The Glass Bead Game: Issa's Sunday Service, #96

Today's featured song is only the second instrumental so far in this ongoing literature meets rock and roll project - the first actually did have a few words, but was largely instrumental.  Today's selection is courtesy of The Thievery Corporation.

The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, the inspiration for today's selection, is one of my favorite novels by one of my favorite authors.  Largely overlooked by fans and readers in general, it is certainly one of the finest novels of the 20th century, well deserving of the Nobel Prize that it garnered for its author.  It reprises all the great themes of Hesse's career, from duality through transcendence.  There are bits of all of his great books here, if in slightly disguised forms: Siddharta, Demian, Steppenwolf, Narcissus and Goldmund, and Journey to the East, as well as many of his early student novels.

Narrated by a fictional biographer, with introductory and supplementary material, the larger part of the book passes for a partial biography of Joseph Knecht, a great Masters of the Bead Game or Magister Ludi.   Set in the 25th century, it relates the story of the intellectual province of Castalia, where the students all learn the glass bead game, a sort of interdisciplinary exercise of connections among all the great fields (literature, music, science etc.).

The folly of such an exercise, removed as it is from "the real world," slowly and steadily becomes apparent, no matter how attractive the concept.  And attractive it is; witness the proliferation of exercises online attempting to recreate its chief philosophical premise (& that's just a handful).

Some have gone so far as to suggest that the internet itself is the glass bead game manifest.  We won't go down that road but we will take some time to chill to the groove of The Thievery Corporation, a dance-acid jazz-trip hop band, that knows the ins and outs of the outs and ins.  I just learned of them last week and I'm already listening to third of four albums I could rustle up from the library and, well, they make me relax and smile.

So there you go.   The cut may have nothing more to do with The Glass Bead Game than a shared title, but if it made me mellow, well there will be no argument from me.

Sticking with the theme of the unusual, here is a composition performed by Jacques Burtin performed on the kora, entitled "La Lumiere Matin (Morning Light)," a piece the composer describes as a prelude to The Glass Bead Game.








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This week's featured poems come from Lilliput Review, #102.   It is a triad of pieces that all appeared together on a single page, the stitch just tight enough to pull us through ...

Our hearts are empty for the Beloved,
and streetlamps are endless in the night.

W. T. Ranney

Dangerous kisses
pull us closer to heaven
Nowhere left to go

Kate Isaacson

The Goddess's Sweethearts

All those guys
holding hands with Kali are
already rotting away

Tom Riley

even the heavenly gods
crowd 'round...
plum blossoms

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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Highway 61 Revisited (Johnny Winter): Issa's Sunday Service, #43

This week is the birthday of Mr. Johnny Winter who, for our purposes today, is the smokin'est blues guitar player of his generation. On another day, we might discuss this in depth; today he's it. Today's selection for Issa's Sunday Service is the Bob Dylan tune "Highway 61 Revisited."

This is Bob's re-imagining of the Abraham and Issac story, played out in the larger contest of the then (and still) impending threat of nuclear war. For those alive back in the day who remember the Kent State protest and killings ("Tin soldiers and Nixon coming ..."), you might also remember the sculptor George Segal's controversial memorial "In Memory of May 4, 1970, Kent State University," that set off its own firestorm of protest, drawing on the same Biblical story for its resonance in modern times:




Looking back over the first 40 plus weeks of selected LitRock songs, it seems that there is a really formidable subset of songs drawing on the Bible. And this rock and roll was supposed to be the devil's music - who'd a thunk?

Back in 1992, Johnny Winter performed "Highway 61 Revisited" at Dylan's big 50th birthday bash at Madison Square Garden. What follows is that performance; watch Johnny signaling the drummer to speed it up (!), G. E. Smith telling the sound crew to turn it up, and Steve ("Hit it, Stevie") Cropper's fixed stare at one helluva amazing guitar slinger ...

There are also two other possible literary allusions in this song I'd never caught before. Take a look at the 3rd verse:

Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings
And a thousand telephones that don't ring
Do you know where I can get rid of these things
And Louie the King said let me think for a minute son
And he said yes I think it can be easily done
Just take everything down to Highway 61.

This song was written in the wake of the immense popularity of the Louis Armstrong rendition of the Brecht/Weill composition "Mack the Knife." Mack the Finger sung by King Louie: oh, yeah, I'd say so. Though one of his more popular numbers (a la "Hello, Dolly"), it certainly isn't one of Pops finer moments. However, I will never say anything negative about one of the great jazz musicians of the 20th century. Somehow, we all have to pay the bills.

