This Saturday, July 16th, at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination, from 7:30 to 9:30, is the launch of With a Deepening Presence. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Presence will be sold at the special reading price of $8. Reading will be Kristofer Collins, Christine Starkey, Che Elias, Scott Pyle, Rosaly Roffman, Bart Solarczyk, Bob Ziller and myself. Food and drinks (water, beer) will be provided. If you can't make it (or even if can), I'll be reading the night before at the screening of Tom Weber's film, The Trouble with Poets, at Pittsburgh Filmakers (477 Melwood Avenue, Pittsburgh), from 6:30 to 9:30 pm. The Filmmakers reading will be a general overview of my work. The launch reading will focus on the new book and a raft of all new poems never performed before. So, two nights, two very different readings. Hope to see you at one or the other, or both.
yanking a radish taking a tumble ... little boy Issa translated by David G. Lanoue
Charles Bukowski is something of an anomaly; whether you hate him or you love him, it would be fair to say he was a major poetic voice of the last 50 years, particularly in the populist sense. This ambivalence is exemplified, I believe, in this week's Issa's Sunday Service cut, "Bukowski" by Modest Mouse.
There's no denying it, Buk was no picnic to be around. There is also no denying that beneath the crustiness, irascibility, and drunkenness, there was a tenderness that shone through the brutal honesty on more occasions than his detractors would allow. Here's a little number where he sidles up to his subject, drifts back, and brings it home:
me and Faulkner sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but most repeat the same theme over and over again, it's as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange and off and important to them, it's done by everybody because everybody is of a different stripe and form and each must work out what is before them over and over again because that is their personal tiny miracle their bit of luck
like now as like before and before I have been slowly drinking this fine red wine and listening to symphony after symphony from this black radio to my left
some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms, make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to transgress graveyards
and traps and cages and bones and limbs
people who broke through with joy and madness and with insurmountable force
in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles
and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear a new work never heard before that is totally bright, a fresh-blazing sun
there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the human firmament
music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly exploration
writers are confined to the limit of sight and feeling upon the page while musicians leap into unrestricted immensity
right now it's just old Tchaikowsky moaning and groaning his way through symphony #5 but it's just as good as when I first heard it
I haven't heard one of my favorites, Eric Coates, for some time but I know that if I keep drinking the good red and listening that he will be along
there are others, many others
and so this is just another poem about drinking and listening to music
repeat, right?
but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and over but he said the same place
so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives once more: the classical composers of our time and of times past
it has kept the rope from my throat
maybe it will loosen yours
Originally published in "Third Lung Review"
Though not known as a poet of double meaning or ambivalence, those last two lines give one pause, eh?
This week's featured poem from the Lilliput archive has the unique attribute of meaning something different then when it was originally published in #90, back 13 years ago this month. The difference isn't in the meaning - it means exactly what it meant back then. The difference is to whom it means.
Let's call it a generational thing.
Let's form a circle, old and slightly less old, and belt out a few choruses of something that isn't "We Won't Get Fooled Again," but very much like it.
Something perhaps by Brecht.
With more spittle and less, well, synthesizer.
You know what, it's Bastille Day coming up this week, my nomination for campfire song for the disaffected follows the poem and makes this week's Litrock a two-fer.
First, Mr. Solarczyk's bit of prescient nostalgia:
Post-Politics
Dreaming we'd dreamt a new dream we slunk off at dawn ashamed we'd been dreaming at all.
Lately, I've been dipping into the new William Vollmann book, Kissing the Mask: Beauty, Understatement and Femininity in Japanese Noh Theater, with some thoughts on Muses (especially Helga Testorf), Transgender Women, Kabuki Goddesses, Porn Queens, Poets, Housewives, Makeup Artists, Geishas, Valkyries and Venus Figurines. The subtitle is so long, amazon cuts it off at "Hou," which is all you really need to know about amazon as a "bookseller." The following is from the first chapter and concerns kimonos used in contemporary Noh Theater:
The weaving of the old kimonos is finer than today's, not only visually but also structurally; in them Mr. Umewaka [today's leading Noh actor] can move more freely, or I should say less constrictedly, thanks to some peculiar fashioning of the sleeves which would now cost millions of yen to reproduce. Moreover, he tells me, the artificial fertilizer ingested by the plants on which twenty-first century silkworms feed weakens the silk."
