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Category: poetry to ponder

December 26, 2012

Beethoven piano sonata no 7, revisited‏

let me say a few words more about Beethoven’s
piano sonata no 7, opus 10, no 3, which I left in a
blur of other sonatas in my last set of opinions, it
is a wonder, and entirely worth a second visit, it
can neatly expose the new Romantic expression
midst the still Classical impositions
 
simply stated the elements of beat, tonality, and
repetition lay out the grid of Classical musical
composition, the blue print, like a house would
have a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and
variations on a communal social space 
 
Beethoven adheres to all of these elements but
does so eccentrically, beat itself is moderately
altered here and there, relaxed somewhat, mostly
at the end of musical phrases, an outcome
incidentally of the piano’s hold pedal, which
allows the reverberation of any note played
beyond its being played 
 
but you can nearly identify Beethoven by the
fact that he is always off the stated beat, which
is to say that his accent is always on the wrong
syllable, off what the time signature requires, the 
template along with key notations indicated at
the front of each set of bars of a musical text
 
this is already a significant peculiarity, and
consistent, endemic, he is fundamentally out of
synch, innately rebellious, which makes for nervy,
edgy music, bristling and electric, electrifying  
 
none of it you can sing, though the tonalities are
still entirely melodic
 
 
as far as repetition is concerned, Beethoven is still
repeating religiously, albeit with extended, and
ever so complex, elaborations, leaving you awed
ever, might as well say soulfully levitated, and 
mesmerized
  
 
the first movement, the presto, for “very fast”, takes
place on hot coals, brisk and electric
 
the second movement, the enchanted largo e mesto,
“very slowly with sadness”, is not only in marked
contrast with the first, a required condition for any
new movement, though here rendered flagrantly
extreme, it also tests the limits of effective pace,
again an innovation of the new piano, this time
coming out, despite the absolutely funereal
constraints undertaken here, instead of stultifying  
unquestionably and incontrovertibly transcendental
 
in the last movement, the menuetto (allegro), a
(jaunty) minuet, his parentheses, after an equally
exuberant third, the rondo (allegro), a (jaunty), his
parentheses again, rondo, a musical form akin to
what a sonnet would be to a poem, you can already
hear intimations even of jazz in the free and easy
tickle of the ivories, casual, debonair and apparently
improvisational, like Gene Kelly himself in dance,
toes twinkling with fresh and candid effervescence
and exhilaration  
 
now how unClassical is that    
 
 
Richard 
 
 
 
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December 25, 2012

Beethoven – piano sonata no 7 in D major, opus 10, no 3‏

when I first decided to explore Classical music
the field of course being so large it seemed
advisable to narrow my search, approach it 
methodically, I hadn’t had, nor since have had,
formal training, neither in the history nor in the
evaluation of music, apart from lessons in
flute and piano however extensive and
undistinguished those might’ve been it’s
been just me and my headphones ever and
my Walkman®, remember Walkman®s
 
but a world nevertheless opened up, and
bountifully, not this one, but the one I was
exploring
 
putting two things together and comparing
is at the root of any kind of knowledge, your
plant will grow profusely if you choose well
your soil, your soil is your avidity
 
I stirred in some Beethoven, already for me
a question for being so highly revered by
succeeding generations, Nietzsche had
even made him out to be the template for
his superman, and I hadn’t got it yet
 
it seemed to me that a chronological
investigation, opus 1, then 2, then 3, would
be the manner in which to proceed for being
able to watch a genius grow, I couldn’t’ve 
chosen better  
 
the movement from Classical music to
Romantic rests on essentially his shoulders,
something I’d determined even then, and one
can watch, hear, its advance as Beethoven
moves from his early to middle to late periods,
it is like being there 
 
the early sonatas are trite to my mind, though
other informed people have disagreed, and
I am merely responding to my own aesthetic
impulses, but there you have it
 
they are academic, didactic, musically constricted,
to my mind, though they are full of evident personal
power, Beethoven bristles and burns through the
Classical chains that constrain him, through also
his own inexperience and emotional immaturity      
 
he kicks in splendidly however early enough with
a beautiful cello sonata, for cello and assumed
piano, his opus 5, no 1, in an apparently amateur
production here nevertheless utterly commendable,
but reaches total emancipation already by his
opus 10, after which he doesn’t  put a foot wrong,
but rather consistently inspirationally 
 
with the okay pieces you follow dutifully their
music, perhaps with even an encouraging smile,
with the great ones you’re simply irresistibly
carried away, drawn in, you alone can tell the
difference
 
as with art
 
as with poetry 
 
in the first case you wonder when it’ll finish,
in the second you don’t want it ever to end,
that’s your unmistakable cue, given that you’re
at least paying some attention
 
 
his opus 10, no 3 is irresistible at the hands
of Eric Zuber, precise and meticulous in his
rendering, but mostly electric, effervescent  
and exhilarating
 
and evidently also timeless
 
enjoy
 
 
Richard 
 
 
         cello sonata no 1, opus 5, no 1      
 
         sonata no 4, opus 7 
 
         sonata no 7, opus 10, no 3 
 
         for your ease of chronological comparison,
         if you follow the list and the opus numbers
 
