Wednesday, February 3, 2016

In February with Felino A. Soriano



Today I'd like to continue the fall/winter contests with Felino A. Soriano's poems.  The first is his celebration of Poncho Sanchez.

Oh, the joy

                —after Poncho Sanchez’s Baila mi gente

we this aggregation of
fluid wings this
                        articulation of rhythm’s
                        mobile language and prosaic
              function
            to
reinterpret movement

                                           we’ve been an attribute of tonal miracles
and
 the feet of our listening
erupt and configure
elation’s

                   pronounced figurines of multilingual

excavations 


The other is his invocation of Marian McPartland, the long time NPR host who interviewed everyone from Dizzy Gillespie to Lionel Hampton to Kenny Burrell to Steely Dan to Elvis Costello.  Born in 1918, she inspired Felino's poem for the contest of poems inspired by musicians born in the 1910s.


Each crow suspends prior to dedicating movement

          —for Marian McPartland (born 3/20/18)
                                               
personal geography
the dance of the body’s turning
                                                toward
an age of trend     an arc of proving rhythms—

near-morning, the
mist of air’s whispering welcome

nothing here hallucinates under the
fingering tributes of wing and plurals of

reconfiguring devotion—

a prose writes
its wandering purpose

into gaze and promise to etch meaning from absence
and within the voice a
curtain of horizontal hands

pause and continue . . .                                             a bowing of
internal reliance with

SUDDEN symmetry :: each rounded sounding

pound of memorizing measure, the associated

figurines of air’s crisscrossing angular levels

paralleling music with the flight of handmade veneration—

the tribute will arrive again, ongoing

mentioning toward the hearers of tonal

                                                             camaraderie
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Let's listen to some Poncho Sanchez and Marian McPartland.

Here is a live version of Baila Mi Gente, the song that Felino references:


I will also include his version of Cantaloupe Island: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOpmMDj8IZI

Marian McPartland's version of "Things Ain't What They Used To Be" dates from 1964, the good old days!


Here she and Dave Brubeck perform parts of "Take Five" on her show.  This recording is from 1984:

She joins Steely Dan on "Hesitation Blues": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-zo0FggV3c

3 comments:

  1. Felino's poems--unwind and take turns that are unexpected just as jazz does. He plays words.

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  2. absolutely lovely proses and works marianne.... very enjoyable .
    thank you

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