After Midterms...Martin Willitts, Jr. and Bryn Fortey

Apologies...it's been a while.  Now that I've finished my midterms, and before I dive into some proposals for the final project, I'd like to post some long overdue poems.  First are Martin Willitts, Jr.'s poems in his Helga series after Andrew Wyeth's own series of paintings and drawings.

Braids

Andrew Wyeth painting, 1979

How long do they take to make them?

Hand over delicate hand, twisting them into shape.

It must take all day or more, such raveling;

do you unbraid them, ever?

What is that like? Is it like I imagine it would be?

I am envious of your husband if he undoes them.

He must take his time unwrapping them

like they were Christmas presents.

He must enjoy untangling your hair as it speaks to him.

The air must be holding its breath.

If only I could have the pleasure.

I would untie them like knots on a nightgown.

If there is a God, then he must have created braids,

and rested several days

admiring their luster, their primitive sexuality,

and gasped, it’s good.

Martin Willitts, Jr.

Letting Her Hair Down

            Andrew Wyeth painting, 1972

She has let down her hair

and foxes take the best hens.

She brushes the blond hair out,

and waterfalls are envious.

Loose strands stick in the paintbrush bristles

and men vote in Congress for the end of war.

She strokes her hair one hundred times

like she was told long ago when she was little

and never knew why.

She puts down the hair brush

and stares at the movement of light on her skin

as the upper half-moons of her breasts

rise over the horizon.

Martin Willitts, Jr.

Bryn Fortey now returns us to jazz, specifically the music of the fall/winter contests: musicians born in the 1900s and 1910s and Latin jazz.

FIRST GENIUS

(Louis Armstrong: (1901 – 1971)

High register playing that could slice your soul

Notes cascading like sunlight spearing crystal

Louis Armstrong: genius

His gravel-like voice

Used as an extension of his instrumental approach

The man who invented scat when he forgot the words

Dippermouth  -  Satchelmouth  -  Satchmo

The jazzman extraordinary and trumpeter supreme

Who bypassed the ensemble and created the solo

****

One Saturday evening in May, 1956, my mother

shook hands and exchanged a few words with

Louis Armstrong while I was stranded on the

other side of the Empress Hall, London. Later, on

the Paddington to South Wales milk train, she was

like a schoolgirl, claiming she would never wash

that hand again.

****

Louis Armstrong

The King

First genius of jazz

Bryn Fortey

First published in CANINE TEETH, a now defunct British small press magazine.

BIG

(Ben Webster: 1909  -  1973)

London

Landmark

A century

And more

King

Of clocks

                                        Jazz

                                        Stylist

                                        Saxophonist

                                        Supreme

                                        King

                                        Of tenors

Chimes

Ring out

From

Stately tower

Demanding

…Big

                                        Rich

                                        Velvet tone

                                        Most poetic

                                        Of soloists

                                        Masterful

                                        …Big

Big Ben, the clock:     (1856  -  ……)

(Big) Ben Webster:     (1909  -  1973)

Bryn Fortey

First appeared in POETRY MONTHLY, a now defunct British small press magazine.     

KENNY GRAHAM (1924 – 1997)

MAINLY OVERLOOKED

If you want to talk about tenors

The ones who helped shape modern jazz

Here in the UK

Few think of Kenny Graham anymore

Player

Composer

Arranger

Born Kenneth Skingle

(No wonder he changed his name)

Kenny Graham’s Afro-Cubists

Merged African and Cuban rhythms

With bebop harmonies

An artistic success

But a commercial failure

The band lasted only two years

As a fulltime outfit

Though they would reassemble

For recording and one-off gigs

Kenny Graham himself

Worked with all the top bands

Writing and arranging when

Ill-health curtailed his playing

A lot he did would be worth

A re-examination today

Work with the Ted Heath Orchestra

And a band of ex-Ellington sidemen

But I especially remember

The Latin/Bop mashups

Of his Afro-Cubists

Overlooked by many

But not by me

Bryn Fortey   

And now for the music....

We'll start with some early Louis Armstrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhVdLd43bDI

"Wild Man Blues" is even earlier: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO3k-S_pqK4
If you'd prefer later Louis, here is his performance of "Hello Dolly" live:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmfeKUNDDYs

I've been playing a lot of Ben Webster lately, so here are a few of his songs.
In fact, this performance was in London: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CHzdyJps6M
Here he plays "My One and Only" with Art Tatum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rYF_tZ_cTM
This performance of "Sunday" is with Oscar Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeTqPwKN3ps

I'll finish with some Kenny Graham.
I just happened to find his version of "Sunday": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYMkYtBnb9k
This version of "Mambo Jump" is from a 78: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fba-0Ah40HE
We'll finish with his version of "Rockin' in Rhythm" with the Afro-Cubans:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Dpq3Yri5A

I Dream of Empathy

I prefer to use The Song Is... to promote other poets' work, but this evening I'd like to post a lovely review that Michael Oliver (one of the judges for the spring/summer contests) just sent me.

