Pushing, pushing, pushing

Just a quick note to direct you to qarrtsiluni, where I just published another poem. They are good to me.

Permanent link: http://qarrtsiluni.com/2009/07/02/pushing-1s-and-0s/.

From the Dvorak Festival

Adagio – Allegro molto

Do you remember the first piece of music that made your heart expand? Or the first poem that touched your soul?

For me, that seminal piece of music was Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (from the New World). It’s a beloved symphony, especially here in the United States where Dvorak composed it. Dvorak, himself is especially popular here in Chicago, where several of his compositions were given their premiere.

My only personal claim upon the piece seems entirely random. I was required to take two semesters of Music History for my minor course of study in college. I had always played music – piano, then saxophone – but I had not spent any appreciable amount of time sitting and listening to music. Dutifully, I relinquished my ID card to the attendant in the audiovisual room at the library. (Remember when libraries had AV rooms? Do they still? Or has it all gone digital?)

My assignment that afternoon was to listen to some of the composers we had been studying in class. “Studying” is probably too kind a word – it was a survey class, so entire movements and periods and lists of composers flew past in every half hour of class time. In any event, I settled in with the New World Symphony on my large, rubber library headphones and listened.

And I listened. Twice. I may have played several sections over for a third time. I was in love.

A number of years have passed since that day. I graduated with my Literature/Communications major and my Music minor. I did a short stint in grad school before dropping out and getting a job instead. I got married. Ten years and another job later I got divorced. And a few more years passed.

I make no claim to be “older and wiser,” but a great deal has happened to me since that day in the library. I do not listen with the same ears… or the same heart.

Largo

My first poem? That’s much more difficult to place. I did not study poetry in college. In fact, I took many more courses on the “Comm” side of my program than on the “Lit” side – something I regret strongly. I was exposed to bits of poetry here and there – Blake, Keats, Frost, Shakespeare – however, it was not until well after my prescribed programs of study were complete that I began reading poetry for pleasure.

But if we travel back a little farther – to the day I graduated from my small, rural high school – there was a first poem. I had done well enough in my academic career to earn a speaking part in the graduation ceremony. I was terrified! I had never given a speech to such a large crowd. And although a “large crowd” in Lanark, Illinois, would cause a Chicago Public School student to double over with laughter, these were my school mates and their parents. I felt the pressure.

It was not a long speech – and not incredibly eloquent – but I did quote that favorite of graduation speakers everywhere: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. It moved me then, as a young girl make choices about her future, and it still moves me now, albeit in different ways, of course.

Molto vivace

But where is all this talk of “firsts” leading? To a Friday night in Chicago at Symphony Center. To the penultimate concert of the Chicago Symphony’s Dvorak Festival. To a marvelous program of Dvorak favorites: the Carnival Overture, the Cello Concerto, and the New World Symphony.

I attended a total of four concerts in the festival – the Symphony No. 8 program;  the Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 3; the Emerson String Quartet program; and last night’s Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 9. When I purchased the tickets, I somehow overlooked the fact that the Cello Concerto was on two of the programs – a happy accident, as I would not have done that deliberately.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two concerts and was blown away by Alisa Weilerstein’s performance on the Cello Concerto during Week #2. The Emerson String Quartet was disappointing. I’m sure they were technically flawless, but I remained unmoved by the music. I will have to seek out some additional recordings of Dvorak’s chamber music to discover the source of the problem – me or the artists or the music itself. Although… I do not often attend Sunday afternoon concerts, so perhaps the time of day was working against me.

By the time last night’s concert arrived, I was looking forward to the New World Symphony, but I had no particular expectations. It was not a subscription concert, so I was not sitting in my usual roomy little nook in the first balcony. Scrunched between a group of 20-somethings discussing their music appreciation class and an attractive 40-something couple who seemed very much in love, I thought to myself, “Well, the music will be good and perhaps I’ll buy something chocolate at the intermission.”

Allegro con fuoco

I did not need the chocolate. Listening to the Carnival Overture was like consuming some sort of melt-in-your-mouth candy. Delightful! And Alisa Weilerstein’s performance of the Cello Concerto was even more enjoyable the second time round. I wanted the musical conversation between cello and flute – i.e., Alisa and Mathieu Dufour – to continue for the rest of the evening. But then, Mathieu has always been my favorite CSO woodwind.

