Lyrical Musings on Dylan & Bonair-Agard

One of my fantasies of late is to create a podcast or other online journal or venue that pairs musical performance with poetry readings. The idea would not necessarily be to have music composed specifically to accompany the verse, (or vice versa, ha!) but rather just to lighten and enliven the reading of poetry with musical accompaniment or companionship, which helps to make readings less stuffy, in my opinion. Of course, many people have done this before, but it still seems to me like too often poetry is too divorced from musical performance. I'm not a musician, but I'm astute enough to appreciate musical lyrics as literature.
Which reminds me, of course, that Bob Dylan was formally awarded the Nobel Prize for literature this week. I watched Patti Smith's vulnerable and beautiful rendition of 'A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall' online, and once again felt giddy about Dylan's work and recognition. I guess he's supposed to formally give a Nobel lecture, and I read a rumor online that perhaps he'd show up in Sweden next spring to fulfill that requirement with a concert, which I think would be the most fitting way for Dylan to end the ambiguity about Dylan's reaction to winning the award.
And further intimidating me in my quest to create a music and poetry publishing or performance space was the huge success of a recent concert and performance reading I attended at National Sawdust, the new original music incubator and performance venue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Poet Roger Bonair-Agard teamed up with musicians, including Jeffrey Ziegler, Sean Dixon, Ian Rosebaum, Abena Koomson and the band Miyamoto is Black Enough, to bring his muscular, assertive work to life. The reading was a celebration of his most recent book, Where Brooklyn At? I felt like such an amateur, seeing this acclaimed poet and professional musicians keeping a crowd in rapt attention. Suffice it to say if I do proceed with my vision of creating a music and poetry performance enterprise, I'd be lucky to create performances a fraction as attention grabbing as what's happening on stage at National Sawdust.

A Winter of Discontent

I cannot recall ever feeling so depressed and dispirited by the results of an election. A venomous campaign that saw a narcissistic candidate defeat, in the electoral college scheme of things anyway, perhaps the most qualified major party nominee in the history of the republic. Donald Trump, backed by a majority of self-described evangelical Christians, naturally, seems the embodiment of the seven deadly sins, most especially pride, envy and gluttony. Hillary Clinton, for all her faults, spent a lifetime preparing to serve in the nation's highest office and brought a sense of dignity and purpose to her campaign. Trump spent his time lampooning and threatening his critics, and behaving like a schoolyard bully. Really, America? This is the person you want representing our great country on the world stage for the next four years? As David Remnick wrote in the New Yorker, Trump's central message centered around vanity, hate, arrogance, untruths and recklessness. And his "fact free" campaign promises bode ill for his presidency.

On the bright side, and I've had real trouble finding a silver lining in this year's election, is the horror of a Trump presidency may inspire progressive activism. We've seen hints of this already, from the enthusiastic backing Bernie Sanders received in the Democratic primaries to the influence of protest movements like Black Lives Matter and the Standing Rock activism. My only fear is that when civil disobedience drifts toward civil unrest, it can backfire and help the standing of conservatives. Another bright spot? Millennials voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton. According to one website I saw (which, admittedly, I can't remember now) she would have scored a 500 plus electoral landslide had the election been decided exclusively by voters under the age of 30. Hopefully their progressivism can be nurtured and sustained. 

While we're on the topic of vane, arrogant leaders and sometimes reckless leaders, I continue to admire Hillary Mantel's Wolf Hall. Just who might emerge as Trump's Thomas Cromwell, a skilled, self-interested and adroit advisor who helps steer Trump away from danger, especially in international entanglements? I'm not impressed by the list of foreign policy advisors being touted as Trump allies so far. 