I Dream of Empathy

Marianne Szlyk's slender volume of poems, I Dream of Empathy, with its delicate sounds and intimate touches, reaches the reader at her loneliest; and we wonder: across what abyss these feelings must travel?

The volume's more than two dozen poems resonate with music and art, with memory and deep yearning: a yearning for human contact, human touch, human knowledge.

By far its most emotionally powerful sequence is Ms. Szlyk's "Scene from the Blue Room." In this three poem montage, we first discover Mrs. Feeney, the matriarch, sitting in blue, yet embraced by "her tan and orange plaid chair," which ironically no longer matches "the white that the walls used to be." It's that detachment that matters most, that disharmony that leaves the reader imaging empathy in a world no longer welcome to such sentimental journeys.

In the trilogy's second poem, we enter the space of Mrs. Feeney's granddaughter, Olivia, and the void at the center of that space could not be more filled with possibilities. Olivia's chorus, a thrice repeated "I miss..." rolls like thunder in the background, a remembrance of a life vivacious, until finally Olivia stands with bitten lip and her "blood in the lip gloss." It is with those uncanny details that Ms. Szlyk woos her reader, not to empathy, but to its dream.

That's when Mary Rose Feeney enters, "arms akimbo" ready to curse the hospice workers only "if ladies cursed." Her world is that of surfaces, the details, but not so intimate to stir an empathetic response. As her cell phone vibrates, and the walls turn from blue to a more cheery color, she sells her memories to the highest bidder.

And that's where "I Dream of Empathy" resides: a world where once sacred simplicity grows increasing more difficult to see and appreciate; but more importantly, a world from which we grow increasingly estranged.

"If you bloom you need the sun, not the ice." Yet, in these words sun at best is a brilliant reflection off a mirrored wall and at worst a ghost whose light barely flickers; in these words, the bloom seeks its essence in imaginings, in recollections, and in brief semblances of truth.

Ms. Szlyk's "I Dream of Empathy" will take you to that place of solitude, where yearning to embrace the other shines brightest.

-- R. Michael Oliver

If you would like to buy a copy of the book, here is the Amazon site: http://www.amazon.com/I-Dream-Empathy-Marianne-Szlyk/dp/1517160677

The book is also available on Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/5713941

I'll begin the music with "Crepuscle with Nellie" since one of of the poems in the chapbook is "Crepuscle with Callie":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFVTWEVhxY8

Stanley Turrentine and the Three Sounds perform "Blue Hour" here.  It's a little after Mrs. Feeney's time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBEmSJZ45hQ

This is more Mrs. Feeney's cup of tea:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImK45C-ENuk

I'll include Gary Bartz's version of "But Not for Me" from his Red and Orange Poems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVkTKUWAo90

Let's finish with a little Dorothy Ashby:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EytHwYcilFU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtUYuTiWuSs

Now we'll return to A.J. Huffman's poetry: http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2015/10/aj-huffmans-i-am-high-and-in-shadow-of.html

A.J. Huffman's "I Am High" and "In the Shadow of Song"

This picture predates Ella Fitzgerald's Memorex commercials by quite a few years, but I thought I'd post it with A.J. Huffman's new poems.  Plus, Ray Brown is in the picture somewhere, and I've been listening to a lot of YouTube videos where he accompanies the featured musician.  Finally, Ella (and Dizzy Gillespie who is in the picture) are among the jazz musicians born in the 1910s, the subject of one of my fall contests: http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2015/09/welcome-to-fallwinter-contests.html

On to A.J.'s poems!

I Am High

note, hit.  On pitch,

in perfect key.  I

dominate.  The rest

of the song/of the performance

disappears, becomes my

shadow.  I, alone,

resonate, sounding.

Listen cautiously, I can shatter

glass.

In the Shadow of Song

I am treble

                   clef, locked in sound-

proof basement.  My reflection drips

red,

        faceless death of upper registers.

My right hand is numb; my left is bleeding.

I am not sure which is supposed to

symbolize my empathy with instrumental

gods.  A brassy shade of bitter

belligerence is my legacy.  Wingless, I am

no angel.  My heart is strung,

hangs like a harp.