Finally, Symphony No. 9… A special addition for the evening’s performance was Chicago actor Francis Guinan reading selections from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha before the first three movements. Dvorak had been commissioned to compose an opera based upon the poem, but never did so.

I cannot say that The Song of Hiawatha has any special meaning for me. I haven’t even read more than the first few stanzas of it. Guinan’s reading, however, was powerful. And more powerful was the passage of time. As Dvorak’s familiar horn theme gently sounded, I found myself overcome with emotion and catapulted backward in time to that day in the college library. Before my marriage. Before my divorce. Before I had felt and heard and seen the last decade-and-a-half.

“After many years of warfare,

Many years of strife and bloodshed,

There is peace between the Ojibways

And the tribe of the Dacotahs.”

Thus continued Hiawatha,

And then added, speaking slowly,

“That this peace may last forever,

And our hands be clasped more closely,

And our hearts be more united,

Give me as my wife this maiden,

Minnehaha, Laughing Water,

Loveliest of Dacotah women!”

And the ancient Arrow-maker

Paused a moment ere he answered,

Smoked a little while in silence,

Looked at Hiawatha proudly,

Fondly looked at Laughing Water,

And made answer very gravely:

“Yes, if Minnehaha wishes;

Let your heart speak, Minnehaha!”

And the lovely Laughing Water

Seemed more lovely as she stood there,

Neither willing nor reluctant,

As she went to Hiawatha,

Softly took the seat beside him,

While she said, and blushed to say it,

“I will follow you, my husband!”

X. Hiawatha’s Wooing

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was as if someone had jabbed me in the belly with a sharp stick. As Guinan read the word “husband” to introduce the symphony’s second movement, I began to cry. After an initial blush of embarrassment, I gave up and let the tears roll silently down my cheeks. My life is much, much better now, thank you – and I am not the type who wishes to go back and change things – but sometimes the emotions and the memories sneak up on you.

I cried for all that I know now that I didn’t know then. I cried for the beauty of the music. I cried for the love of Hiawatha and his bride. I cried for the couple next to me, who clasped hands whenever the music swelled to a soul-touching intensity.

Poetry and music are incredibly powerful art forms. We listen to the radio or read some lines of verse while waiting in line at the doctor’s office. That’s pretty, we think. Or that’s interesting. But when we really stop and pay attention, when we let ourselves become intellectually and emotionally involved in the words or the notes, then we remember. Oh, right. That’s why I schlepp to the office five days a week or skip yoga class to work late. If you’ll allow me to quote Robin Williams in the movie “Dead Poets Society”:

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Adagio – Allegro molto
Do you remember the first piece of music that made your heart expand? Or the first poem that touched your soul?

For me, that seminal piece of music was Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 (from the New World). It’s a beloved symphony, especially here in the United States where Dvorak composed it. Dvorak, himself, is especially popular here in Chicago, where several of his compositions were given their premiere.

My only personal claim upon the piece seems entirely random. I was required to take two semesters of music history for my minor course of study in college. I had always played music – piano, then saxophone – but I had not spent any appreciable amount of time sitting and listening to music. Dutifully, I relinquished my ID card to the attendant in the audiovisual room at the library. (Remember when libraries had AV rooms? Do they still? Or has it all gone digital?)

My assignment that afternoon was to listen to some of the composers we had been studying in class. “Studying” is probably too kind a word – it was a survey class, so entire movements and periods and lists of composers flew past in every half hour of class time. In any event, I settled in with the New World Symphony on my large, rubber library headphones and listened.

And I listened. Twice. I may have played several sections over for a third time. I was in love.

A number of years have passed since that day. I graduated with my literature/communications major and my music minor. I did a short stint in grad school before dropping out and getting a job. I got married. Ten years and another job later I got divorced. And a few more years passed.

I make no claim to be “older and wiser,” but a great deal has happened to me since that day in the library. I do not listen with the same ears … or the same heart.

Largo
My first poem? That’s much more difficult to place. I did not study poetry in college. In fact, I took many more courses on the “Comm” side of my program than on the “Lit” side – something I regret strongly. I was exposed to bits of poetry here and there – Blake, Keats, Frost, Shakespeare – however, it was not until well after my prescribed programs of study were complete that I began reading poetry for pleasure.

But if we travel back a little farther – to the day I graduated from my small, rural high school – there was a first poem. I had done well enough in my academic career to earn a speaking part in the graduation ceremony. I was terrified! I had never given a speech to such a large crowd. And although a “large crowd” in Lanark, Illinois, would cause a Chicago Public School student to double over with laughter, these were my school mates and their parents. I was feeling the pressure.

