The New York Times has a good article today on how the movement of resistance sparked by the election of Donald Trump to the White House (I still can't bring myself to use the P word as his title) has energized and politicized a lot of poets. (The article can be found here.) Some quick takeaways that reminded me that poetry today is more vital in the U.S. than it has seemed for a long time: Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise," has been viewed on YouTube 470,000 times since the election. And I don't know if that even includes the version of Serena Williams reciting the poem that became an Internet hit after last year's Wimbledon championship. And Claudia Rankine's book, Citizen: an American Lyric, has more than 200,000 copies in print.
Last night at Magers & Quinn Bookstore in Minneapolis, prominent local poets Morgan Grace Willow, Lyle Daggett and Wang Ping read from a new anthology, Resist Much, Obey Little..., which was put together shortly after the election and represents something of an instant response collection (to the heck with that 'emotion reflected in tranquility business'.) The writers were generous enough to read work by other contributors in addition to their own poetry from the book. It seemed like the kind of event that deserves a larger audience than it got (a lot of readings seem that way to me). If poetry today is any indication, the resistance is strong.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Wednesday, April 19, 2017
Pankake Poetry
So here's a quiz: in what city last night did a poetry reading at a University outdraw, by a considerable margin, the audience attending a public discussion about journalism in the Trump era featuring a prominent Washington Post writer?
In Minneapolis, of course. one more reason why I love this town.
Bao Phi was this year's Pankake Poetry reader at the University of Minnesota. (At first I thought the Pankake was a sort of hipster misspelling of pancake, and that the event might feature actual pancakes or something of that nature, but it turns out the reading series is held in honor of Marcia Pankake, a retired U librarian and poetry enthusiast who founded the series.) I've been lucky enough to hear Phi perform, because it's much more than just a reading, before. His poetry is urgent, at times uplifting, at times fueled by rage. He explores the experience of growing up in a working class neighborhood of Minneapolis as an Asian immigrant and the many alienations that confront immigrants and their children. His poetry ranges from tender to fiery, and he takes his audience on a ride to some unsettling places. I heard echoes from Whitman an other outsider voices. I can't wait to hear him again and delve into his new collection from Coffee House press, Song I Sing.
In Minneapolis, of course. one more reason why I love this town.
Bao Phi was this year's Pankake Poetry reader at the University of Minnesota. (At first I thought the Pankake was a sort of hipster misspelling of pancake, and that the event might feature actual pancakes or something of that nature, but it turns out the reading series is held in honor of Marcia Pankake, a retired U librarian and poetry enthusiast who founded the series.) I've been lucky enough to hear Phi perform, because it's much more than just a reading, before. His poetry is urgent, at times uplifting, at times fueled by rage. He explores the experience of growing up in a working class neighborhood of Minneapolis as an Asian immigrant and the many alienations that confront immigrants and their children. His poetry ranges from tender to fiery, and he takes his audience on a ride to some unsettling places. I heard echoes from Whitman an other outsider voices. I can't wait to hear him again and delve into his new collection from Coffee House press, Song I Sing.
Saturday, April 8, 2017
Poetry and Music in the Court House
It's a splendid early April in the Twin Cities, to which I have returned for the first time in 2017. And it didn't take long for me to stumble upon an accidental poetry experience. Looking for some free entertainment, I found a Courthouse Concert series event sponsored by Saint Paul's Schubert Club. It featured composure and guitarist Jeffrey Van, along with a violinist and a vocalist.
Mr. Van's first composition, which he performed solo, was a piece evocative of the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, with whom I'm not familiar. But I enjoyed both that piece and the second composition, which was accompanied by the violist. But it was the third piece that really seemed destined for my enjoyment, because it featured an operatic singer performing poetry by Whitman, Crane, Wordsworth and Amy Lowell. The piece was titled Ring of Birds, and the vocalist was the amazing Clara Osowski. Aside from repeating some lines as a refrain, the piece stayed loyal to the original texts of the poetry. Hearing the words sung rather than recited reminded me that the divide between musical lyrics and poetry is, and should be, a rather porous one. As the title of the composition suggests, the poetry featured all had avian themes. (Whitman's "The Hermit Thrush," Crane's "Three Little Birds in a Row," Wordsworth's "...to a Skylark," Tennyson's "The Owl," and Lowell's "The Young Crows."