A.J. Huffman has published eleven solo chapbooks and one joint chapbook through various small presses. Her new poetry collections, Another Blood Jet (Eldritch Press) and A Few Bullets Short of Home (mgv2>publishing) are now available from their respective publishers.   She has two additional poetry collections forthcoming: Degeneration from Pink Girl Ink, and A Bizarre Burning of Bees from Transcendent Zero Press.  She is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee, and has published over 2200 poems in various national and international journals, includingLabletter, The James Dickey Review, Bone Orchard, EgoPHobia, and Kritya. She is also the founding editor of Kind of a Hurricane Press. www.kindofahurricanepress.com 

Let's listen to some Ella then.

Here she sings "How High the Moon":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR1__k-BxhY

I also wanted to include her version of "Cottontail":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3VzLCxx8mI

Here she sings "Flyin' Home" with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker backing her.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gheor3P0RsA

I didn't know that there was a version of "Night in Tunisia" with lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exgm0t7LhY0

We'll finish with her "Don't Get Around Much Anymore":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEKGWNHH_fo

Below is a picture of Ella from 1940.  Carl Van Vechten was the photographer.

Bea Garth and Fats Waller

Let's take a break this Monday evening -- and dance with Bea Garth and Fats Waller!



Always Too Big
(after Fats Waller’s “Your Feets Too Big”)

My “feets too big”
definitely way too big
as my body sways
in lively exuberance
to Fats Waller’s
irreverent rhythms
my long toes waving and tapping
thinking of him and Harlem, Harlem blues
a horn picks up the beat
from his impossible piano rhythms
while Fats’ deep belly trills, serenades
his whole  body at play
my feet smiling: always too big
remembering how I had
to get bigger shoes
thinking I’d grow taller
but  never did
and I imagine myself
transported careening, my feet dancing
the sun shining on my bright yellow dress and red hat;
Fats jumps up and takes my hand,
twirls me around, looks me up and down,
tells me I might be beautiful, otherwise,
and shakes his head
with a broad grin and wink,
while declaring my “feets are definitely too big,”
he “can’t use” me “cause my feets too big”
he points to my oversized feet
singing from his big belly: “tra la la ah!”
and all I can do is smile
since I am “ruined” cause my “feets too big”
my grin almost as broad as Fats
on this sunny day
my yellow dress and red hat shining
my feet happy since they are “useless”
being way “too big”
as Fats explains
the “Only Reason” no one wants me
is “Just” cause my “feets too big”
so I shake my head and wave my fingers
in a knowing point
smiling at Fats wink and rotund belly
my feet buoyant
as I dance down
the street.

Bio: Bea Garth is known for her narrative poetry as well as for her unique visual art. Early on Bea was influenced by her grandfather and great aunt’s love of poetry  plus exposure to ancient art and myths due to her parents’ early occupation as ethnologists/archaeologists. She has been an extemporaneous poetry and arts organizer and editor off and on for many years in the San Jose, California area and previously in Eugene, Oregon. Currently she is president of Quicksilver Artists, a San Jose art and poetry group. She is  often found painting and writing in her studio with  her cat Keiko or renovating houses as a property manager. Her manuscript of poetry and line drawings called Eating the Peach  will be published by Blue Bone Books by early next year. She has previously had poems and artwork published in a variety of small press magazines including The Song Is, Synchronized Chaos, Lake City Poets, Poetry USA, Sparring With Beatnik Ghosts, Caesura, Fresh Hot Bread,  Alchemy, Poetic Space, Denali, Coyote’s Dance, The Other Paper, Writing For Our Lives,  Sheffield Phoenix Press (cover for Where The Wild Ox Roam) and the poetry anthologies Elegant Stew, Women’s Dreams/Women’s Visions and Song of Los Gatos. You can find examples of Bea's artwork and poetry at http://beagarth.com. 

Of course, we'll start the music with Fats Waller's "Your Feet's Too Big": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRC16gBAwck 

Louis Jordan (and Bing Crosby) chime in with "Your Socks Don't Match":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuUDHUhlCcY

Here's more Fats Waller..."Ain't Misbehavin'":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNPpssruFY

This is a recording of a radio broadcast (Fats Waller in 1938):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak1gbCPJLPk

I'll finish with Cab Calloway's version of "Jumpin' Jive."  The Nicholas Brothers will also appear in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8yGGtVKrD8&list=RD_8yGGtVKrD8

Enjoy!

Waleje in Love by Malcolm Rodney

This evening I would like to post an example of a new form of poetry, the waleje, a form invented by Nigerian-American poet Malcolm Rodney (also known as Prince Adewale Oreshade or Abdul Kabir Abu Irfan).  