The other allusion is a bit more generic: "Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night." Could be to Shakespeare but since Twelfth Night is a lot bigger than Will's take on it, I'll have to let that one go: the lyrical thread is a bit too tangled for me to undo.

Finally, why Highway 61 revisited? Well, it may be as simple as Highway 61 runs by Duluth, Minnesota, Dylan's hometown, on its 1400 miles trek to New Orleans. Also Dylan, ever the singer steeped in the folk and blues tradition, would have been well aware of Mississippi Fred McDowell's song "61 Highway," with its blistering slide guitar that even Mr. Winter could learn a thing or two from.






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Today's feature poem comes from the California poet, Tom Riley, originally published in Lilliput Review, #67, April 1995. Think of it as an admonishment, think of it as a cautionary tale - think of it:

What You're Good For

The ice giants
fry the eggs of the snow serpent,
the tastiest morsels they know,
on the bare backs
of hot-blooded
lads like you.

Tom Riley

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And here's one for those who, though perhaps success in avoiding those ice giants, have been breaking their backs with all the recent snow:

he's also in no mood
to sweep the snow...
scarecrow

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Not So Sweet Lorraine: Issa's Sunday Service, #40

The album Electric Music for the Mind and Body by Country Joe and the Fish is probably one of the 10 best albums of genuine 60's West Coast psychedelic rock. And we are talking some pretty heavy company: Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Love, Moby Grape, The Doors, The Byrds, Steppenwolf and on and on. "Not So Sweet Lorraine", this week's featured track at Issa's Sunday Service, is probably one the strangest and more salient pieces of spot-on satiric psych rock of that era. One might trace the history of songs about goth girls from the moment of this song's inception. For those who think that the 60's was all flowers and light, think again:

The joy of life she dresses in black
With celestial secrets engraved in her back
And her face keeps flashing that she's got the knack,
But you know when you look into her eyes
All she's learned she's had to memorize
And the only way you'll ever get her high
Is to let her do her thing and then watch you die,
Sweet Lorraine, ah, sweet Lorraine.

The joy of life, indeed. But if you want to really find joy, as in "Now I've just found joy", look no further than Nat King Cole, Ray Brown, Oscar Peterson, Ray Ellis, and the incomparable Coleman Hawkins for the one and only original "Sweet Lorraine."





And, ya know, sometimes it just all comes together, as in this issue of Nick Fury, Agent of Shield, with CJ & the Fish singing the verse from "Not So Sweet Lorraine" that got it LitRock status, with its reference to one of the greatest books of any culture, The I Ching:


Nick, uh, didn't like 'em so much. Nuff said.


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This week's feature, two poems from Lilliput Review, #64, December 1994. Enjoy.

Who Is To Be Master

Time to let
the husky words you wrestle
pin you down.

Tom Riley

Calculated Risk

Some poems never get written:
living them through was enough.

Kate Stewart

And, in the same spirit, a gentle reminder from Issa:

words
are a waste of time...
poppies

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Basho Haiku Challenge Chapbook, John Lennon, and the Beginning of the World (As We Know It)

Cover by Peter Magliocco

In next Thursday's post, I'll announce the winner of the Basho Haiku Challenge. The response was so encouraging that my intent is to issue a mini-chapbook of a selection of about 20 of the poems (plus the winner) of the nearly 200 poems submitted. Since this was not part of the original Challenge, I will be upping the prize ante. The winner will receive a brand new copy of Basho: the Complete Haiku, translated and annotated by Jane Reichhold, plus two copies of the anthology collection and a 15 issue subscription to Lilliput Review. Other poets featured in the anthology collection will also receive 2 copies of the mini-chapbook and a 6 issue subscription (or a 6 issue extension of their current subscription).

I expect the anthology collection will appear after the 1st of the year. If all goes well, I can see this possibly becoming an annual event. Stay tuned for further details.

Tonight is the first meeting of the new poetry group I will be co-moderating with my colleague and formidable poet, William the Silent. The discussion group, 3 Poems By ..., tonight will be looking at three Emily Dickinson poems:

• There's a certain Slant of light

• Because I could not stop for Death

• After great pain, a formal feeling comes

The more I immerse myself in these 3 little gems, the more I feel out to sea. They seem as infinite in depth and resonance as the deepest, darkest ocean. My amazement and awe is total and absolute. Simply put, she was a genius beyond par.

If anyone shows up tonight, it should be an interesting discussion. I'm not sure an hour could begin to cover it.

I've finished up David Landis Barnhill's Basho's Haiku, a selection of over 700 haiku translated into English. There are a number of comprehensive reviews out there: one at Hokku and another at Modern Haiku, both of which make interesting points and feature a number of haiku from the collection. In addition, a generous selection of the poems may be previewed at google books. I've also learned from google books that Landis Barnhill has translated Basho's prose, in a collection entitled Basho's Journey: the Literary Prose of Matsuo Basho. A nice selection of Basho's haibun may be viewed there.