Something that, on many different levels, should give us all pause.
Two of my favorite things: the music of Miles Davis and Jean Luc Godard's film Alphaville. Who can resist a mash up on this level; certainly not me. One of the blogs on my Quick List on the sidebar, Five Branch Tree, posted this the other day and I told Brian I'd love to pass it on. So here it is. I first saw Alphaville almost 40 years ago as a teen and even than it seemed to be simultaneously set in the distant future and the not so distant past. Haunting, poetic, absurd, and illuminating, this is on a par with Cocteau's Orpheus Trilogy: a film not to be missed, all these years later.
It's hard to imagine anyone, Godard, Miles, anyone, making a better trailer for the Kerouac film, One Fast Move or I'm Gone, than this one, which I believe my buddy Mr. Baker tipped my way. Sam Shepherd reading, Tom Wait's with a devastatingly brief observation - just wonderful. In addition, these equally brief, equally spot-on thoughts:
"I would say it [Kerouac's work] was based on observation, it was based on imagination, it was based on benzedrine, also."
And, finally, for this lazy blissful hot height of summer Friday, when maybe the heat wave breaks and maybe it doesn't, here's one of Pittsburgh's finest purveyors of the short form, BartSolarczyk, from Lilliput Review#146, October 2005, reminding us that we've forgotten what Father Walt really had to say:
Walt Whitman's Watching
We sweat & we wipe work the world's rhythm sway with the grass & leaves
we drink the day's end ignore the astronomer gazing at the stars in our cups
we speak what we will across cyberspace bold water, flesh & air
so snuggle up take off your clothes let me write a poem on you.
Monday the 14th of December is the birthday of Mike Scott of The Waterboys. From perhaps their finest album, certainly my favorite and their most successful commercially, Fisherman's Blues, comes their rendition of W. B. Yeats's haunting, dark fairy story, "The Stolen Child," which is this week's Litrock selection for Issa's Sunday Service. Here's the original poem by Yeats:
The Stolen Child
WHERE dips the rocky highland Of Sleuth Wood in the lake, There lies a leafy island Where flapping herons wake The drowsy water rats; There we've hid our faery vats, Full of berrys And of reddest stolen cherries. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping ---than you can understand
Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And anxious in its sleep. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping ---than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star, We seek for slumbering trout And whispering in their ears Give them unquiet dreams; Leaning softly out From ferns that drop their tears Over the young streams. Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping ---than you can understand.
Away with us he's going, The solemn-eyed: He'll hear no more the lowing Of the calves on the warm hillside Or the kettle on the hob Sing peace into his breast, Or see the brown mice bob Round and round the oatmeal chest. For he comes, the human child, To the waters and the wild With a faery, hand in hand, For the world's more full of weeping ---than he can understand.
Scott adds the refrain from Yeats's poem at the opening and so its serves as the chorus for the song. Very nicely done, indeed. This is the first appearance for both The Waterboys and Yeats on the LitRock list, but I have a feeling it won't be the last.
The Waterboys have put together and will be performing an all-Yeats show in March 2010 at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. The 5 shows have almost completely sold out. No doubt this will be something of an historical event; one can only hope that a recording will be made, either live or in the studio afterward.
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This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review #52, from December 1993. Here's a number from Pittsburgh's finest purveyor of the short poem, Bart Solarczyk. Enjoy.
Words (for Keith Richards)
Most things come & go. Some things last forever. We are all forgiven. None of us is saved.
