This past week was the birthday of rock great, GraceSlick, from one of my favorite 60's bands, Jefferson Airplane (a choice for which I took much flack from close friends). This week's selection is "White Rabbit," which is the second Grace Slick number to land on the Litrock list (here's the first, in case you missed it). Whether it's James Joyce or LewisCarroll, Slick was always on the, umm, high end of things and this is a classic that just keeps on giving. It's presentation by the band is unusual for a song that hit the charts with staying power; the music builds dramatically, centered around the words and Slick's voice, in a style almost perfect for poetic presentation.
*****************************
Heading back to March 1993 and dipping into Lilliput Review #41, I found a couple of poems not previously featured. Enjoy.
The Center Of Evolution
the silence of a field that points through the depth of a leaf that formed all that potato frying in your face
Of course, suggestions for literature influenced rock cuts are always welcomed.
Paying forward, we arrive at Lilliput Review #8, from December 1989. Here's a surreal bit of goodness rarely found in more recent issues:
Spiroman
she wondered how large the man
standing beside the person
clipping hairs from walls
would ever have to be
to cover the shortest curve
of the last strand
while still being able to see himself
fit any crevice
without knocking her cold
Stacey Sollfrey
And, finally, word:
persimmon leaves--
once they turn crimson
game over
Today is the 90th birthday of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. He has been the touchstone of generations of poetry readers; if you had never read poetry, somehow, somewhere, if you had the inclination to, you'd run into the work of Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It seems as though serendipity and that is his magic.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is first and foremost a word magician (tired, I keyed musician, and he, of course is that, too: a word musician). His Coney Island of the Mind seems to be on everybody's list of best poetry books and deservedly so. Even so, he is hardly a one-trick pony. Here's a poem from his first collection, Pictures of the Gone World, published in 1955:
25
---------The world is a beautiful place --------------------------------------------to be born into if you don't mind happiness ------------------------------- ---not always being --------------------------------------- --------- -- ---so very much fun ------if you don't mind a touch of hell -----------------------------------------now and then --------------just when everything is fine -------------------------------------------------because even in heaven --------------------------they don't sing -------------------------------------------------all the time
------------The world is a beautiful place -----------------------------------------to be born into --------if you don't mind some people dying ------------------------------------------------------all the time -----------------------or maybe only starving ---------------------------------------------------some of the time --------------------which isn't half so bad -------------------------------------------------if it isn't you
In far-out poetry ---------------- ---the heart bleeds upon the page ---------------------------------------------------------shamelessly --------as printer's ink bleeds onto ---------------------------------------the fine tooth of paper As blood in its rage -----------------------beats through the body --------------------------------------------------blind in its courses Leaving its indelible imprints --------------------those fine tattoos of living ----------------------------------------------------known as poems
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Finally from the 2001 collection, How to Paint Sunlight (not available via City Lights - o.p., maybe?), his beautiful elegy for the most beautiful Allen Ginsberg:
Allen Ginsberg is Dying
Allen Ginsberg is dying It's in all the papers It's on the evening news A great poet is dying But his voice ----------------won't die His voice is on the land In Lower Manhattan in his own bed he is dying There is nothing to do about it He dying the death that everyone dies He is dying the death of the poet He has a telephone in his hand and he calls everyone from his bed in Lower Manhattan All around the world This is Allen ----------------the voice says Allen Ginsberg calling How many times have they heard it over the long great years He doesn't have to say Ginsberg All around the world in the world of poets there is only one Allen I want ed to you he says He tells them what's happening what's coming down on him Death the dark lover going down on him His voice goes by satellite over the land over the Sea of Japan where he once stood naked trident in hand like a young Neptune a young man with black beard standing on a stone beach It is high tide and the seabirds cry The waves break over him now and the seabirds cry on the San Francisco waterfront There is a high wind There are great whitecaps lashing the Embarcadero Allen is on the telephone His voice is on the waves I am reading Greek poetry The sea is in it Horses weep in it The horse of Achilles weep in it here by the sea in San Francisco where the waves weep They make a sibilant sound a sibylline sound Allen -------they whisper -----------------------Allen
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Happy birthday, Mr. F. Send him a present; order a book or two of his work from City Lights Books, the finest independent shop in America. And, ah, what the hay, know how you like to give yourself a little something for your birthday, especially the older you get? Well, here's a little present from the younger Ferlinghetti (1955 again, this time "#2" from Pictures of a Gone World) to his older Lawrence-self, accompanied by the Pan-like, multi-faceted David Amram:
This week's back issue from the Lilliput Review Archive comes from April 1993, some nearly 16 odd years later. Odd might be the operative word, if the 16 years previous to those had not been a good deal odder. Here's four short flashes of times gone by:
Weak with Doubt
catching a butterfly who was ready to suffer
Vogn
The Right Moment
standing through the windshield that the car behind you didn't have
Stacey Sollfrey
Getting ready
my mind walks out of here
swoops down flights of stairs
and glides to a gutter pigeon its stiff body vibrating
about to fly
Sanford Fraser
Ice Out
--------raging torrents, black waters rushing by quiet nighttime hours, carrying whispers of ancient female ghosts along on gentle river winds, dusty voices, long gone pioneer wives and mothers, once again searching for hope amid new spring trilliums, wild cherry petals.