The Parchman Hour

I tend to be a little wary of documentary theater, just as I'm reticent about historical novels. I often find myself thinking, well why don't I read a nonfiction account about this historic issue or topic? But lately I've been pleasantly reminded of how and why dramatizations of actual historic events can illuminate the characters in history and what motivated their actions and made them significant. This time it's the Guthrie Theater's excellent production of Mike Wiley's play with Music, The Parchman Hour, that won me over. The story centers on some of the key players among the Freedom Riders who bussed into the Deep South to oppose segregation and often ended up threatened, abused and jailed --at the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary known as Parchman Farm. In song and story, the actors remind the audience just how much physical and mental menace and brutality the freedom marchers faced on their journey to try to force state and local governments enforce the court mandated integration of schools and public facilities. The fact that this all occurred fairly recently, in the early 1960s, reminded me that the racial tension and systemic racism that continue to plague our society today (the play incorporates references to the Black Lives Matter movement.)
The title of the play refers to the variety show that the freedom marcher inmates at Parchman Farm performed for each other to entertain themselves and keep up their spirits during the time they were in jail. It always interest me to see how, even under extremely dire circumstances, people rely upon humor to salve their woulds and sustain their spirits. (And what better tool than farce to highlight government hypocrisy.
Director Patricia McGregor and musical director Sanford Moore (of Moore by Four fame here in the Twin Cities) lead an outstanding cast that includes Sam Bardwell, Nathan Barlow, Cat Brindisi, Whitney Maris Brown, David Darrow, Kevin R. Free, Katherine Fried, Terry Templeman, Jared Joseph, Zonya Love (whose incredible voice gives ballast to many of the musical numbers) Stephen Conrad Moore, and Kory LaQuess Pullman.

A Little Left of Center

U.S. Senator John McCain announced he'll write in the name of fellow Senator Lindsey Graham for President. U.S. Representative Eric Paulsen says he'll write in the name of Senator Marco Rubio, the king of empty suits on Capitol Hill. One after another, prominent Republicans, after enduring months of boorish talk and behavior by their party's presidential nominee, and noting polls that show Hillary Clinton pulling ahead in her bid for the White House, have decided to abandon ship and disavow their party's nominee. But they all go to pains to say they won't be voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Secretary Clinton had difficulty securing her own party's nomination because she's perceived to be too moderate or centrist. Some even view her foreign policy views as hawkish. Yet the Republicans suggest that she's so far to the left that they'd rather aid and abet a misogynist, xenophobic candidate than admit that Hillary, one of two viable candidates on the ballot, would be a better president than the "bloviating idiot" (George Will's words) that their party has nominated.
Just remember that when you go to the polls. These Republicans are so irately partisan, so doctrinaire in their self-described conservatism (personally I don't see pillaging the environment, empowering corporate boards and executives at the expense of people, and piling on the the federal debt to fund tax cuts for the very rich as conservative values) that they'd rather disparage a moderate presidential candidate than support her. When the election is over, if Republicans control one or both houses of Congress, you can expect more gridlock and obstruction on Capitol Hill. The legislators who refused to reach out and embrace any olive branch that President Obama offered them won't be any nicer than President Hillary Clinton. If you want a functioning government, and won't mind a political environment a little to the left of George H.W. Bush, then vote Democratic across the board, up and down the ballot. Only with a Democratic congress will Hillary be able to govern in a way that is guided by a progressive compass.

Tangled Up in Blue

I found myself more pleased with the announcement that Bob Dylan has won the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature than I might have expected. First, there's provincial pride–I like to celebrate all accomplishments originating in Minnesota, my own native state–and Dylan's birthplace in Minnesota's northeastern Iron Range territory strikes me as a formative influence on America's most famous poet songwriter. (If you haven't seen Martin Scorsese's documentary about Dylan, No Direction Home, it's definitely worth seeing. I'm hoping public television stations will rebroadcast in light of Dylan's latest honor.)
Despite my Minnesota roots, I was slow to come into the orbit of people who love Dylan's music. I guess I was a generation behind the people who discovered him growing up. By the time I was coming of age, heavy metal or garage bands like Husker Du, The Replacements and Babes in Toyland were capturing my imagination (under the influence of more musically sophisticated friends of mine).
But at some point I discovered Dylan's brilliance, often from listening to covers of his songs performed by other bands and singers. Dylan's lyrics do rise to a level of poetic intelligence and resonance that I think is rare in popular music. Other lyricists whose work I think can often stand on its own as poetry include, of course, Patti Smith, Elvis Costello, David Bowie, and more recently Erika Badu. But Dylan's Nobel helps to shed light upon the poetic achievements of great song writers. And, if I'm not mistaken, though several poets who've lived in America have won the biggest award in literature, Dylan is the first truly American poet to claim victory. (T.S. Eliot was born and raised in the U.S., but spent most of his adult life in England.)
The times definitely are a' changing.

A Stakeholder Society

I'm watching (mostly listening to, actually, since my back is to the TV) an interview with former President Bill Clinton on TV (CNBC). He makes an interesting point that I think is critical to reforming our economy in a progressive direction yet maintaining free enterprise. He says corporations have to take more of a stakeholder view of governance rather than a shareholder based governance model.
President Clinton was speaking in the context of international trade, more or less defending the NAFTA trade deal he implemented in the 1990s (he noted that the US economy added more than 20 million jobs during his administration and that even manufacturing jobs in the US increased during his two terms in office). The benefits of free trade deals are debatable (I prefer "fair trade" negotiations that ensure that worker rights and environmental standards are part of the equation), but the growing push to have corporate governance include the best interests of all stakeholders (employees, customers, society at large) rather than primarily shareholders is a goal I strongly support. Today, corporate governance is incredibly hierarchical, which helps to explain why employees at or near the bottom of the pyramid feel threatened, insecure and underpaid, while those at the top seem to be protected from retribution and even rewarded (remember those golden parachutes?) for failure or malfeasance.
Which brings to mind the sales scandal at Wells Fargo. Heretofore, I considered Wells Fargo to be one of the banking industry's better stewards of sound banking practices, given how well they weathered the Great Recession compared to their peers. But when 5,000 lower ranking sales employees have to be fired because they illicitly opened unauthorized accounts for customers in order to generate additional fee income, you know something fishy is going on higher up the corporate ladder. You don't have thousands of junior employees doing something bad unless there are incentives for unethical or illegal behavior – and supervisors willing to look the other way. Nobody got fired for the bad behavior until Wells Fargo came under fire for the illicit activity. As long as it went unnoticed in the media, Wells Fargo didn't notice any problem.
My suspicion is that Wells Fargo is not alone. I think many financial institutions – and frankly corporations in other sectors as well – essentially create incentives for employees to bend rules and take advantage of customers. This is particularly dangerous in cases where consumers really on a someone who may be serving fully or partly as a sales person for advice about complicated transactions, like home loans or pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, we live in a sort of Glengarry Glenn Ross society, where sales persons are under an "eat what you kill" pressure to meet targets in order to keep their jobs. It's time the corporate higher ups took responsibility to make sure sales incentives do not encourage unethical behavior.

Since I'm here

I'm reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Stunning. Usually I don't go in for long novels or historical fiction (though I did love Pat Barker's Ghost Road, I think that was the first of her trilogy about the Great War. So, I'll get back later.

Clubbed Thumb Navigates the Grand Canyon Rapids

I'd never thought to ask why Lake Powell is Lake Powell. As the play Men in Boats points out, getting a man-made lake named after you is one of the fringe benefits of leading a daring and dangerous canoe expedition through the Grand Canyon in the 19th Century. The show is farcically envisioned retelling of Powell's expedition, with an all-women cast playing the all-male crew of the historic expedition. Written by Jaclyn Backhaus and directed by Will Davis, the play relies upon an inventive staging and exuberant cast to mine the humor in the expedition's drama and frustration, and the cast members are all excellent. I found, especially toward the end of the play, that I wasn't just waiting for laughs, but actually caring about the expedition's fate and the survival of the crew members. In kind of soliloquy toward the end of the play, the audience is asked to think about the fate of the surviving crew members, now that they've finally found a way out of the Grand Canyon and survived the rapids and water falls of their adventure. They go their own ways, of course. Some our perhaps commemorated with lakes and mountain's named in their honor. The limited engagement is a collaboration between Playwrights Horizons and the Clubbed Thumb theater company. It's playing as a limited engagement at Playwrights Horizons West 42nd Street complex.