Bart Solarczyk
And the master:
have you come to save us haiku poets? red dragonfly
This week was the anniversary of Jack Kerouac's death so for today's Issa's Sunday Service here is Tom Waits performing "Home I'll Never Be." The words are supposedly by Kerouac himself; I haven't been able to verify that except to say that it is everywhere on the net. If anyone knows the history of this particular piece, I'd appreciate it and will share it with readers. Meanwhile, enjoy the Waits performance.
In addition, here's the band Low Anthem performing "Home I'll Never Be," noting that it was recorded by Kerouac and comes from On The Road. Still, any further details would be appreciated.
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This week's feature poems closed out Lilliput Review issue #39, way back in 1992. Hope something grabs you here.
Circle
we move in time with the wind's hands swaying the greendesire ashleaf branches the way our two bodies sway moonmaked with the breeze rhythm learned from watching the wind seduce the ash
christien gholson
Night in Akumal, Mexico
The sky has pulled its shade down to the sea that now caresses the shore like a secret lover softly sighing like a lullaby to which the coconut trees sway a gentle hula crickets sing their songs to the stars and the hidden insects dance about my porch light like a coven it is quiet now more quiet than a dream more tranquil than nothing at all
Cheryl Townsend
1992
My feet aren't working. The clock is dead. There's a new world coming: beauty's headlights blind us from a distance.
Last Saturday's reading at Modern Formations Gallery went well and any trepidation I had about reading for the first time in over 20 years rapidly evaporated as the poems took over. Because there were so many readers (14), we were limited to 8 minutes apiece, which made things even easier. I had decided early on that I would do a combination of poems from Lilliput, in recognition of this 20th anniversary year, with a few of my own to finish up. This is another instance that working in the short form really paid off.
I thought I'd share the Lilliput poems I read with you in today's post. Selecting the poems for reading really highlighted some differences between the long and short forms. Most poems of 10 lines or less really don't have public presentation as a primary goal; it's no stretch to say the short poem is generally not designed for public readings. There really isn't enough time to pick up a rhythm, get up some steam, and deliver the goods. The poem is over before you know it.
That doesn't mean that poets don't bring considerable talents in matters such as rhythm, meter, word sound, rhyme and more to the short poem to make them amenable to reading aloud. In fact, if a short poem doesn't bring some poetic device(s), it is in real danger of appearing to be an aphorism or even just a wise (or wise ass) remark. So, in going through the Lillie archives I went in search of certain types of short poems and, happily, found them in reasonable abundance. As a result, the poems I selected actually are not representative of the magazine as a whole, just a certain aspect of that magazine.
It didn't make much sense to get up and read work that wasn't designed in a way for reading and wouldn't connect in that type of setting. As a result, what follows was specifically chosen for the reading and, from the response, seemed to go over fairly well. It was a real challenge to present the work of other poets and to do the work justice.
springtime in a city park
look at them all carrying weight and shoes and pants, briefcases and glasses. a cigarette slowly lifted to the lips. sunlight on a youthful book open. hope. look at them all they're so fucking beautiful.
Charlie Mehrhoff, LR #48
business as usual
money says have a nice day
money says bark like a dog
money says bark like a dog and roll over
money says blame each other
money says have another biscuit
Don Wleklinski, LR #153
The Arrival
We have arrived without luggage in a country we don't recognize among people who distrust us where the walls have no windows and the doors open only for the chosen. Welcome home.
David Chorlton, LR #145
Apple
Sometimes when eating an apple I bite too far and open the little room the lovers have prepared, and the seeds fall onto the kitchen floor and I see they are tear-shaped.
