a poem without words
poetry: when Beauty touches Truth, producing
and an inadvertent, and privileged, view
of the sublime
Richard
psst: Merry C***mas
Richibi’s Weblog
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Tag: poetry
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
________________________
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
____________________________
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
July 22, 2012
How to Listen to Classical Music: Beginner’s Manual
How to Listen to Classical Music: Beginner’s Manual
(after Pamela Spiro Wagner)
First, forget everything you have learned,
that Classical Music 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.
that Classical Music 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 Classical Music means what it says and says it.
the best Classical Music means what it says and says it.
To listen to Classical Music requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.
Treat Classical Music 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.
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.
Classical Music demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.
Listen to just one Classical work a day.
Someday an irresistible composition may open in your heart
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.
When you can identify the Mozart fantasia
among the four of his sonatas I’ve included here in this gentle message,
close this manual.
among the four of his sonatas I’ve included here in this gentle message,
close this manual.
Congratulations.
You are now hearing
as opposed to listening to Classical Music
You are now hearing
as opposed to listening to Classical Music
Richard
November 12, 2011
Brahms Violin Concerto – Kyung-Wha Chung
if, may the gods forbid, you see one concerto only ever in
your lifetime, let it be this one, Kyung-Wha Chung does the
Brahms Violin Concerto incontrovertibly, such performances
as this one are why composers write music, for interpreters
such as she to narrate their musical thought, to speak it
nearly verbally, indelibly, to bring it to unmistakable and
categorical life, to transcendence then even perhaps, as in
this case, to our ineluctable, ineradicable consciousness,
and thereby then to our stars
Kyung-Wha Chung sets the standard here to be achieved for
all artists, in my lifetime she has been the one to displace,
no one, not even the greatest, with the sole exception of
the inimitable of course Glenn Gould, has had the authority,
the brilliance, to outpace her, to outpace them, she is
Minerva, goddess of wisdom, poetry, magic, in outright
and unequivocal command, she is unquestionably and
irrevocably empress here, awesome, she is the highest
expression of music, utterly and irrevocably iridescent,
incontestably and utterly sublime
André Previn, with the Kölner Rundfunksinfonie Orchester,
the Radio Symphony Orchestra of Cologne, December, 1996,
supports ably, even admirably, he will make me eat my
earlier not especially flattering about him words
Richard
October 31, 2008
in defence of my penchant towards prose
in defence of my penchant towards prose
the problem with poetry ‘s the rhyme,
it takes the seriousness out of the line,
it distracts from its meaning
giving bounce to the reading
forfeiting too much, I think, of the mind
not that I don’t like rhythm
but it shouldn’t supplant my mission
of putting the point, the more pertinent point,
I believe, ahead of often more frivolous composition
forgive then my impertinent prose,
I really don’t mean to oppose,
but I think it’s my lot,
to declare my thought
with less verse
than straightforward opinion
_______________________
October 31, 2008
upon being asked to make a poem out of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”
“Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”, c.1558
Pieter Bruegel, the Elder
(1525-1569)
__________
upon being asked to make a poem out of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”
what is a poem, the question came up around my earlier errant composition, was what I’d written a poem, though one could be made out between the, dare I say, ivied even cracks
something that rhymes, my mom answered when I asked, which mine of course didn’t
though mellifluous and rhythmic maybe, and peppered here and there with inventive and artful devices – metaphors, alliteration, onomatopeia, the like, the meat and potatoes, the very stuff, I think, of poems – I still didn’t rhyme, don’t rhyme, and run a sentence on mostly much too long for a proper pentameter
like, I guess, a prose poem
or maybe even just prose
but about the Bruegel
at the back a radiant sun dominates the picture, sheds not only light but life on everything, the sky is thick with grays and blue and takes on actual dimension, whereas a more silken application of paint to the sun makes that orb evanescent, a portal into heaven, a source instead of a force, an opening instead of an engine
in the foreground a farmer ploughs his field, another tends his sheep, life is going on despite the splendour
no one notices Icarus either, the flailing figure in the waves, bottom right, drowning, despite the might of the myth, the potency, the poignancy, of the poetry
but who notices even poetry
across a stretch of water to the horizon and to at its edge the resplendent sun, ships with sails, indeed medieval galleons, sit in the placid harbour of a city in the blue crook of, upper left, a range of mountains, the City of God of Augustine maybe for its iridescent pastels, for its sunlit gold maybe the gilded Greek Atlantis
above the flailing Icarus a ship is setting joyful sail out towards the promise of the blazing sun, the way seems clear
there will be other, it appears, Icaruses
medieval caricaturization and perspective inextricably of course obtain throughout
__________________________________________
April 2, 2008
a welcome inspiration
these earlier “back tracks”, of which the following is one example, are pieces I consider still to be worth your while
please enjoy
__________________
March 15, 2006
as though the fire were out I was finding no spark of inspiration lately, though spring now, and some verve, have conspired at last to reignite my flailing prose
not even that I couldn’t match the noun to an apt and attractive adjective, that I couldn’t find the time or case of an ornery verb, that the metre of an iambic was perhaps recalcitrant or the lilt of an onomatopeia tired and worn, but rather and more decidedly, more fatally finally for my few sputtering words, for my flagging, foundering vowels, for my crumbling, turncoat consonnants, that were deserting me in droves, that I couldn’t turn open even the page, couldn’t find my way even to the paper that would allow me to write, to fill the vast waste of whiteness at my hand with the bouquets of wild and fragrant flowers that usually I find along the path of my itinerant imagination
this is no longer, evidently, the case
the ink is again flowing, the spring of art is in the air along with the spring of sap and blossoms
today I drew fleurs-de-lys on my walls, heraldically, which I’ll anoint in several colours to stand out against the variety of colours painted there already, I live in an array of colours, just like in a fairy tale
yesterday, to enhance that fancy, I received a mirror, a beautiful mirror, its craftsman told me it is made to reflect specifically one’s inner beauty
what if that could be
perhaps that craftsman ‘s a magician
he was at least a wise man
and a welcome inspiration
_______________________________________
March 31, 2008
“Another World”, Robert Mazzocco
here’s a poem that stirred me from my own “slough of despond”, resurrected me from a period of sluggish stasis, I was finding neither the time nor the inclination to even share poetry, this one is, I’m sure controversial, perhaps even offensive to some but, I think, strong, striking, and utterly honest and human, reflective of a ubiquitous existential reality
Another World
I am a married male and a young exec,
a country-club, racquet-playing sort of jock,
I guess, who is now deep in a slough of despond.
What I am looking for, though, is a similar type,
and yet dissimilar as well, to chill with,
and, maybe, who can tell, open me up, if possible…
Must be virile and caring and muscular and bi.
I need to relax, you see, I cannot even crack
the Wall Street Journal anymore. I am willing
to learn and eager to please. Help me unite…
I love my wife, but feel she is in another world.
And I, too, of course, dream of another world. Or bro.
Be patient and try and understand. Show me the way.
Or the ropes. Or the map. I am a tyro, I know,
and a stranger, really, to my own self or any other soul…
And yet I do not want to be anonymous. Or still less only
to party. No, what I’ll want, as soon as it is night, is to count
the stars on our path as, side by side, whatever the future to share we let our steps follow one another on through the dawn.
Robert Mazzocco
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