Serena Channels Maya Angelou

So, if you predicted that BBC Sport would produce the most popular (and probably most critically acclaimed) poetry broadcast of the summer, you'd have been right. The video of Serena Williams reading Maya Angelou's famous poem, "Still I Rise," was broadcast by the BBC after Serena won her 22nd major tennis championship at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (Wimbledon, of course). So far, it's been viewed about 110,000 times on Youtube, and broadcast by the BBC and various other broadcast outlets on commercial television.
Serena seems to have the ideal voice and persona for the poem. She's seen her remarkable career sidetracked by injuries and family tragedy. She's had to face racism both overt and subtle on a tour long dominated by mostly white players, coaches, officials and fans. She rose to greatness not under the tutelage of top tennis coaches and country club amenities, but from the public courts in Compton, California, where she and her sister Venus were taught tennis by their father, who had borrowed a book about teaching tennis from the local public library in order to teach his kids how to play. (Both Serena and Venus would be coached by their father and mother, Richard Williams and Oracene Williams, through most of their careers.) And at the age of 34–which would have seemed ancient for a professional tennis player a generation ago–she ties the great Steffi Graf for the most major titles in the open tennis era, which began nearly half a century ago.
Here you can watch the BBC Video of Serena reading Angelou's poem, backed by a montage of clips from Serena's tennis career.

Pride and Poetry in the Park

Attending a pop up stage poetry reading in Washington Square Park during the New York City Pride Festival, I was struck by how political and protest oriented much of the work was. With all the assimilation and acceptance that’s been achieved in recent years, at least in urban parts of the United States and progressive outposts of the world, it was a reminder that a lot of queer writers historically wrote out of rage. Fear of the status quo and its obsession with “crimes against nature,” and a longing for a more tolerant and supportive environment drove a lot of LGBT people to put pen to paper. It also created alliances between the LGBT crowd and other oppressed groups, alliances which I hope will endure.

The participants read not only their own work but work of queer writers who have inspired them (June Jordan, Audre Lorde, Adrenne Rich, C.P. Cavafy, Judy Grahn, among others). Forgive me -- it was hot, the park was busy, and I can’t remember the names of all the participants or who paid tribute to whom -- but the overall effect was a remarkable tribute and celebration of LGBT poetry in the heart of gay old Greenwich Village, now overrun with Starbucks and strollers. Pardon my digression.

It’s always nice to see poetry, even fairly traditional, non-Slam poetry, competing for attention in public spaces. Street musicians and buskers and poets, oh my! Actually, it was mostly just people frolicking in the fountain and passersby that sometimes seemed to drown out the voices of the readers. A few people lingered to listen for a moment, curious about what these people were up to. (One guy, during a brief break in the action, stepped in front of the crowd to announce, “I think what you’re doing is great.” But he just seemed to want to spend a minute on center stage.) When the reading resumed amidst the clamor of the park, we moved in a little closer to hear, and the reading continued and the audience grew. My suspicion is that even a few straight people couldn’t help leaning in to catch some queer poetry. More info about Verses for Hope and a list of readers can be found here.

Hillary Clinton in Verse

Yes, it’s official. I’m endorsing Hillary Rodham Clinton’s effort to become the first woman to be elected President of the United States.