It was not a long speech – and not incredibly eloquent – but I did quote that favorite of graduation speakers everywhere: “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost. It moved me then, as a young girl making choices about her future, and it still moves me now, albeit in different ways, of course.

Molto vivace
But where is all this talk of “firsts” leading? To a Friday night in Chicago at Symphony Center. To the penultimate concert of the Chicago Symphony’s Dvorak Festival. To a marvelous program of Dvorak favorites: the Carnival Overture, the Cello Concerto, and the New World Symphony.

I attended a total of four concerts in the festival – the Violin Concerto and Symphony No. 7 program;  the Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 8; the Emerson String Quartet program; and last night’s Cello Concerto and Symphony No. 9. When I purchased the tickets, I somehow overlooked the fact that the Cello Concerto was on two of the programs – a happy accident.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first two concerts and was blown away by Alisa Weilerstein’s performance of the Cello Concerto during Week #2. The Emerson String Quartet was disappointing. I’m sure they were technically flawless, but I remained unmoved by the music. I will have to seek out some additional recordings of Dvorak’s chamber music to discover the source of the problem – me or the artists or the music itself. Although … I do not often attend Sunday afternoon concerts, so perhaps the time of day was working against me.

By the time last night’s concert arrived, I was looking forward to the New World Symphony, but I had no particular expectations. It was not a subscription concert, so I was not sitting in my usual roomy little nook in the first balcony. Scrunched between a group of 20-somethings discussing their music appreciation class and an attractive 40-something couple who seemed very much in love, I thought to myself, “Well, the music will be good and perhaps I’ll buy something chocolate at the intermission.”

Allegro con fuoco
I did not need the chocolate. Listening to the Carnival Overture was like consuming some sort of melt-in-your-mouth candy. Delightful! And Alisa Weilerstein’s performance of the Cello Concerto was even more enjoyable the second time round. I wanted the musical conversation between cello and flute – i.e., Alisa and Mathieu Dufour – to continue for the rest of the evening.

A special addition for the evening’s performance was Chicago actor Francis Guinan reading selections from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha before the first three movements of Symphony No. 9. Apparently, Dvorak had been commissioned to compose an opera based upon the poem. Although he never did so, it is thought that some of those musical ideas made their way into the New World Symphony.

I cannot say that The Song of Hiawatha has any special meaning for me. I haven’t read more than the first few stanzas of it. Guinan’s reading, however, was powerful. And more powerful was the passage of time. As Dvorak’s familiar horn theme gently sounded, I found myself overcome with emotion and catapulted backward to that day in the college library. Before my marriage. Before my divorce. Before I had felt and heard and seen the last decade-and-a-half.

“After many years of warfare,
Many years of strife and bloodshed,
There is peace between the Ojibways
And the tribe of the Dacotahs.”

Thus continued Hiawatha,
And then added, speaking slowly,
“That this peace may last forever,
And our hands be clasped more closely,
And our hearts be more united,
Give me as my wife this maiden,
Minnehaha, Laughing Water,
Loveliest of Dacotah women!”

And the ancient Arrow-maker
Paused a moment ere he answered,
Smoked a little while in silence,
Looked at Hiawatha proudly,
Fondly looked at Laughing Water,
And made answer very gravely:
“Yes, if Minnehaha wishes;
Let your heart speak, Minnehaha!”

And the lovely Laughing Water
Seemed more lovely as she stood there,
Neither willing nor reluctant,
As she went to Hiawatha,
Softly took the seat beside him,
While she said, and blushed to say it,
“I will follow you, my husband!”

Hiawatha’s Wooing, The Song of Hiawatha
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It was as if someone had jabbed me in the belly with a sharp stick. As Guinan read the word ‘husband,’ I began to cry. After an initial blush of embarrassment, I gave up and let the tears roll silently down my cheeks. My life is much, much better now, thank you – and I am not the type who wishes to go back and change things – but sometimes the emotions and the memories sneak up on you.

I cried for all that I know now that I didn’t know then. I cried for the beauty of the music. I cried for the love of Hiawatha and his bride. I cried for the couple next to me, who clasped hands whenever the music swelled to soul-touching intensity.

I think we forget that poetry and music are such incredibly powerful art forms. We listen to the radio or read some lines of verse while waiting in line at the doctor’s office. That’s pretty, we think. Or that’s interesting. But when we really stop and pay attention, when we let ourselves become intellectually and emotionally involved in the words or the notes, then we remember.