Looking over my notes, I see that I marked 35 haiku in this collection for further review. The collection itself is very readable, the notes are somewhat cursory and overall there is a minimal amount awkwardness in the translations. As I've alluded to in previous posts, my inability to feel a more substantial connection to these poems seems to be the result of my own cultural and historical shortcomings. For me, many of the ideas behind the poems are either untranslatable or strictly period pieces, ephemeral in that sense. Here's a selection from the 35 that did grab me:




on the scales—
----Kyoto and Edo balanced
--------in this spring of a thousand years

the bell fades
----the blossoms' fragrance ringing:
-----------early evening

this mallet
----long ago was it a camellia?
--------a plum tree?

I've hit the bottom
----of my bag of discretion:
--------year's end

misty rain,
----a day with Mt. Fuji unseen:
--------so enchanting

an orchid's scent—
----its incense perfuming
--------a butterfly's wings

The above is a selection from Basho's early work. These are undeniably beautiful, imagistic pieces. Here are some from the later part of his life:

may the hokku that come
----be unlike our faces:
--------first cherry blossoms

on a journey through the word,
----tilling a small field,
---------back and forth

in the plum's fragrance
----the single term "the past"
---------holds such pathos

know my heart:
----with a blossom,
--------a begging bowl

so very precious:
----are they tinting my tears?
---------falling crimson leaves

loneliness—
----dangling from a nail,
--------a cricket




Of the poems I've chosen to highlight, the later poems seem to me to be more personal, more human. More Issa-like, if you will. I don't want to misrepresent: some of the early haiku are more personal, some of the later haiku, more workman-like. In general, however, it felt to me that this generous selection of work truly captures Basho's real journey, the journey to self. When I finished, I felt I knew more about the poet than any briefer collection featuring his famous work allowed me to. Of course, many of those briefer collections have excellent translations, surpassing many contained here. But oddly enough, the ones I was attracted to tended to be the ones not featured in any of the "greatest hits" type collections I've read previously. In fact, I don't believe that any of the above have been highlighted in previous posts, which really accents how special this substantial selection by David Landis Barnhill really is.

Though I've talked about highlighting some of the books from the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list, I can't resist dipping back into the Lilliput archive for another issue. Since the last posting, the season has turned to autumn. Temps have dropped, there is a chill in the air and the house, and a general dampness that signals the end of the finest summer I've spent in Pittsburgh in my 17 plus years here. Issue #73, from November 1995, has a nice selection of poems that just happen to fit the season nicely, starting off with some nods to the beauty of the wind. Enjoy.

Wind:---------tree

Philip Miller

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Before Winter
generous maples!
dropping these crimson haiku
for just anyone

James Owens

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strangers
wind - photographs
linger oh so briefly
before blowing on past

Gary Jurechka

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Weeping In Autumn
Tears from the eyes
of the paralyzed Sibyl:
all those leaves wasted?

Tom Riley

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leaves
softening
each footfall
thinking lovingly
of all lives lost

------

---------------John Perlman

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About Man
Some head.
Two feet.
From water.
Through mother.
Into mountain.

Ken Waldman

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Finally in celebration of John Lennon's birthday, here's a little something that just seems to dovetail nicely with our contentious election atmosphere:





Till next time,
Don

How to Read a Poem (& Why)

Cover by Gustave Doré

In just under two weeks, I will be conducting a poetry appreciation class, entitled "How to Read a Poem (& Why)" (not a very original title, but to the point, and a tad better than last year's "Poetry: Mystery and Magic") for a local lifelong learning program. This will be followed a week after with the first meeting of a new poetry discussion group at the library, called "3 Poems By..., which will focus on 3 representative poems by one particular poet, this time round Emily Dickinson. And a week after that, I'll be speaking to a class at the library and information service school on topics a tad arcane for general interest.

After that, my calendar is relatively free for the next 49 or so weeks.