Jay Leeming, LR #72
I RIP OFF YOU, YOU RIP OFF ME, WE RIP OFF THEM THAY RIP OFF US, THAY RIP ME OFF, I RIP OFF THEM YOU RIP OFF THEM, THAY RIP OFF YOU, HE RIPS OFF ME, I RIP OFF HIM, HE RIPS OFF YOU, YOU RIP OFF HIM, WE RIP OFF HIM, HE RIPS OFF US, I RIP OFF HER, SHE RIPS OFF ME, SHE RIPS OFF YOU, YOU RIP OFF HER, I RIP OFF ME, YOU RIP OFF YOU, THAY RIP OFF THEMSELVES, I FOLLOW YOU, YOU FOLLOW ME AND SO ON DOWN THE LINE, THAY HYPNOTIZE US, THAY HYPNOTIZE US, I HYPNOTIZE YOU
John Harter, LR #106
THE LIBRARIAN ASKED CAN YOU WAIT FOR THAT BOOK ON FIFTH CENTURY BUDDHIST STATUARY
John Harter, LR #110
Lost in the Translation
I'm impotent today she said, closed the book capped her pen. You can't be impotent or potent, they laughed. You have no penis. She listened, and for a long time, she believed them
Celeste Bowman, LR #89
He crept in like mildew.
Suzanne Bowers, #59
We forget we're mostly water till the rain falls and every atom in our body starts to go home
Albert Huffstickler, LR #116
Yawn Series of Younger Poets
annual politician of a first book of plums by ailing writer under 40. Marmosets may be sulimated only during February and must be accompanied by a stamped, self addressed moose
Lyn Lifshin, LR #6
your body
each piece a shining eye examining the rest of the explosion
scarecrow, LR #71
2003
Just before spring --the war begins -but - ignorant - the pink blossoms --keep opening --their tiny fists
Judith Toler, LR #135
Disaster
Last night the past broke and there was history all over the cellar. You should have seen it - Rome was here, Greece was there, Egypt floated near the ceiling - finally I had to call an historian: and you know what they charge for emergencies.
Gail White, LR #22
One Small Poem
can take you a long way
think how far you've come
to find this one.
Bart Solarcyzk, LR #123
I chose not to use any haiku per se for this particular reading simply because the ones I was considering didn't make the final cut, though I did feature a number among my own poems (since it is the form I most exclusively write in these days). There were a number of great readers that evening, particularly Renée Alberts, Nikki Allen, and Jerome Crooks. I felt very fortunate to be sharing the stage with so many talented artists.
Yesterday, I mentioned that the Bashô Haiku Challenge chapbook is out and available for purchase. It is pictured above. It contains 25 poems by 19 poets in 13 comfortably laid out pages. I thought perhaps I'd gave you a taste with a couple of poems to see if I could pique your interest enough to shell out 3 of your hard earned dollars for a pocket full of poetry. That's right, just $3.00 postpaid.
in and out of the lovers' quarrel fireflies
-------Roberta Beary
wordless sparrows mend our speech
-------ed markowski
Already sad crows divide my sorrow
-------Bart Solarczyk
Yesterday was also the anniversary of the birth of James Merrill, a formal poet I have always had a weak spot for. Merrill's The Changing Light of Sandover, a book length poem composed with the help of his partner, David Jackson, utilizing a Ouija board as lyrical medium, will be the volume scholars puzzle over for decades to come. It is an epic and it is magnificent. Here is one of his uncharacteristically short poems:
Between Us
A . . . face? There It lies on the pillow by Your turned head's tangled graying hair: Another–like a shrunken head, too small! My eyes in dread Shut. Open. It is there,
Waxen, inhuman. Small The taut crease of the mouth shifts. It Seems to smile, Chin up in the wan light. Elsewhere I have known what it was, this thing, known The blind eye-slit
And knuckle-sharp cheekbone– Ah. And again do. Not a face. A hand, seen queerly. Mine. Deliver me, I breathe Watching it unclench with a soft moan And reach for you.
-------James Merrill
Finally, yesterday (yesterday was such a busy day, it spilled over quite a bit) was the anniversary of the death of Richard Manuel, composer, piano player, and extraordinary vocalist, whose anguished singing truly evoked his own haunted soul. Though I'm not much for the static photo montage style of video presentation, this is something of an exception, particularly since the lyrics are captioned and the sheer beauty of the song takes your breath away. How truly great this song is, lost amidst the staggering oeuvre of an American band whose uniqueness was unprecedented and never replicated: The Band.