Oh, yeah. That’s why I schlepp to the office five days a week or skip yoga class to work late or spend three days trapped in a windowless room to learn some new piece of software. I think Robin Williams said it best in the movie Dead Poets Society:

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Now go listen to something beautiful.

White whales and clouds

I’ve been reading Janet Frame’s posthumous collection “The Goose Bath Poems” slowly – more slowly than usual. Partly this is due to a busy month of other reading, but also it is the density of her work. Her sentences are complex and her ideas are often obscure to me. And yet, I keep reading. Something about them touches me.

Martha’s Vineyard

The boy in the basement steers a spacecraft into heaven.

What is heaven? The flowering of the summer squash

in his small garden; a rack of carpenter’s tools; two gerbils;

a walk on the sand

hand in hand with his father

who conjures the great white whale out of print

into the ocean within a few yards of the house.

It is his mother gently disentangling his unhurt fingers from Charlotte’s web;

the morning ride on the punt to Chappaquiddick;

nurses and children; the private beach;

the best; white;

white whale and cloud.

Two or three feet taller where

adults turn their heads to say No,

it never happened, look who’s winning the game,

which ghost passed like a storm down the highway,

heaven though nearer is further away.

In this poem, we see a small boy playing with model spaceships and walking on the beach with his father. He has been born into a life of privilege: His parents live on Martha’s Vineyard (or summer there, at least), they walk upon a private beach, the boy has a private nurse. And his father has been reading Moby Dick – the story of the white whale, obsession, tragedy. 

And I cannot help but wonder… Is that what the boy’s life will become? A tragedy? He will go to the best schools and be given every opportunity, but he will squander his life on a foolish obsession? As Frame says, “heaven though nearer is further away.” Is the bar set too high already for this small boy? Will he ever live up to the expectations of his family, his social class?

The boy has been given “the best; white;” and yet, I feel sorry for him. We are all on the hamster wheel. Some of us possess a few more pieces of gold than others, but we each make our own happiness or our own hell.

Obviously, when we read poetry, we filter the meaning through our own prejudices, histories and beliefs. We read a poem in our 30s or 40s and it has different meaning for us than it did in our 20s. (This is a good argument, by the way, for attending a performance of “Hamlet” in each decade of our lives. Watch how the meaning evolves.)

I’ve been struggling with my own quest for happiness lately. Perhaps that is why this poem resonates for me. Janet Frame struggled most of her life to make peace with her illness. I hope she found some sense of satisfaction, at least, from the art that was its byproduct.

Have a good holiday weekend.

 

I’ve been reading Janet Frame’s posthumous collection The Goose Bath Poems slowly – more slowly than usual. Partly this is due to a busy month of other reading, but also it is the density of her work. Her sentences are complex and her ideas are often obscure to me. And yet, I keep reading. Something about them touches me.

Martha’s Vineyard
by Janet Frame 

…
The boy in the basement steers a spacecraft into heaven.
What is heaven? The flowering of the summer squash
in his small garden; a rack of carpenter’s tools; two gerbils;
a walk on the sand
hand in hand with his father
who conjures the great white whale out of print
into the ocean within a few yards of the house.

It is his mother gently disentangling his unhurt fingers
          from Charlotte’s web;
the morning ride on the punt to Chappaquiddick;
nurses and children; the private beach;
the best; white;
white whale and cloud.
Two or three feet taller where
adults turn their heads to say No,
it never happened, look who’s winning the game,
which ghost passed like a storm down the highway,
heaven though nearer is further away.
… 

In this poem, we see a small boy playing with model spaceships and walking on the beach with his father. He has been born into a life of privilege: His parents live on Martha’s Vineyard (or summer there, at least), they walk upon a private beach, the boy has a private nurse. And his father has been reading Moby Dick – the story of the white whale, obsession, tragedy. 

And I cannot help but wonder… Is that what the boy’s life will become? A tragedy? He will go to the best schools and be given every opportunity, but he will squander his life on a foolish obsession? As Frame says, “heaven though nearer is further away.” Is the bar set too high already for this small boy? Will he ever live up to the expectations of his family, his social class?

The boy has been given “the best; white;” and yet, I feel sorry for him. We are all on the hamster wheel. Some of us possess a few more pieces of gold than others, but we each make our own happiness or our own hell.