 
 
 
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December 22, 2012

a poem without words

 
poetry: when Beauty touches Truth, producing
                incandescent transcendence 
 
                and an inadvertent, and privileged, view
                of the sublime
 
                just click
 
 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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December 18, 2012

how to read poems – Maiurro, Spiro Wagner

“How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual“
by Pamela Spiro Wagner has been a model
of effective, which is to say inspiring, poetry
for me for a long while, calling out as it does
pretentiousness around verse, and having
verse mean something, something you can
understand and relate to, in a way that is
potent and beautiful, resonant, ever tolling,
extolling, stirring profoundly, like a
conscience, or an echo

but here is another voice that will not let you
pass it by, Brice Maiurro, and in more than
just one poem, “How to Read My Poems“
is a good place, however, to start

check out also his significant others

this man is incontrovertibly a poet, the very
voice of a generation, I believe, Brice Maiurro
is what presently, I think, is happening

a cardinal rule for me of aeshtetic consideration
is ever to juxtapose, be it art, music, poems –
these are all essentially conversations among
acolytes – in order to be able to consider
differences, it is in the interstices that the artist
flourishes, the personal, and telling, touches,
their foundational stories most often remain
the same

“How to Read My Poems“ and “How to Read
a Poem: Beginner’s Manual“ are both equally
powerful exhortations, each resounding mightily
above the generally less compelling fray, read
them and listen to what they’re saying, they
are messengers, oracles, of nothing less than
harmony and compassion, better known
together as grace

Richard

________________________

How to Read My Poems

slink up
behind them
in the stale of
night
with a baseball bat
with nails
sticking out of the end
and bash them in the
head
like a zombie
terrorizing your childhood
home.

do not listen
to their
bullshit.

bitch back.

stomp
on their
toes.

poison
their drinking
water.

let the fucking
curse words shout
at their
stupid
fucking
faces like
unintentional spitwads

but don’t
talk
behind their backs.

my poems
keep their friends close,
but their enemies
even
closer

Brice Maiurro

____________________________

How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual

First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.

Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.

To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.

Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.

Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.

Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.

When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
and don’t even notice,
close this manual.

Congratulations.
You can now read poetry

Pamela Spiro Wagner

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November 23, 2012

XXlX. I think of thee! – my thoughts do twine and bud – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXlX. I think of thee! – my thoughts do twine and bud

I think of thee! – my thoughts do twine and bud
About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,
Put out broad leaves, and soon there’s nought to see
Except the straggling green which hides the wood.
Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood
I will not have my thoughts instead of thee
Who art dearer, better! rather, instantly
Renew thy presence. As a strong tree should,
Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare,
And let these bands of greenery which insphere thee
Drop heavily down, – burst, shattered, everywhere!
Because, in this deep joy to see and hear thee
And breathe within thy shadow a new air,
I do not think of thee – I am too near thee

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_____________________

“set thy trunk all bare” indeed, Elizabeth is
letting more than just her hair down here, she
is “twin[ing] and bud[ding] / About thee”, she
is, ahem, “hid[ing] the wood” of her “strong
tree”, her “palm-tree”, her abandon is letting
her “wild vines” engulf him, “I do not think of
thee – I am too near thee”, she exults, she is
“breath[ing] within thy shadow a new air”

this is of course communion of the very
highest order, transubstantiation,
metamorphosis, and she is here its
highest priestess

all, note, in ever rhyming, ever thumping,
iambic pentameter, enough to make you
blush

Richard

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November 14, 2012

XXVlll. My letters! all dead paper, mute and white – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXVlll. My letters! all dead paper, mute and white

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!
And yet they seem alive and quivering
Against my tremulous hands which loose the string
And let them drop down on my knee to-night,
This said, — he wished to have me in his sight
Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring
To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,
Yet I wept for it! — this, . . . the paper’s light. . .
Said, Dear, I love thee; and I sank and quailed
As if God’s future thundered on my past.
This said, I am thine — and so its ink has paled
With lying at my heart that beat too fast.
And this . . . O Love, thy words have ill availed
If, what this said, I dared repeat at last!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

