For anyone from (or who has spent lots of time in) the NYC area, today's Sunday Serviceselection hardly needs an introduction - still, there is the rest of the planet to consider. Since Wikipedia says it reached #16 on the Billboard charts in 1972 and is #221 in Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time," maybe I'm wrong about that
Guess those 500 songs must mean 500 "rock songs" cause, well, the Cole Porter and Irving Berlin seem to be missing.
Just saying ...
LouReed has told the story that the song originated from a supposed planned musical of the Nelson Algren classic novel of the same name. A novel about the down and out, the alienated and alone, A Walk on the Wild Side, along with The Man With the Golden Arm, cemented Algren's reputation as an important mid-20th century American novelist. About Walk, Algren noted, "The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives." The New Orleans down and out are the direct antecedents for Reed's cast of NYC's disaffected, a group that comprise some of the most memorable ever portrayed in a rock and roll song.
Of course, there is nothing new in the world - one only need look to the Satyriconof Petronius Arbiter to find a slightly earlier versions of Algren and Reed's powerful characters.
Here is the amazing title sequence from the 1961 film adaptation of Walk on the Wild Side. An exquisite use of black and white (the cat's shadow as it walks in the opening moments is astounding) and visual metaphor.
This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review #103, April 1999. Ray Major passes the word: instructions are optional.
Cooking Rice
If I gave you two handfuls of rice
You would figure it out,
The size of the pot and how much water.
You would not starve
You would learn how to cook rice
And see that for the miracle it is.
Here then, here
Are two handfuls of words
Let us eat together.
Ray Major
though overlooked
the rice field grows...
summer moon
Silenced by death in the grave
W B Yeats couldn't save
Why did you stand here
Were you sickened in time
But I know by now
Why did you sit here?
In the grave
Why should I blame her,
that she filled my days
With misery or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways
Or hurled the little streets upon the grave
Had they but courage
Equal to desire
Sad that Maud Gonne couldn't stay
But she had Mac Bride anyway
And you sit here with me
on the isle Inistree
And you are writing down everything
But I know by now
Why did you sit here
In the grave...
Why should I blame her
Had they but courage equal to desire
The second verse of "Yeats's Grave" is a quotation from "No Second Troy," which follows:
No Second Troy
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
William Butler Yeats
The poem deals with his former lover, Maud Gonne, an actress and Irish revolutionary. Yeats takes issue with Gonne's revolutionary ways, comparing her classic beauty by implication to Helen of Troy, whom the Trojan War was supposedly fought over. The last line, the last of a series of questions in the poem, asks "Was there another Troy for her to burn? and the title, "No Second Troy," supplies the answer. Background info for the poem may be found here and here ...
When folks think of Yeats, this rendition of "An Irish Airman Foresees His Death" by Shane McGowan and the Cafe Orchestra sometimes comes to mind, especially for the musically inclined:
For no particular reason at all having to do with Yeats, here is a stunning version of Dominic Behan's "The Auld Triangle" (written for his brother, Brendan) by Luke Kelly and a couple of his Dubliner band mates:
Finally, to get back to Mr. Yeats, here's himself, reading his work:
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This week's poem gives the dirt a little turn to see what it is we are about in the northern temperate climate these days. Originally published in Lilliput Review #103, back in another century (April 1999), it has the lasting power of, well, a world. Enjoy.
Scott Watson in Sendai, Japan, sends along regular missives, updates and poems. Some highlight grim news; others, such as one I received last week, contain some of his fine work which often challenges us all to look deep and hard within ourselves. I was delighted when he granted me permission to share these with you.
Three poems from Scott Watson
securing a world against itself
police use clubs, flash bombs, hoses,
tear gas, guns. a world’s secret needs
securing, a world as it is, a world
that this way keeps itself.
neither violence nor nonviolence
change a world much. a world free
of itself is a free world.
OCCUPYING MYSELF
i’m preoccupied by
the way things are
before there was a me.
the world and not the
world. it does as i do,
lives as i live, dies.
IN THE PEN
we are arrested, imprisoned by a world, in a
world, from birth. some of us try to escape. some
demand reforms. some support harsh crackdowns
and death. i’m given a pen to celebrate life.
i’m armed against life with a pen.
- Scott Watson
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This week's featured poem comes from the Lilliput archive, issue #103. Kitty Marie Sciotto's fine poem reminded me of another by Bashō, which I've included here, along with a 3rd by Issa to wrap things up or, more precisely, unwrap them. Enjoy.
waitress
pushing back damp hair
in mid-step
Kitty Marie Sciotto
Wrapping dumplings in
bamboo leaves, with one finger
she tidies her hair
Bashō
rice dumpling in bamboo grass--
skillfully the cat
unwraps it
Last month, I did a post for which Scott Watson allowed me to share some of his thoughts on translation, along with 5 of his excellent renderings of the work of Santoka. In response, in order to prompt to continued thought and, perhaps, even talk on the subject, Charlie Trumbull sent along some translations of the same poems from his ongoing Haiku Database project. I asked him for more info on the project and he sent it, kindly granting permission to reprint the overview here:
The Haiku Database Project
A
while ago I was in the library looking for the text of a certain poem and was grateful for those anthologies that featured a first-line index of the contents. I had the thought that it would be wonderful to have a first-line or subject index of the best English-language haiku. But then, I continued, since haiku are so short, why not a full-text index? And while we’re at it, since we’re effectively talking only about 40 years of English haiku activity, why not a comprehensive, inclusive database?
The Haiku Database in an attempt to do just that: to put into a searchable, sortable, electronic database all important haiku that have appeared in English. I began working on the project in September 1998 and so far (end of June 2010) have captured almost 220,000 haiku. An unscientific guess is that the total number of English haiku published in the journals, anthologies, and individual collections is about twice that number. The Database grows at a rate of more than 20,000 haiku a year.
I began — because it was easy — by copying materials from on-line haiku sites and journals, including Dogwood Blossoms (the first Internet haiku journal), the Shiki Internet Haiku Salon biweekly kukai, Dhugal Lindsay’s Web site (which includes a few issues of Futoh), the wonderful sites constructed by Jane Reichhold, ai li, Elizabeth St Jacques, Randy Brooks, John Hudak, and others. Next, I targeted the major English-language anthologies, and have so far included Cor van den Heuvel’s The Haiku Anthology (all three editions), Bruce Ross’s Haiku Moment, Jim Kacian’s annual Red Moon Anthologies (1996–2008) and the first five volumes in the New Resonance series (1999–2007), the San Francisco, Canadian, Australian, and two New Zealand anthologies, the British Haiku Hundred and Iron Book of Haiku, Zoe Savina’s huge international anthology, and many others.
Journals and individual collections are next. I have finished entering systematically the full runs of a few journals including American Haiku, Haiku West, Haiku Quarterly (Arizona), Woodnotes, Black Bough,South by Southeast, Acorn, Still, and Frogpond, and have begun working on Modern Haiku, Cicada, Dragonfly, Blithe Spirit, and Brussels Sprout. As for Internet sources, the Database includes Reflections, Haiku Light, The Heron’s Nest, Tinywords, Roadrunner, and Simply Haiku as well as much material from the English-language haiku columns in Japanese newspapers such as Mainichi and Asahi.
The Database focuses on haiku in English, but translations into English are also included. The Database now includes the contents of first three volumes of R.H. Blyth’s Haiku, as well as all of his two-volume History of Haiku. All the Peter Pauper haiku books have been extracted, as has the first volume of Toshiharu Oseko’s Bashô’s Haiku and many other translations into English of Japanese haiku. David Lanoue’s astonishing online database of Issa’s work was added at the end of 2007. Important individual collections are being captured as well, including Jane Reichhold’s massive Dictionary of Haiku (both the print and on-line editions; more than 4,800 haiku), Richard Wright’s Haiku: This Other World, and Jack Kerouac’s Book of Haikus.
Criteria for inclusion of a haiku are basically that it should have appeared in print (or in an online journal) in English. A few haiku in other languages are included, some translated, some not; these may form the core of a non-English haiku database some time in the future. Verses included as part of haiga or haibun are included if, in our opinion, they can stand alone as independent haiku. Except for the hokku, verses of renku are generally not included, nor generally are rengay, tanka, cinquains, and the like. In the case of concrete poems and short verses of haiku length, we generally try to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Children’s haiku are included, but gathering them is a low priority.
Data collected for each haiku include the text (including as much of the formatting as possible), the author, publication history, date of composition (or, more commonly, date of first publication), and notes. For haiku translated from languages other than English, notably Japanese, the original text (inthe original orthography and in a romanized version, if applicable), the name of the translator, and date of translation are also included. These data permit searches on specific kigo and comparisons of various translations of a haiku by, say, Bashô, even when the English texts are very different. Other fields in the database assist in sorting by season, season words, attributes (e.g., rhyme), etc.
The purpose of The Haiku Database is to make it easier for serious students to locate and study haiku — i.e., it isa finding tool. So far the database has proved useful to poets wishing to check the originality of their own work and in a few cases has helped identify cases of plagiarism in haiku contests. It has been useful for authors writing about haiku, preparing newspaper columns or journal articles, and compiling anthologies to have at hand large selection of examples, together with original publication information.
Clearly, any sort of commercial use or making the database freely available—e.g., on the Web—is out of the question, and I will not publish any raw search data. I would, however, like to make the existence of this resource known and make the search capability available to others in the haiku community. Please let me know if you are looking for a specific haiku or want to know what use has been made of, for example, “pampas grass” or “Christmas” in haiku. Within reason, I’ll be happy to run a search for you.
The poems that follow are in the order of the original post as translated by Scott Watson. I haven't reproduced Scott's renderings again as it isn't a question, in my mind (nor, I believe, Charlie's either), which one is better or worse etc. It is simply a further glimpse into the mind of the original poet, Santoka; more takes on his language, imagery, and thought. It is a way to expand our understanding and further the conversation. As Cid Corman said
Poetry is that conversation we could not otherwise have had.
This week's featured poem comes from Lilliput Review, #145 and, since this post has been about translation, what can be more fitting than this little tanka, from the seminal 100 Poems by 100 Poets collection (a full translation of which may be found here):
The mountain pheasant's tail trails long behind –longer still is my loneliness in the unendingly long night.
Kakinomoto-no Hitomaro translated by Dennis Maloney & Hide Oshiro
Note: Due to a blogger two day glitch & an overlapping five day trip to the woods, there was no Sunday service last week, breaking a string of 102 weeks in a row. About f'ing time, I'd say. Here's what was slated then. Now if I could only replicate for you what I was doing a week ago today.
May 20th was Pete Townshend's birthday so I thought this week I'd feature one of my fav songs of his, "Jools and Jim," from his sensational solo album, Empty Glass.
First off, this song just plain rocks out. I'm not one for playing songs over and over, unless trying to catch an obscure lyric (still another thing eliminated by the majestic ubiquity that is the net), but this song I've played many a time, over and over and over ...
Inevitably, I get up and dance and dance and dance.
As to what's going on in the song, well, the title characters, it seems, were two rock critics who decided to trash Keith Moon after his death and Townshend took exception.
A big exception.
"They don't give a shit that Keith Moon's dead?
"Is that exactly what I thought I read?"
Lines sung with such venom that the intended targets were probably very glad not to be in the same room when they were sung.
But let's go back to the beginning. Empty Glassis named after the idea that, via mediation or similar practice, one empties oneself (the vessel) to prepare to be filled with the now, the is, enlightenment, godstuff, etc.. Townshend was very much into Eastern philosophy around this time (and may still be) and it certainly comes out any number of times on this album. This song references Krishna, as well as Christ, which is how it gets its lit cred.
"And when I did my first solo album, I called it 'Empty Glass', 'cause of this idea that when you go to the tavern -- which is to God, you know -- and you ask for His love -- He's the bartender, you know -- and He gives you a drink, and what you have to give Him is an empty glass. You know there's no point giving Him your heart if it's full already; there's no point going to God if your heart's full of Doris."
In this light, the first stanza of the song is interesting, indeed. But what about all the rage throughout?
Well, yes, there is that, and that is after all the point. What is brilliant is Townshend's use of the musical bridge lyrically, admitting his own hypocrisy, saying if we looked eye to eye it might all be different, reaching out a hand to "you, you two ... ."
In that room, when the song was sung ...
He brings home the lesson as he moves from the bridge and points the two callous critics to the way, asking if they understand the teachings of Krishna and Christ, and, if so, what after all are you (they) on about? Then back to that first, very interesting verse.
Make of it what you will - for rock, I believe it is brilliant, indeed. Plus the fact that it contains his best line ever
"Your hearts are melting in pools of gin"
Here's the whole kabob:
Jools and Jim
Anyone can have an opinion
Anyone can join in and jump
Anyone can pay or just stay away
Anyone can crash and thump
But did you read the stuff that Julie said?
Or little Jimmy with his hair dyed red?
They don't give a shit Keith Moon is dead
Is that exactly what I thought I read?
Typewriter tappers
You're all just crappers
You listen to love with your intellect
A4 pushers
You're all just cushions
Morality ain't measured in a room
He wrecked.
Anyone can buy some leather
Ain't no better than wearing sheep
anyone can sell lucky heather
You can see that words are cheap!
But did you read the stuff that Julie said?
Or little Jimmy with his hair dyed red?
They have a standard of perfection there
That you and me can never share
Typewriter bangers on
You're all just hangers on
Everyone's human 'cept Jools and Jim
Late copy churners
Rock and Roll learners
Your hearts are melting in pools
Of gin
But I know for sure that if we met up eye to eye
A little wine would bring us closer, you and I
'Cos your right, hypocrisy will be the death of me
And theirs an I before e when your spelling ecstasy
And you, you two......
Did you hear the stuff that Krishna said?
Or know for you that Jesus' blood was shed?
Is it in your heart or in your head?
Or does the truth lie in the center spread?
Anyone can have an opinion
Anyone can join in and jump
Anyone can pay or just stay away
Anyone can crash and thump
Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Oklahoma......OK.
I've got my thoughts about that most enigmatic of enigmatic last lines but it's only conjecture. I'll share it if you really want to hear.
The albums most well-known song, "Rough Boys," is also a flat out rocker, as can be heard, if not seen, on the video for the song:
Of course, anyone alive way back when will ask: any connection between the song "Jools & Jim" and the famous Francois Traffaut film "Jules et Jim" and my answer would have to be I don't have a clue. But just in case anybody comes up with a connection here's the opening sequence with subtitles:
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This week's poem comes from Lilliput Review, #93, a little poem I've always loved, maybe because I'm a fan of this and this. Come to think of it, maybe that's why I got into this.
Wondering
how it is done
the vanishing,
to step behind an atom
the oak crown still roaring
Georgette Perry
the peaks of clouds
behind one blade of grass
vanish
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