Obviously, when we read poetry, we filter the meaning through our own prejudices, histories and beliefs. We read a poem in our 30s or 40s and it has different meaning for us than it did in our 20s. (This is a good argument, by the way, for attending a performance of Hamlet in each decade of our lives – to experience how the meaning evolves.)

I’ve been struggling with my own quest for happiness lately. Perhaps that is why this poem resonates for me. Janet Frame struggled most of her life to make peace with her illness. I hope she found some sense of satisfaction, at least, from the art that was its byproduct.

Have a good holiday weekend.

Dipping into The Goose Bath

Apologies for my long absence. I took some time off and traveled to New Zealand – as many of you know – and then returned to some truly awful jet lag. I’ve been reading; I’ve been writing. I’ve missed you and I hope you missed me.

One of my favorite travel activities involves locating a bookstore in every town I visit. Some people buy postcards; I buy books. And I bought several books of poetry during my trip.

First up: The Goose Bath poems by Janet Frame. I must admit that before March, I was woefully ignorant about the poets from New Zealand. Indeed, I had not even heard of Janet Frame, who is perhaps the most famous New Zealand poet. Jane Campion’s film Angel at My Table is based upon Frame’s autobiography.

I’ll give you the Cliff Notes version of her life. Frame was born in Dunedin on the South Island in 1924. She lost her two sisters to drowning when she was young, and she made a number of suicide attempts – mostly feigned. She was in and out of mental institutions and was about to be lobotomized when one of her doctors heard that she had just won the Hubert Church Award for her book of short stories. They canceled the operation. She went on to write novels, poetry, short stories and her three-volume autobiography.

In 1983, she was granted the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) and by the late 90s was considered a leading candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Frame died in 2004 at age 74 of leukemia. In 2006, Random House/Vintage released The Goose Bath, a collection of previously unpublished work. 

It is from The Goose Bath poems (edited by Pamela Gordon, Denis Harold and Bill Manhire) that I am reading these days.

“I Do Not Want To Listen”
by Janet Frame

I do not want to listen
I refuse to listen
to the geometric noises
of black and white

My big colorful mouth
has enough to eat thank you
without tasting
a plain triangle or two.

Yes, I know rain-
drops are as heavy
and colourless as stones
and fall tropically

rain-bashing what
scurries
without obvious form
and certainly without hope

to the defining
shelter of a microscope.
And I’ve heard
of stick insects and figures

and striped beds
in the sky and rows
of disembodied black
and white flowers yet

poor as rainbows are
against the pressure
and purity
of no-colour

I must fight and fight
with my red and yellow head
even after I am dead, to stay
my own way, my own way.

The darkness is quite clear in her poetry, especially in early work like “I Do Not Want To Listen.” But I’ve only read a small portion of the collection, so I have not yet formed a solid opinion. I am delighted by her wordplay, though, as in “I Visited”:

“I Visited”
by Janet Frame

I visited
the angels and stars and stones;
also, adjectival poets, preferably original.
There was an air of restlessness
an inability to subside, a state of being at attention,
at worst, at war with the immediately beating heart and breathing lung.
I looked then in the word-chambers, the packed warehouses by the sea,
the decently kept but always decaying places where nouns and their
representative images lay together on high shelves
among abbreviations and longlost quotations. I listened.
Water lapped at the crumbling walls; it was a place 
for murder, piracy; salt hunger seeped between the shelves;
it was time to write. Now or never. The now unbearable,
the never a complete denial of memory:
I was not, I never have been.

Next up: poetry written while Frame was living in London, Europe and America. Stay tuned. Also, if you want to pick up your own copy of The Goose Bath, you may have to order online.

Amazon removes gay and lesbian books from their sales rankings

Here’s the letter that author Mark Probst received from Amazon when he inquired about why his YA gay-themed novel was removed from the sales rankings:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

Their “adult” policy also catches plenty of non-gay/lesbian books in its net, including Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Sigh. The same old censorship with a different face.

The ladies over at “Smart Bitches, Trashy Books” (they review romance novels) are attempting a Google Bomb. You can join in by linking to their proposed definition of “amazon rank”: http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank.

This whole thing makes me very sad. I’ve spent a lot of money at Amazon over the years. Recently, I’ve started ordering from Powell’s bookstore, because they only sell books. I was getting tired of the non-book clutter on Amazon. I guess this gives me a really good reason to move my online book-buying completely over to Powell’s.