______________________

after a meticulous search of my archive, I
finally found the last place I’d been wrong,
if you remember well I’d written the date so
it could be found at any moment, just like
this one, March 28, 2012, check it out

if I’ve chosen to preface my comment on
Barrett Browning‘s 28th sonnet “from
the Portuguese“ with a personal
exculpation it’s because here I so easily
could be incorrect, Elizabeth is to my mind
here too abstruse, obtuse, too cute, I think,
for her own convoluted words

who is doing what to whom in this flurry
of what was “said”, we wonder

she is speaking to the paper – “dead”,
“mute and white”, note – which says what
had been said by her then improbable lover,
that he wished to see her, “to have me in his
sight “, that he loves her, “Dear, I love thee”,
that he’s hers, “I am thine”, but what is this
insuperable “thy words have ill availed / If,
what this said, I dared repeat at last”

an analysis that will not cede the secrets
of a text after a certain moment by a
reasonably informed and probing
analyst is no longer a shortcoming of the
analyst but of the poem, I submit, and
such, I feel, is here the case, though that
position is entirely assailable, I might be
merely, in this instance, stupid, but I
doubt it

the Metaphysical Poets were good at that,
establishing confounding parallels, Donne,
Herbert, Marvell, revered poets Elizabeth
surely would have aspired to mimic

“Love”, I’ll propose, in line 14, is a
composite of Love itself – Amor, a Platonic,
anthropomorphized conception – and
Robert Browning, who had become by this
time her spouse, to whom these recollections
are indirectly directed – remember she’s still
speaking to the paper – who utters this Delphic,
which is to say, inscrutable, pronouncement

then again it could be herself, Elizabeth,
hypothesizing, for she hasn’t italicized this
statement as she has earlier the others

therefore she could be – instead of he, they,
invoking her – invoking them, though “And
this” in the second last line suggests that
he, Robert Browning, is speaking again,
and yet the “L” is capitalized this time
where it hadn’t been for Robert anywhere
before

help

I will venture, for the sake of conclusion,
that she means that had these been the
last expressions of his devotion, or he,
does she mean, of hers, these letters
would indeed be also dead

but I could be entirely wrong

November 14, 2012

Richard

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November 5, 2012

XXVll. My own Belovèd, who hast lifted me – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese“

XXVll. My own Belovèd, who hast lifted me

My own Belovèd, who hast lifted me
From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,
And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown
A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully
Shines out again, as all the angels see,
Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,
Who camest to me when the world was gone,
And I who looked for only God, found thee!
I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.
As one who stands in dewless asphodel
Looks backward on the tedious time he had
In the upper life,–so I, with bosom-swell,
Make witness, here, between the good and bad,
That Love, as strong as Death, retrieves as well.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_______________________

the Asphodel Meadows were a mythological
nether field where souls wandered aimless
after death, bereft of their earthly memories,
washed away by the river Lethe they’d had
to cross to enter the Underworld, can you
dig it

very few have returned from There, notably
Eurydice, who, profoundly grieved by
Orpheus, her swain, is granted leave to
come back by the god of the Underworld,
Hades, as a grace for Orpheus’ uncanny,
uneartlhy, musical ability, though with one
dire condition, that he, Orpheus, Lot-like,
not look back, but that’s an entire other story

love however is what has resurrected her here,
according to Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
afforded her another, transformed, life, she
states

for transcendental apparently love, not only
ineluctable death, according to her earlier
staunch expectations, had proved able to
stir her from her earlier in-, or “asphodel”,
as she calls it, existence

as love does

Richard

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October 31, 2012

happy hallowe’en

                                                                                                                                                        just in time a brew to invigorate the season,
courtesy of Shakespeare 
 
 
Richard
 
                _________________   

 

               (from “Macbeth”, act IV, scene 1)

                                                                                                                                                              

Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison’d entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights hast thirty one
Swelter’d venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i’ the charmed pot. 

           Double, double toil and trouble; 
           Fire burn and cauldron bubble.  
                                                                                                                                               Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder’s fork, and blind-worm’s sting,
Lizard’s leg, and howlet’s wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

           Double, double toil and trouble; 
           Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Sliver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk, and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.