Waleje in Love

i.

honey,

i understand it

when you said

you didn't see

the green light i sent

i really do, honey

i really do.

ii.

you see

it takes light

from the north star

four hundred and thirty years

to get to us. so the north star that

we see is literally over four centuries old;

literally!

iii.

so you see

i understand,

i really do.

and i can't

fault your

beautiful

imperfection.

iv.

honey pie,

quantum physics also taught me

that the light you just saw

that one you are very sure of

was three hundredth of a second old

at the time you saw it;

literally!

v.

yes, i know this

for light travels at

one hundred and eighty six

thousand miles per second.

so that your present is your past

and the past was never your present;

literally!

vi.

just be calm,

and listen to my voice,

perhaps, this will get to you.

i know sound travels faster in iron

than it does through the air.

i know!

but i can't speak in irons.

vii.

so all i will be saying

might be lost in the wind.

but you see,

i showed you the green light

and the light is my witness;

i hope you heard me!

i hope you will hear me!!

viii.

at three hundred and forty three

meters per second; i doubt it!

your presents have become the past

your present was never the present

your present was your past

and your past is history

gone with the wind...

ix.

you beautiful imperfection!

how then am i

to communicate

my love to you?

this love that

makes me exist in the present

and you, in my future!

x.

your eyes have failed me

your ears have failed me

no offense to your feelings

but they do not know of me!

murmurs in my dream?

soliloquies in the dark?

mirrors in my eyes!

xi.

if by any chance

you saw the green light;

i believe in miracles too.

i implore

that you heed its call

let its light

guide your feet

xii.

honey!

don't worry about

where we will

elope to.

i have got it

all figured out

i really do!

xiii.

honey!

you remember

what einstein

said about

traveling

through

time?

xiv.

yeah, when he said

that the closer an object

moves at the speed of light

the slower time moves for that object.

that theory is true,

and i believe it,

every bit of it.

xv.

and that's why i

have sent my

light to you

let's leave

this world

with all its

hate

xvi.

let's leave

this world

with all of

its fears,

anger,

and greed.

let's leave, love!

xvii.

i do not call you

to death, my love.

no, i do not!

i call you

to light,

life and

love.

xviii.

let's leave this world

for just two light years

we will be back

a hundred years later

when all the souls

that hate on us

are far gone

xix.

you see, honey!

a light year

is equivalent

to fifty years.

and two light years

is a hundred

gregorian years.

xx.

we will travel

at the speed of light

for two years.

two years of bliss

two years of peace

two years of progress;

enlightening two years!

xxi.

the faster we go

the more our mass

shall increase

and the more our mass

increases, the more energy

we will need to propel our

being further into space.

xxii.

i know this, love

but i am certain!

that the energy

of love within

us shall defy

gravity beyond

light's imagination.

xxiii.

i am certain!

that the infinite

energy of love

within us shall

defy any knot

that comes our

light way.

xxiv.

and when we return

we shall tell the world

about how science saved

love from the eyes of hate.

we shall tell

of how science

saved the art of love.

xxv.

we shall tell

of how the arts

gave science all

the infinite energy

it needs to defy

theories of relativity

and quantum physics.

xxvi.

and when we return, love!

we shall tell

of the art of science

the science of art

the signs in the heart

and the heart in the signs;

the milky way!

xxvii.

honey!

when we return into

this swirling teacup,

i shall hold you within me

and you shall sweeten my soul

with your raw wholeness;

how life is just a cup of tea!

xxviii.

when we return

if we return

if we ever leave

if you ever see

the green light

if you ever hear

the sound of love...

-----------------------------------------------

For more information about the waleje,  as you can see, it is made up of a series of seven-line stanzas.  The series can be as long as it needs to be.  More information is online.

I think I'll start with some Stevie Wonder...his "Love's In Need of Love Today" and "Saturn":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFam9Tkmeug

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsDpO4mUYno

I want to switch gears a little with Warren Wolf's "Sunrise": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCoG-cQdzcw

Recently my husband and I saw Bela Fleck and Chick Corea in concert, so I'll finish off with a couple of their songs.  First is "Senorita": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LT5P_YL1UDA

Here is a little bit of their "Waltz for Abby":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DijxYIavzcA  

Abby is Fleck's wife, the banjo player Abigail Washburn.  I'll close with some of her music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5avMOaEUxRQ

Chopin in Manchester

Looking for another poem, I found the original poem that Anna Maria Mickiewicz sent me...."Chopin in Manchester."

Chopin in Manchester

He did not like the smog
He did not like the damp English weather
Or overcrowded Manchester
Standing by the lake in Prestwich
I can feel his longing
Far away from home
Music is dripping like rain from his thin rapid fingers
In the Gentlemen’s Concert Hall
Today
His statue is silent in Manchester
A frail figure
Longing for music or for the homeland?

Anna Maria Mickiewicz
London

Here is Arthur Rubenstein's version of Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2, fitting listening for this very rainy evening:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRO05WcNDk

I'll finish with Valentina Igoshina's version of Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-HosIOod_A

Enjoy!