Today is the anniversary of the passing of Thelonious Monk, on February 17th, 1982, arguably the single most creative keyboard composer and player in the history of jazz. I'm not exactly sure who might argue with that: devotees of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Fats Waller and a handful (or two) others no doubt.
For me, however, he's the one. Let's see - Monk on piano, Mingus on bass, Jones on drums, Ornette on alto, Trane on soprano/tenor, Miles on trumpet, composing duties shared equally - that should cover it. Away with the fantasy, however: here's the real deal.
I promised, or perhaps threatened, more highlights from the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, which I was much taken with in a recent reading. Background highlights may be found in the previous post. For now, here's a thick, lyrical stew of death, booze, ennui, and love, not necessarily in that order.
Please use your hands.
And we, that now make merry in the Room They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom, ---Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth Descend—ourselves to make a Couch—for whom?
Alright, maybe the annotating isn't quite over. Notice the words that he capitalizes. That capitalization is not largely gratuitous. Particularly, in this quatrain: Room, Summer, Couch, and Earth. And, also, what is not capitalized: we and whom.
Ok, I'll try to refrain from refraining.
24.
Ah, make the most of what we may spend, Before we, too, into the Dust descend; ---Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie, Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and—sans End!
25.
Alike for those who for To-day prepare, And those that after some To-morrow stare, ---A Muzzeín from the Tower of Darkness cries, "Fools, your reward is neither Here nor There!"
26.
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss'd Of the Two Worlds so wisely—they are thrust ---Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn Are scatter'd, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust.
27.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument ---About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same door that I went in.
28.
With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; ---And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd— "I come like Water, and like Wind I go."
29.
Into this Universe, and Why not knowing Nor Whence, like Water willy-nilly flowing; ---And out of it, as Wind along the Waste, I know not Whither, willy-nilly blowing.
30.
What, without asking, hither Whence? And, without asking, Whither hurried hence? ---Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine Must drown the memory of that insolence.
Well, it seems there must be a part three, because I could go on forever, but Omar says no! Since it is a little early for a Cup of Wine (No, again!), it seems it's time to turn to the Lilliput archival selections. This week's selection comes from December 1993, 15 plus years ago. Whatever were we up to then, eh?
Cover by Guy Beining
dead poem, #8
when the poets talk of flowers I want them placed on their banal graves
big bloody hearts hanging from a copperhead's mouth
a SASE attached
Bill Shields
Early Robins
Orange breasted buddhas test their beaks against the frozen earth
Bart Solarczyk
In A Time of Human Savagery
Woman in a blue car holds a white flower to her pink face
She breathes the flower, eyes closed, waiting to make her turn
Leaves open their arms and fly wild onto the wind
Nothing can stop the world.
christien gholson
Becoming
white blossoms & cranberry glass the night more wild than the red blood of Egypt each leaf is not what it seems
Gina Bergamino
fromInterweavings II
geovoidl
Richard Kostelanetz
Turner's Song
The player dances his keys with pale tarantula hands. His music moves into the night where its staves melt in the madness of the rain.
Gordon Grice
January 29th 1986
Winter is like losing your luggage in Newark
Arthur Winfield Knight
Desacralizing ----sacralizing Time into the serpentine weaving of Café Latté saxophone Kanishiwa one month away from Spring
Hugh Fox
Finally, something of an update: I've printed the Basho Haiku Challenge chapbooks. This coming weekend, I hope to put a good dent into cutting, folding, collating, and stapling the contributors run of 50 or so. The new issues, 167 and 168, are also coming along nicely and all should begin to go out on time (well, that's a rescheduled on time) around March 1st.
And, then, perhaps daffodils.
spring begins-- sparrows at my gate with healthy faces
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