Poetry and LPTJ

[Bernard]

no shame in looking like a kid next to horace

[fishjim]

Topic resurrected for a spring-themed x-post. In memoriam: Peter B. Howard of Serendipity Books.

Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu!

 
SPRING
 
I.
 
Evocations
 
 
'Rise, and put on your foliage'.
 
Come, as the Green Knight to Gawain at the beginning
of the new year -
 
out of his oaken crevice:
lhude sing cuccu!
 
Move with a spring & vegetable swiftness,
seed-case & burr & tremulous grasses, a grove - vocal in the wind -
 
('the rustlings of the leaves and
the songs of birds denoting his presence there')
 
cuckoo!
 
('at thes day we in ye
sign call them Green Men, covered with green bones')
 
cuckoo!
 
('I have listened to the cuckoo in the ivy-tree,
I have listened to the note of the birds
 
in the crest of the rustling oak,
loud cuckoo')
 
cuckoo!
cuckoo!
 
 
Rise as the sun: antlered -
bearded with greenery - the leaf-vein pulsing
 
in your throat. Budded all over with small flame, & motley
with birds in your hair & arms. Rise,
 
& put on your foliage!
 
 
 
- Ronald Johnson, The Book of the Green Man (1967)

[clare]

I like this. I also like its inspiration.

[Thermofusion]

As a reader & listener, I feel like the visionary impulse of the Ammons poem, written in the visual syntax of William Carlos Williams, crossed mediums somewhere in the 60s, re-emerging in song lyrics such as Joyner's.

Discuss. Dispute. Dispel.

Fishjim, this may interest you. One of my old composition professors set a number of Ammons' poems to music over the course of his career, in various combinations of voice + piano or ensemble. Some of it's available on disc, and you can read about their collaborations here: http://www.kennethfrazelle.com/ammons.html

[fishjim]

Holy shit, Thermo. I'm the biggest Ammons freak I know and I'd never heard of this.

I'll be listening to it all. Thank you!

[FreddyKnuckles]

I like swiftness/tremulous

[fishjim]

Hey all, sorry for my absence in Earbuds last few months. I'll be back soon.

Meantime, here's a postcard for the solstice. Thinking of you!

[Nick Ink]

Hey all, sorry for my absence in Earbuds last few months. I'll be back soon.

That place has been dead lately - no you, no alex, edison, bubbacups, killdozersnakebot, andrew, kyle etc etc

 

[Bernard]

poetry and google voice transcriptions of what it thinks my mom is saying (she is speaking Persian):

She said to call Bill Clinton
specify which is that
the game of phone. Bye.
Okay, bye
79
what we should provide that I might be none of them.

[cold before sunrise]

5/5, feel alive.

[Bernard]

http://mairangibay.blogspot.com/2011/09/collecting-paul-celan.html

[fishjim]

Thanks for this, Bernard! I know very little of Paul Celan except "Death Fugue," which is unforgettable and always comes to mind when I hear "The Black Ice Cream Song." I've got no excuse for not reading more.

On the subject of death fugues, here's one from last month on Serendipity Books:

"Serendipity Books, R.I.P."
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/serendipity-books-r-i-p/

[Ignatius]

H'm... A number of those translations were done by a guy in my department from school. I wish I'd known back then, might've signed up for a class..

[coldforge]

I'm currently reading David Ignatow's _Shadowing the Ground_. As death fugues go it's a real knockout so far.

[Bernard]

Celan is what you might call The Business.

[Ignatius]

I had studied him briefly in another class, was intrigued, but did not know one of his pre-eminent American translators was probably teaching the hell out of him down the hall. Stupid me!

[Bernard]

I would've been camping out on that dude's doorstep!

[John]

http://mairangibay.blogspot.com/2011/09/collecting-paul-celan.html

I never mention him in interviewers but having Celan taught to me by a girlfriend in high school (she was a college student, I looked up to her and devoured anything she told me she thought was good) was a formative event for me. Celan and Trakl were her two big reveals in poetry for me, I can still remember specific little bits that I haven't read in years ("annihilated,/-ied.") This link here made me really happy even though I think maybe my aesthetic priorities are different now than they were then!

[Good Intentions]

Whereas I had a girlfriend who stayed in Mairangi Bay.

http://mairangibay.blogspot.com

Umm, that is all.

[Bernard]

I'm just stoked people even know about Celan. A person once mocked me mercilessly because she thought I was mispronouncing Celine. Of all the. Go ahead and make fun of me, but Celine, ffs.

[fishjim]

Serendipity in the news:

Rare works from Serendipity Books to be auctioned

[fishjim]