Music

I'm reading D.H. Lawrence, Marianne Moore, and Robinson Jeffers today for Modernism class tonight. Last week I really enjoyed learning about Mina Loy and reading her poetry. She was a very bold, articulate, woman to write what she did in the 1910's-30's. Some of my favorite Loy lines/images:

~from "Songs to Joannes" (written 1915-17)

• "My finger-tips are numb from freeting your hair / A God's door-mat / On the threshold of your mind" (from Section II)
• "No love or the other thing / Only the impact of lighted bodies / Knocking sparks off each other / In chaos" (from Section XIV)

And in 1923, she wrote in her poem "Der Blind Junge": "Void and extinct / this planet of the soul / strains from the craving throat / in static flight upslanting" (stanza 7).

The Modernists have reminded me to think more carefully and critically about the music of poetry--the consider the rhythms and beats of my own poems.

When I was teaching high school Creative Writing, I incorporated music and discussed the creative work of lyrics in music which I thought was not only rhythmically successful but which also was comprised of beautiful lyrical language, with strong, fresh imagery. Some of the artists that I noted--depending on the crowd of students I was working with and what I knew they might enjoy--were U2, Jack Johnson, Indigo Girls, Dave Matthews, and John Mayer. I also have used The Smiths, They Might Be Giants, and Violent Femmes, as well as Paul Simon and Suzanne Vega. Songs overtly have a message to convey--that's part of the genre's responsibility: they specifically communicate something (usually emotion based, relational, etc.). However, poetry is usually more subtle or contains layers of meaning, and the speaker's voice and imagery carries the poem along. The language has to be precise and strong, because it stands on its own. A good song, even with silly lyrics, may still sound good. A poem without good music (the language itself) will be flat, dull...unremembered and never desired to be read again.

Another artist whose lyrics always cause me to pause and remember its images is Christopher Williams. And I'm going see him in concert very soon, in Seattle at the Tractor Tavern. The last time I heard him play live must have been nearly 10 years ago at The INN. Chris's music has been sort of a theme for Judd and my relationship, because it was one of the first things we learned we had in common...and Chris has some beautiful love songs (which sounds cliche to write that, but it's true...beautiful in an acoustic guitar, folksong, poetry kind of way).

Judd and Chris are old friends, dating back from their time as fellow summer staff workers at Malibu. So, we're excited for this concert, excited to see Chris again and tell him that his music was one of the catalysts for us falling in love.