, the poet Cid Corman visited Lorine Niedecker at her home in Wisconsin and made the only known recording of Niedecker reading her own poetry. The recording lasts for just under 16 minutes:
Flora Coker readings
The actress Flora Coker read two of Lorine Niedecker’s best known poems on Saturday, September 24, 2016 in conjunction with Katherine Kuehn’s Close Reading: Sewn Works exhibit at the Chazen Museum of Art in Madison, WI
Coker also recorded dramatic readings of Niedecker’s prose works “Uncle”, “Switchboard Girl”, and “Evening’s Automobiles”.
Musical Interpretations
The English composer Harrison Birtwistle (1934 – 2022) wrote a twelve song cycle for soprano and cello featuring poems by Niedecker. 9 Settings of Lorine Niedecker (1998/2000) had its world premiere in London in 2000 and was followed by 3 Settings of Lorine Niedecker (composed in 2011). A recording of 9 Settings can be found on Birtwistle: Songs 1970-2006 and Birtwistle: The Woman and the Hare:
The composer Jerry (Chiwei) Hui used three Niedecker poems as the basis for a choral piece perfromed by the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble, and conducted by Scott MacPherson on August 3, 2012 at the Luther Memorial Church in Madison, Wisconsin
The Friends of Lorine Niedecker produced an event in 2015 entitled “Lorine Niedecker in Word and Music” which featured Ann Engelman reading excerpts from Niedecker’s letters and poems which make reference to music, and Jeffrey Wagner, pianist, performing excerpts from the composers described in Niedecker’s writing: