Me and Jerome: Issa's Sunday Service, #107

Jerry

For this week's Sunday Service selection there is a little imaginative ditty by Sarah Slean about a sort of intimate meet and greet with an infamous reclusive celebrity, now deceased.  His last published story, "Hapworth 16, 1924," has never appeared in book form and, it would seem, the New Yorker is utilizing its notoriety to solicit subscriptions, since its only publication was in its pages back in June of 1965.

Of course, it may be found on the net with a minimum effort, if a more than minimum amount of illegality.  So it goes, as some other famous dead guy said.

So who is this Sarah Slean?  Well, a major independent Canadian artist with more than a little Tori Amos influence.  This particular tune was recorded for her debut EP Universe at the extremely young age of 19.

To reach into even more, for me, unfamiliar territory, the following is a YouTube video entitled "J. D. Salinger," scored to a song entitled "Mad World," a cover of a Tears for Fears song here performed by Gary Jules.    There are lots of things in this world that I don't understand and that's a good thing.  There is something very moving, almost tender, about the juxtaposition of song and image here. Check it out:



And, because I would never dream of disappointing 80s aficionados, here is the original "Mad World:"






Finally, of course, someone has done the Hitler Finds Out Salinger is Dead "Downfall" meme thingamabob. You have to turn on the cc captions in the lower right corner for the English "translation" and they do go by a bit fast.  The Salinger haiku does get a nod and so, sacrilegious, offensive, or just plain juvenile, it's in for a penny, in for a pound.

I'm in.

The little girl on the plane
Who turned her doll’s head around
To look at me.

J. D. Salinger

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This week's feature poem shows how a brief work can perfectly capture a moment - when I use the word sensual to describe it, it is no exaggeration.  Originally it appeared in #85 of Lilliput Review back in 1997.  As far as I can ascertain, it's the first poem from that issue I've featured and I thought I'd covered each issue at least once.

Cutting
   My father leans close
   to my ear, a root beer
   barrel rattling over
   back teeth, he fumbles
   against the rust clasp
   on a blue plastic case,
   scissors and black combs
   within clear pockets

Mark Forrester

giving her dolls
a good talking-to...
the child

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,

Don

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Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 107 songs

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You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome: Issa's Sunday Service, #99

Verlaine & Rimbaud

The count up to #100 is now just one week away and I've been thinking a bit about what that selection might be.  But, of course, as usual, I get ahead of myself.

This week's selection comes from the master, who has appeared here a time or three: Bob Dylan.  And though one might not think about this particular song when thinking litrock, you just have to love these lyrics:

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

So the bard drags two other bards into "the scene," only to say there is no way he's going to compare their situation to his.

Harrumph.

That may be the verse that got the song on this list, but you know you truly are in the presence of a master when the pen flashes across the page, rhyming:

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Honolulu and Ashtabula!  I'm sure you don't need me to tell you it doesn't get better than that in a pop song.

Taking a decidedly left turn at Ashtabula, here's Weird Al to set "the record" straight about genius or genius on genius:





Yes, it is easy, so easy to throw around the word genius, but writing a parody pop song composed of rhyming palindromes - and making it sound good - well, I'll just leave it there.

For the nostalgic, rock's first "music video":




Finally, back to my opening ruminations: who to choose for #100 on the Litrock list? Well, it took a bit of a thunk, but I've got my choice, to be revealed next week. Wonder if anyone can guess, not the song, but the particular artist/band?

For those who made it this far through another rambly post, here's a challenge: name the artist that will be featured on #100 of Issa's Sunday Service, and you get a free 15 issue subscription to Lilliput Review (or a 15 issue extension for the terminally faithful).  First one who rings in with the right name is the winner.



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Today's selection from the archive is of two very different poems that somehow managed to share a page (with another poem between). The first is a John Harter poem I somehow overlooked when I previously collected some of his Lilliput work in a post.  The 2nd is a telling piece by Mark Forrester.  They come from Lilliput Review #98, July 1998.

NOR THE WRITER TALKING

OF SELF NOR THE PAINTER

PAINTING OF PAINT

John Harter

White Ash
What is it in the scent of wood
that reminds me of my father?
He was no handyman.
When my brother-in-law's
thick fingers ease
thin sheets of blond wood
over his table saw, the dark
supple blade sheds narrow splinters
of hard bone, pale and odorless.

Mark Forrester

a wood fire--
her shadow in the window
pulling thread

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues    Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Send a single haiku for the Wednesday Haiku feature.  Here's how.

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 99 songs
Hear 'em all at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

Subscribe to Lilliput Review

Antonio Machado, Issa, and the Return of the King

Cover by Oberc

As time and tide permit, I've been trying to get a hold of and read some of the volumes suggested for the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list. This week, via the wonder that is interlibrary loan, I received The Sea and the Honeycomb: a Book of Tiny Poems, edited by Robert Bly. I've enjoyed much of what I've read; a great many of the poems are translations by Bly himself, occasionally with a collaborator.

The poems that struck me immediately were translations of the work of the Spanish poet, Antonio Machado. I've run into his work before and enjoyed it, particularly the shorter poems. Here are a couple of Bly's translations:


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It is good to know that glasses
are to drink from;
the bad thing is not to know
what thirst is for.

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If it is good to live,
then it is better to be asleep dreaming,
and best of all,
mother, is to awake.

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Another excellent poem from this collection is by, of all people, Vladimir Nabokov:


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Only the birds are able to throw off their shadow.
The shadow always stays behind on earth.

Our imagination flies:
we are its shadow, on the earth.

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Finally there are a few poems by the delightful Issa, our patron; though I've seen this one translated differently, I like the starkness of this rendering:


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Why mention people?
Even the scarecrows
are crooked.

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The Sea and the Honeycomb is out of print and if you want a copy of your own, it will cost you via amazon's used market or my favorite virtual source for used books, abebooks. Some of the Bly translations are available in The Winged Energy of Delight, a volume of selected translations. The Issa and Machado are there but since the later's poems are part of a larger work, they are not indexed and one has to leaf through. But they are there, along with an incredible cross section of great poets. Here is the contents page plus a generous preview of the poems, courtesy of HarperCollins.

Since this blog takes its name and inspiration from the master poet Issa, I've tried to provide many different translators takes on his work (the Issa link above is new and different). Here is a translation from a master in his own right, Cid Corman, with a very different approach to another familiar Issa poem:


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Only one guy and
only one fly trying to
make the guest room do

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I've begun preparing the contributor copies of the new issues, #'s 163 & 164, for mailing and I'm hoping that they will begin to go out over the next two weeks. In the meantime at flashback central, here are a couple of little pieces from Lilliput #85, originally published in January 1997:



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Cutting

My father leans close
to my ear, a root beer
barrel rattling over
back teeth, he fumbles
against the rust clasp
on a blue plastic case,
scissors and black combs
within clear pockets.

Mark Forrester

Oh, Cowboy,

you climb up my tree,
wake all the bats.

Lindsey Royce

Why We Never Got Rid of the Poodle
----We Found at Blue Stem Lake

We are all of us
sparrows
in winter branches
without names.

Greg Kosmicki

Dear Don:

More threats. More haiku.

John Cantey Knight

N. B.

Life is like
nothing else.
Exactly.

Cid Corman

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Finally, to close out with a smile, below you will find the Monday edition from a relatively new comic strip, Lio. Lio is about a little boy with a mighty attraction to the macabre: zombies, monsters, aliens etc. are all regularly, and happily, featured in this generally amusing strip. This week takes it to another level with a homage to the greatest comic kid of all-time, Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes. Below, Lio is once more messing with the mystic, with results that will delight comic fans everywhere:




I'm a sucker for cartoon strip (as opposed to comic/graphic novel) crossovers.


Till next time:

Don

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