And speaking of unexpected themes for poetry, while I was still in New York a couple of weeks ago I attended a sports themed reading sponsored by Finishing Line Press at Poet's House. If you ever get a chance to hear Kentucky poet Ron Whitehead perform, don't miss out. His energy and spirit will lift any reading. (He read from his collection, Blistered Asphalt on Dixie Highway: Kentucky Basketball is Poetry in Motion. Also participating were Met's unofficial poet laureate Frank Messina, who did indeed read baseball themed work, female baseball umpire and singer composer Perry Lee Barber, Steve Dulachinsky and Danny Shot. Keyboard player and composer David Amram provided musical accompaniment. The whole excellent event was recorded by Poet's House, so it should be available online at some point if it's not already up there.
Mr. Van's first composition, which he performed solo, was a piece evocative of the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla, with whom I'm not familiar. But I enjoyed both that piece and the second composition, which was accompanied by the violist. But it was the third piece that really seemed destined for my enjoyment, because it featured an operatic singer performing poetry by Whitman, Crane, Wordsworth and Amy Lowell. The piece was titled Ring of Birds, and the vocalist was the amazing Clara Osowski. Aside from repeating some lines as a refrain, the piece stayed loyal to the original texts of the poetry. Hearing the words sung rather than recited reminded me that the divide between musical lyrics and poetry is, and should be, a rather porous one. As the title of the composition suggests, the poetry featured all had avian themes. (Whitman's "The Hermit Thrush," Crane's "Three Little Birds in a Row," Wordsworth's "...to a Skylark," Tennyson's "The Owl," and Lowell's "The Young Crows."
And speaking of unexpected themes for poetry, while I was still in New York a couple of weeks ago I attended a sports themed reading sponsored by Finishing Line Press at Poet's House. If you ever get a chance to hear Kentucky poet Ron Whitehead perform, don't miss out. His energy and spirit will lift any reading. (He read from his collection, Blistered Asphalt on Dixie Highway: Kentucky Basketball is Poetry in Motion. Also participating were Met's unofficial poet laureate Frank Messina, who did indeed read baseball themed work, female baseball umpire and singer composer Perry Lee Barber, Steve Dulachinsky and Danny Shot. Keyboard player and composer David Amram provided musical accompaniment. The whole excellent event was recorded by Poet's House, so it should be available online at some point if it's not already up there.
Saturday, March 11, 2017
Paterson in Paterson
I finally saw the film Paterson, Jim Jarmusch's beguiling take on a very private, blue collar poet in Paterson, New Jersey. In the end, I think the film is more a paean to Patterson, New Jersey, than to the poet protagonist, but it's still one of those occasional movies that may help broaden the audience for poetry, especially outside of its academic strongholds.
I was delighted to read in the credits the poetry used in the film was by Ron Padget. His straightforward, conversational verse seemed appropriate to the subject matter, both the town and the main character (also named Paterson.)
The story hovers in a kind of dreamscape between quotidian reality of Paterson's daily life, his work, his limited social interactions beyond the bus route and his home life, and a sort of phantasy world where you can't quite tell what is real and what is not.
One of the most affecting scenes in the movie comes very near the end, when a perhaps despondent Paterson (though his moods are always veiled in stoicism) sits in a park near the Passaic Falls and is visited by a mysterious Japanese tourist, who also happens to be a visitor. The visitor seems to almost intuit Paterson's poetic ambition, and seems to restore Paterson's muse after his private notebook of poetry is apparently destroyed. In the end, we hear Paterson reciting new work in his mind.
In some ways, the film seems to be a tribute to the little bits of poetry we all encounter in our daily habitats.
I was delighted to read in the credits the poetry used in the film was by Ron Padget. His straightforward, conversational verse seemed appropriate to the subject matter, both the town and the main character (also named Paterson.)
The story hovers in a kind of dreamscape between quotidian reality of Paterson's daily life, his work, his limited social interactions beyond the bus route and his home life, and a sort of phantasy world where you can't quite tell what is real and what is not.
One of the most affecting scenes in the movie comes very near the end, when a perhaps despondent Paterson (though his moods are always veiled in stoicism) sits in a park near the Passaic Falls and is visited by a mysterious Japanese tourist, who also happens to be a visitor. The visitor seems to almost intuit Paterson's poetic ambition, and seems to restore Paterson's muse after his private notebook of poetry is apparently destroyed. In the end, we hear Paterson reciting new work in his mind.
In some ways, the film seems to be a tribute to the little bits of poetry we all encounter in our daily habitats.