This shouldn’t be surprising, for those few of you who are familiar with my politics. I did volunteer campaign work for Hillary when she moved to New York and ran for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. I backed her in the 2008 presidential primaries until June of that year, when it became clear that Senator Barack Obama had secured enough delegates to win the nomination (and by the way, I think he’s been a terrific and inspiring President). And, though I flirted with the appeal of Senator Sanders’ idealism, in the end I remained loyal to Hillary throughout the 2016 race. I think her faults have been exaggerated and overblown, and I think Bernie’s hasn’t persuasively demonstrated that he could actually enact the many reforms and programs he’s promised on the campaign trail. And in the area of foreign policy – despite her past mistakes (and she’s admitted the vote to authorize a possible war in Iraq was a mistake) – I trust her instincts better than his. I know, some people may think she’s too hawkish, but I think the depth of her foreign policy experience will temper her supposed hawkish instincts. 

It’s difficult to see any Democratic president being successful if Republicans retain control of Congress. Even if Democrats pick up control of the Senate, it would likely be by a slim margin and subject to Republican filibustering. The House, thanks to gerrymandering, remains a long shot to flip to Democratic control at this time. Which candidate do I think can work most effectively with an opposition legislature? Hillary wins again. 

But the most important factor for me is the ability.

Well then, since this blog is supposed to have literary aspirations, I Googled “Hillary Clinton’s Favorite Poet,” just to see what I might find. Turns out, she’s expressed a fondness for T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” And Maya Angelou wrote a poetic endorsement of her 2008 campaign. But for the most part, Hillary has been more of a prose candidate than a poetry candidate, at least on the surface. Hopefully we’ll see a little more waxing poetic during the general election campaign. Oh, and there’s this article.

The Classic Stage Company Resurrects Peer Gynt

Did you know that Henrik Ibsen is the second most produced playwright across the world (behind William Shakespeare, of course)? I didn’t until I read it in the playbill for the CSC’s arresting new production/adaptation of Peer Gynt, which I had the privilege of seeing on Thursday night.

I can’t say Peer Gynt is my favorite Ibsen work, though I gather some people consider it his masterpiece. My personal Ibsen favorite remains A Doll’s House (I had the privilege of seeing Janet McTeer in the lead for a terrific Broadway production back in the 1990s). Peer Gynt strays far from the traditional narrative chronology, with the lead character essentially dying before our eyes while philosophizing and dreaming all while his ship is slowing sinking. The production is loud, dramatic and angst ridden. It is also ethereal and illuminating. As is usually the case at CSC, the performers were all excellent and well cast. As Peer Gynt, Gabriel Ebert turned in a performance that was so intense and muscular that it felt worthy of an olympic gold medal for boxing. 

A positive review in the New York Times (and the knowledge that the play had been stripped down to a manageable two hour length) inspired me to see this compelling production. I’d be curious to see how faithful John Doyle’s adaptation is to the original. (The only other production of Peer Gynt I’ve seen was decades ago, at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and I really don’t recall much of the narrative at all from that production.) This impressive CSC staging sent chills down my spine at times, and that would probably be what Henrik Ibsen intended.

All New All the Time

Hello blogger fans and anyone who may have stumbled into this little broom closet on the information superhighway. I'm creating this blog to share any ideas, insights, gossip or news that I have about literature or literary events or any other topics that are animating me at the moment. (Think of one of those job descriptions that includes an "and all other tasks assigned by your supervisor" clauses, and remember, if you will, how much of your time was spent on the "all other tasks" component of said job.) Creating this new blog will hopefully inspire me to blog more frequently and spontaneously, since it's linked to my main Google account. My previous blog (poetontheprowl.blogspot.com, which seems to have disappeared after long disuse) was linked to a different Google account, which required me to log out of one account and onto another to say anything (I'm the kind of person who loses interest quickly if the desired results don't come easily. (You'd think I was a millennial.) For the moment, I ought to put my short attention span to work creating a design template for Teddy's Best (which, for the record, is not meant to connote Teddy is best, but rather the possessive sense, as in Teddy's Best ideas and insights).