T. K. Splake
To finish, a greeting to spring from the master:
borrowing the umbrella-hat daffodil... sleeping sparrow
Issa translated by David Lanoue
Enjoy it all - as long as autumn seems to linger, spring flies by.
In the inexorable march to the sea that is the ongoing survey of past issues of Lilliput Review, we've arrived at issue #45, from June 1993. The cover above is by the artist poet Lawrence Oberc. Here's a taste from the distant past:
use of religion
let the manna turn moldy and green, holy penicillin
Evan Klein
After Paging Through American Poetry Review A Friend Sent Me In the Mail
This is the game: To compete. Ads for books, ads for writing programs. Poems like craftbaskets sold in tourist towns to the tourist who wants to be an indian. Evangelization. The sales pyramid. And the secret desire leaking from the new churchgoer: ----"If I sell what's been sold to me, ------------------------------I won't be lost alone..."
----------christien gholson
Form As An Intention
the fashion is to heal and talk the fashion is to sprinkle histrionics over former meals of drunkenness the fashion is to go away where bandaids have been laced together like this bundle of my etchings (would you like to see my etchings?)
Sheila E. Murphy
Setting Hair
walls are what make horses bodies just the right size to lie atop the first color console television that doesn't have to ride the back of anyones small children just to hold the balance between both styles of farrah fawcett hair dos
Stacey Sollfrey
-----This faint light: -----the presence
-----of absence -----in a room.
-----Audrey Haerlin
Hearth fire crackles your silhouette opens a door inviting me in
William Galasso
a different view
hanging from a maple tree upside-down I see the world face to face
Garth Ferguson
Voyeur
that heavy breath against smeared glass
the poet rubbing windows
for the world to peep through
Melissa Cannon
Well, since it's Paddy's Day and I'm working on more projects than I can count, I thought it might be time for a brief respite and some accompanying music. The first clip combines two of my favorite purveyors of urban Irish music, The Dubliners and The Pogues. To see Ronnie Drew stand side by side with Shawn McGowan is an Irish music fans idea of Fiddler's Green. If neither uttered a note, their separate unique stances sing endless refrains.
The 2nd clip is of an old time favorite singer/composer, Dominic Behan, brother of Brendan, whose recordings, aside from a cut or two here and there on an anthology, are literally unattainable. He is a long-time favorite of mine and I have none of his records. How sweet the irony then that the only place they may be obtained is via You Tube, where a handful of cuts appear in a static, still photo format. If anyone knows of any recordings out there that are available, I'm loosening those eye teeth as I type. Hope you enjoy this cut, which is but a taste of what he does so well.
Dominic Behan
In addition to the weekly tour through past issues of Lilliput on this blog, the Twitter poem-a-day from back issues of Lillies is progressing nicely. As with these weekly posts, each poem posted daily at Twitter is from a particular back issue, starting from the newest and heading backwards chronologically. The one caveat is the poem must be 140 characters (including spaces) or less. Today the poem is from issue #156. Check it out.
Posts
.jpg)