I've mentioned the poetry appreciation class in passing previously and a number of folks asked me to elaborate, so here goes. The class consists of a general introductory "lecture" wherein I prat on for 40 or so minutes about essentially what poetry means to me and why it is important in people's lives, even folks who only encounter it a handful of times in their lives. Two basic texts that I found very helpful in preparing are both entitled "How to Read a Poem", one by Molly Peacock and the other by Edward Hirsch. They help a great deal with the how part of the program and Peacock is also very strong with the why. I use a few poems to illustrate some points in the introduction and open the lecture with James Wright's The Jewel. This year I'm going to try and tuck in some Issa haikus based on Robert Hass's reading and may also use Billy Collins's poem Introduction to Poetry to illustrate how not to read a poem. I heavily stress that poetry is not about answers, it's about questions, usually the big ones, to which there are no pat answers, hence the frequent refrain "oh, poetry, yeah, it's great, but I just don't get it." The great poems are a constant rephrasing of the big questions. As the great haiku critic, R. H. Blyth, said: "Poetry is never in the answers but in the questions - or rather between question and answer, between the known and unknown." I try to reassure everyone by hammering this home a number of ways and then follow with a single sheet handout of tips on how to read a poem.

Then we'll just plunge into the poetry.

I've prepared 10 or 11 poems for discussion and base what I do on the tried and true method of book discussion groups: I prepare between 5 to 10 open-ended questions based on each individual poem and use some of these to get the discussion going. Once the ice is broken, I simply guide the discussion of each work to help elucidate and provide clarity.

Since this is my second year doing this program and there is a slim possibility that there might be one or two folks in the class that where in it last year, I'm thinking, based on Elvis Costello's tour of a few years back (the one when he brought out a spinning wheel with 70 or so songs from his catalog and spun it on stage to create the evening's set), I may let the class choose which poems to do. Previously, I had a prepared order because I chose some poems with shared themes and imagery (in Auden's case borrowed imagery, in the kindest sense of the word). I'll have to see how that goes. I also have some video and audio to break up the monotony of me and that seems to go over well with the older crowd.

Here are the poems:

• Wild Geese by Mary Oliver
• Never Again Will Birds' Song Be the The Same by Robert Frost
• Donal Og, an anonymous Irish ballad, translated by Lady Gregory
• Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden
• For You by Ted Kooser
• Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare
• Sonnet 130 by William Shakespeare
  
• A Certain Slant of Light by Emily Dickinson
• Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon
• Filling Station by Elizabeth Bishop
• maggie and milly and molly and may by e. e. cummings

Some of these poems have subtle relationships (the first two), others more direct (the next 3, plus the last of that group of three and the next poem), the next two subtle again (with the Kenyon harking back to the 2nd group) and finally two unrelated individual poems. If past experience is any measure, we'll get through 4 or 5 poems. If I was to do them in order, and I still may, this would probably be the order I would do them in. I have video for the Frost (Voices and Visions), Donal Og (in John Huston's excellent film adaptation of James Joyce's story The Dead), and the Auden (Four Weddings and a Funeral) and audio for the Bishop. There is audio available for some of the others but it just doesn't have the "sparkle" that video brings; the Bishop I love, however, since she laughs at her own poem while reading it.

Here is the recitation of Donal Og from The Dead, to give you a taste:





Yesterday, I did a brief post for the birthdays of William Carlos Williams and Ken Kesey and a friend, WF, from across the pond sent this little poem by Richard Brautigan, a Issa's Untidy Hut regular, concerning WCW's birthday (or maybe not):


----------------------------------------------------------------------

"September 3 (The William Carlos Williams Mistake"
I had severe insomnia last night with
the past, the present, and the future detailing
----themselves
like: Oh, the shit we run through our minds!
Then I remembered it was Dr. William Carlos
Williams' birthday and that made me feel better
-----until almost dawn.


---------Note:

---------September 3rd is not
---------Dr. William Carlos Williams
---------birthday. It is the birthday
---------of a girlfriend.
---------Dr. William Carlos Williams
---------was born on September 17th, 1883.

---------An interesting mistake.

Richard Brautigan

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-
Hmn, it's amazing how this man's mind worked and how he found poetry in the most minute things.

I'm happy to report that I've received over 100 haiku for the Basho Haiku Challenge. The great response has sparked still more manic ideas on my part, so keep the haiku coming and pass the word on to friends. More about the manic ideas later.

This week's smash from the past is Lilliput Review #77, from March 1996. Hope something grabs you here.



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Zen American Style
If you don't want
to hear
anymore talk
about the void

then say hello
to the trojan horse

Mark Hartenbach

Landlocked
You can't drive the seagulls
away by pointing
toward the horizon

Tom Riley

insatiability rewinds old sorrow and records lust over it

Sheila E. Murphy

from poems for Leecia written when she was little
-----------------If in sleep
-----------------beside you
-----------------I should
-----------------murmur
-----------------"Shiva" --
-----------------will you answer
-----------------with just "Mama --
-----------------go to sleep now?"

-----------------Sylvia Manning

the saddest lines
are hunting
joy in every island

Richard Alan Bunch

f-----------------

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till next time,
Don