Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

We just got back from a lovely one-day-later-christmas celebration at my sister's house and she and my brother-in-law gave us the 3-CD set of the Caedmon Poetry Collection - A Century of Poets Reading Their Works.

http://www.audiobooksonline.com/shopsit ... 22783.html

We just listened to a preview.... selecting cuts from each of the 3 CDs and my immediate reaction is that, although I love my sister and brother-in-law for their thoughtful gift.... these recitations, for the most part, are tedious, depressing, droning, many with affected voices, without engaging style, little or no voice inflection, lack of humor and very bleak in the realm of entertainment... (though I did love Sylvia Plath's pieces...)....

Hiphop has done a lot for spoken word poetry, but we listened to some of that today, too, and although there is more rhythm and music in hiphop, which is a GREAT plus, much of it is repetitious and way too serious, in my opinion.

I think it's time for a spoken word poetry revolution.... and no, I don't think the so-called Beats achieved what I'm talking about... I'm talking about words being music .... I'm talking about the jazz of the words being the music without such a droning, boring chant associated with it.... with some intermingled humor.....please...

Who are your favorite spoken word poets? And why? Is poetry music to you?

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The Caedmon Poetry Collection includes:

William Butler Yeats -- The Song of the Old Mother; The Lake Isle of Innisfree; W.H. Auden -- In Memory of W.B. Yeats; Dylan Thomas -- Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, Fern Hill; Edith Sitwell -- Still Falls the Rain; May Swenson -- The DNA Molecule; Robert Graves -- Poem to My Son; Randall Jarrell -- Eighth Air Force; Archibald MacLeish -- Epistle to Be Left in the Earth; W.S. Merwin -- The Last One; Anne Sexton -- Divorce, Thy Name is Woman; Carl Sandburg -- The Windy City Fog; William Carlos Williams -- The Seafarer; E.E. Cummings -- darling! because my blood can sing, if everthing that happens can't be done; Joseph Brodsky -- Nature Morte, Letter from an Archaeologist; Robert Frost -- The Road Not Taken, After Apple-Picking; Derek Walcott -- Omeros, Book 1, Chapter 1; Robert Lowell -- Skunk Hour; Gertrude Stein -- If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso; Sylvia Plath -- The Thin People; Robert Penn Warren -- Sirocco; American Portrait: Old Style; Pablo Neruda -- Arte Poetica; Ezra Pound -- Moeurs Contemporaines; Wallace Stevens -- The Idea of Order At Key West; T.S. Eliot -- The Wasteland; and more.

my favorite spoken word poets are the ones i've heard
the NYC Bowery bunch

Ordinary Joe
Regie Cabicco (approx of last name - man, he was sensational)
Cheryl Boyce Taylor

Those people were utterly amazing.

i haven't heard enough - a few hours in a club where all people do is communicate rhythm word and being -
not enough

but live theatre always takes precedence over polished recordings.
the interaction is electric

We're talking about doing another Cabaradio this coming June, judih...

Poetry is entertainment.

Let's leave the drone out of it.

Could you come?

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my favorite Bowery Poetry Club performer is Moonshine... in-house bartender and stand-up (on the bar) spontaneous performer... his rendition of his own greasy food comfort in the largeness fat verse gay lingo jive, humor laid out with pickled relish, hot outa da kitchen is like way right like it's supposed to be.... next time, i'm jumpin' up on the bar with him for some spontanaeity.....

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come to the Cabaradio... life is a cabaret!

another cabaradio! excellent!
could i come? in all honesty, there's no way - school keeps on going till end of June and i'm supposed to cog along with the establishment wheels

but you know i'd love to say yes
it would be great to be part of something that whirls up all that energy - your planning, your drive, your lit up self and the selves of all those people who jive together in the heat of performance.


i could send a representative, perhaps...

summer is the idea....

june? no?

when would work? july? august?

we would love to hear your energy and embrace your being along with the obvioius audience reception....

just an idea.....

no droning allowed.... !

all representatives welcome.... but

could i accompany your voice on the keys?

keys always welcome
open the option door, dor


i'll let you know
technical glitch...just reading the new Dovrat Commission reform for schools in israel - they're talking about changing summer break from 2 months to 1 - will have to see what's gonna be this summer.

j

we arrange and rearrange
time like calendar days strung
in beads on a fishing wire
to be restrung again
once the pond becomes
tired of rites,
each spring,
a sensual delight,
each necklace,
a unique decoration.

we make elation
from unplanned journeys,
spare ourselves itinerary-woe,
go where we need to go
when we need to go,
blow out candles
every birthcake,
take the waking
of hours with
a shower of gifts
we never imagined.

we are there
when we can be there.
we are always where
we have to be.

options are keystrokes.
we choose them when
available.

often glitches
cannot be ignored.
we can only afford
summer breaks,
take-five wakes
of passion,
crashed into
possibility-waves.


(thanks, judih... hope you can make it... no firm date set... it's all conjecture, at this point.)

Re: William Butler Yeats reading: whether he droned or not would be irrelevant, and indeed, I imagine the best "context" for WBY would be silence....not music

W.H. Auden -- In Memory of W.B. Yeats: any sort of muzak or riddum would ruin this work

Dylan Thomas -- Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, Fern Hill:
a Bard-- such as Yeats, Auden or Thomas-- has no need for accompaniment or laughter or bongos, and he is not a comic

perezoso wrote:Re: William Butler Yeats reading: whether he droned or not would be irrelevant, and indeed, I imagine the best "context" for WBY would be silence....not music

W.H. Auden -- In Memory of W.B. Yeats: any sort of muzak or riddum would ruin this work

Dylan Thomas -- Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, Fern Hill:
a Bard-- such as Yeats, Auden or Thomas-- has no need for accompaniment or laughter or bongos, and he is not a comic

I love Dylan Thomas and I adore W.H.Auden... but the droning voices of these recitations scare me, a lover of poetry, away from their work.

Both have been major influences in my passion for the craft... but both performances fall way short of anything akin to engaging the audience.

They bored me to tears.

It's unfortunate.

Bigtime.

I did truly enjoy Carl Sandburg's Windy City... Chicago..... a dramatic presentation true to the heart, but also very bogus in theatrics.... but i love his voice, nonetheless... it's rich in wisdom... his voice reminds me of Will Rodgers for some reason....

the deal is... when we perform/recite works... let's not DRONE!!!!!

I'm sorry to be such a critic of these "famous" poets, but I can't help it.

it's a matter of style,
fashion, mode at the time

what was once wild impossible beats (like Mozart) are now considered classics

all a matter of ear
bring yeats on stage today - let him suck in the times
and see how he tells it

yeah, i guess, judih

but not

i mean, today, i can play chopin and debussy and both are still alive and creative with the time they came from and with now and i yearn to read these beautiful poems of these poets myself, recorded

i donno...... what's the style? what's the mode? i'm not much for packaged

any respected stage performer could read the local, national, or international (for that matter) want ads and classifieds with more expressive engagement than that

bring on yeats now!

yes!

i wish i could know him this moment