I Zimbra: Issa's Sunday Service, #118

This week's song on the Service is the Talking Heads decidedly odd and amazingly hooky "I Zimbra." The song's lyrics are an adaptation of Dadaist Hugo Ball's poem "Gadji beri bimba." The original poem was a UK Guardian poem of the week back in 2009; the article is all you really need to know about the poem and, by extension the song.

For those who prefer their web experience sans click-through, suffice it to say that the poem, Gadji beri bimba, is one of the best-known examples of "verses without words."






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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review, #71 way back in 1995. It is, as its title suggests, for Phil Levine, who all these 16 years later is our new poet laureate. So there you go, this one's for you, Phil:

The Performance/For Phil Levine
Outside the rain begins
in small hives of water
dancing where footsteps
make a spoon in the earth

there is even
a boy who plays
the violin in a field
no one has been
able to stop him

baloian

singing insects, too
make music
in this world

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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