            Double, double toil and trouble;
            Fire burn and cauldron bubble

 

                                  William Shakespeare

 

 

                        

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October 28, 2012

“Song of the South”‏ – Walt Disney

it’s been over fifty years since I’ve seen this movie,
never thought I’d see it again but now for the magic
of the Internet, the boundless trove of irreducible
treasures, like those in Ali-Baba’s caves, or the
attics of our ancestors, stowed away, open again
to our poetic or otherwise imaginations, at our
very fingertips
 
I remembered this movie to be wonderful, moving,
but not much else, except for the “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-
Dah” theme, which is unforgettable, and a single
plot twist it would be unchivalrous to divulge 
 
it has apparently been controversial, and is
presently banned, it would appear, in cinemas,
but it would be to my mind as racially insensitive
as “Huckleberry Finn”, “Tom Sawyer’, or even
“Gone with the Wind” have been, when they
were patently giving voice rather to a shocking
human cultural, and political, abomination, 
however awkwardly, that is still powerfully,
shamefully, even manifestly, resonant
 
this is not a universal, note, condition, every
season for any culture has its bugbears, its
demons and monsters, and woe to the
unfortunate and inadvertent victim 
 
 
in perhaps his most wonderful movie, and there
were quite a few, “Song of the South“, Walt Disney 
lets us know that we’re all in this together, and
that kindness meets kindness in everyone, when
you open your heart 
 
and that the reverse is horrible 
 
 
Walt Disney is of course one of the great cultural
influences of the 20th Century, dismissed among
the titans as merely for kids
 
Walt Disney will be for an entire generation the
place where we learned our moral ABCs, much
more than in the dire Bible
 
as such he’s no less significant an artist, not at
all less significant, than Monet, Picasso, for
instance, Beethoven, Shakespeare, in shaping
our present moral and aesthetic world 
 
 
you’ll need some Kleenex 
 
 
you can also sing along 
 
 
Richard 
 
psst: filmed, I’m sure, right here in beautiful Stanley
         Park behind my place in Vancouver, even the
         animated portions    
 
 
 
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October 26, 2012

“The Trojan Women” – Euripides

the purpose of any art essentially is to either
inform or entertain, preferably both together,
therefore comedy would be associated with
entertaining whereas tragedy with informing
and, as such, this last would be perhaps more
intellectually demanding, so be it 
 
the strength nevertheless of great tragedy is in
its level of delivering immediacy and fascination,
which is to say entertainment, of great comedy
its obverse, insight  
 
“The Trojan Women” was written in 415 BC by
Euripides, a tragedian at the very summit still,
2400 years later, count them, of remarkable 
historical achievement 
 
the war with Troy had taken place a full 800
hundred years earlier, Homer had written the
alternate Bible to our Western civilization,
“The Iliad“, still with Proust to my mind the
very summit of our Occidental accomplishment,  
resonating across the ages as powerfully as
even the pyramids, extraordinary to read,
from about, again count them, astounding
millennia, nearly unimaginable centuries, 
850 BC  
 
 
Helen had been abducted from Sparta, according
to that side of the story, by Paris, the son of King
Priam of Troy, she had been whisked away not
unwillingly according to that prince of that city,
from where she became known to us as Helen of
Troy, rather than of her original Sparta
 
the Trojan War ensued
 
 
the Trojans were creamed by the Achaeans, the
Greeks, the Spartans, interchangeable terms,
under Menelaus, king of Sparta, and his brother,
Agamemnon, older brother, and king of Mycenae,
the greater incorporating kingdom   
 
the Trojan women remain to pay the price of
war, after so many centuries still their horror is
vivid, nor do we need to look far for equivalent
modern instances, they were all slaughtered or
enslaved, ‘nough, or maybe not ‘nough, said 
 
 
here we get perhaps the best interpretation
we’ll ever see, with a cast we’ll probably not
in a long while again put together – Katharine
Hepburn in perhaps her greatest role – “Once
I was queen in Troy”, she says, and you will
profoundly believe her – Vanessa Redgrave
doesn’t get ever much better as she reaches
chthonically, which is to say from the very
entrails of her earth, her soul, for a cry of
anguish you are not likely to ever forget – 
Geneviève Bujold, a mad Cassandra, and
Irene Papas, the very incarnation of the
most beautiful woman in the world
 
all tear up the screen in their moments,
leaving you breathless and helpless before
their art and evocative power, only Helen,
because of her beauty, insidiously manages
in the story to reasonably comfortably
survive, making mincemeat meanwhile
out of her big bad, he would have it, 
Menelaus
 
Helen had been the gift to Paris, who’d had
to choose among the goddesses, Hera, Athena,
Aphrodite, which of these was the most
beautiful, but only when Aphrodite had bribed
him with the gift of the most beautiful woman
in the world instead of from either other deity
power and glory, had he chosen Helen
 
the other two of course reponded with the
devastation at Troy, Olympians were not prone
to be easy, Christian mercy would find in that
pagan unequivalency propitious ground 
 
  
wonderful rendering of the traditional Greek
chorus – the Greek version of back-up girls,
“doo-wop, doo-wop” or “she loves him, she
loves him” – commenting on the tempestuous
story     
 
one of my favourite ever films   

   

 
Richard
 
 
 
 
 
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