Sunday, February 26, 2017
Oscar Sunday Digression
So I'm behind in my movie going this year. The only nominees for best picture that I've seen are Arrival, Manchester by the Sea, and Moonlight. (My vote would go for Moonlight.) Three innovative and compelling movies, but not a large enough sample for my unsolicited and unofficial vote to matter much.
Still, I have seen some interesting off-Broadway theater recently. Though I admire Wallace Shawn both as an actor and a writer, I was a little underwhelmed by Evening at the Talk House. I liked the surreal meditation on death and murder, but I felt the show lacked the kind of humor that could have lightened the philosophical musings of the show. But the cast was excellent and the New Group's staging intimate and inviting.
Yen has been selling out at the Lucille Lortell Theater, no doubt in part because Lucas Hedges, Oscar nominee for Manchester by the Sea, is in the cast. I have to say the small ensemble cast in this British miserablism show was excellent, but again the proceedings were overwhelmingly depressing. The show presented a compelling depiction of an impoverished family and the toll taken by parental alcoholism and neglect (as well as some level of mental illness in the younger of the too sons and sexual violence), I wanted to see some levity or hopefulness, which was only present in one character for the most part (the girl who befriends the two neglected boys). That may just be my taste or mood, and I'm glad I saw the show. But it didn't exactly lift my spirits (as I'm sure it wasn't intended to).
But the best thing I've seen on stage recently was part of the Public Theater's Under the Radar festival. Chicago-based Manual Cinema's Lula del Ray made the most creative use of overhead projectors that I've ever seen, on stage or elsewhere. (And who knew you could still get your hands on overhead projectors!) Told with minimal dialogue and maximum silhouette and puppetry stagecraft, the show is about a girl who runs away from a bizarre and lonely home on a satellite field, where her mother is employed trying to detect communication from alien civilizations. The show features original live music, and the ethereal score really propels the story of this lonely girl who runs away in hopes of meeting her favorite country western duo (the show's notes say the show was inspired by the music of Hank Williams, Roy Orbison and Patsy Cline). The show blends and blurs the line between cinema and live theater, and does it to great emotive effect. After the show, the theater company invited the audience to the stage to get a close look at the puppetry and stagecraft employed in the production, and I've rarely seen an audience, adults and children alike, take such an enthusiastic interest in the behind the scenes workings of a show.
Still, I have seen some interesting off-Broadway theater recently. Though I admire Wallace Shawn both as an actor and a writer, I was a little underwhelmed by Evening at the Talk House. I liked the surreal meditation on death and murder, but I felt the show lacked the kind of humor that could have lightened the philosophical musings of the show. But the cast was excellent and the New Group's staging intimate and inviting.
Yen has been selling out at the Lucille Lortell Theater, no doubt in part because Lucas Hedges, Oscar nominee for Manchester by the Sea, is in the cast. I have to say the small ensemble cast in this British miserablism show was excellent, but again the proceedings were overwhelmingly depressing. The show presented a compelling depiction of an impoverished family and the toll taken by parental alcoholism and neglect (as well as some level of mental illness in the younger of the too sons and sexual violence), I wanted to see some levity or hopefulness, which was only present in one character for the most part (the girl who befriends the two neglected boys). That may just be my taste or mood, and I'm glad I saw the show. But it didn't exactly lift my spirits (as I'm sure it wasn't intended to).
But the best thing I've seen on stage recently was part of the Public Theater's Under the Radar festival. Chicago-based Manual Cinema's Lula del Ray made the most creative use of overhead projectors that I've ever seen, on stage or elsewhere. (And who knew you could still get your hands on overhead projectors!) Told with minimal dialogue and maximum silhouette and puppetry stagecraft, the show is about a girl who runs away from a bizarre and lonely home on a satellite field, where her mother is employed trying to detect communication from alien civilizations. The show features original live music, and the ethereal score really propels the story of this lonely girl who runs away in hopes of meeting her favorite country western duo (the show's notes say the show was inspired by the music of Hank Williams, Roy Orbison and Patsy Cline). The show blends and blurs the line between cinema and live theater, and does it to great emotive effect. After the show, the theater company invited the audience to the stage to get a close look at the puppetry and stagecraft employed in the production, and I've rarely seen an audience, adults and children alike, take such an enthusiastic interest in the behind the scenes workings of a show.
Monday, December 12, 2016
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.
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.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
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.
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