Tuesdays are much more exciting now that I've found the Contrast Podcast. This week's episode considers all the days of the week- download or listen here.
I wasn't able to make a picture for this one as I've been completely wrapped up in a project for my little boy. Back on schedule next week!
Yesterday's New York Times had a nice article on the Yeats exhibit at the National Library of Ireland. The website for the exhibit is stunning, to my mind a very fine example of how technology can be used to both preserve yet make accessible all these lovely rare documents and notebooks that most people would otherwise never get to see.
I've only read two Yeats poems so far, The Lake Isle of Innisfree and When You Are Old. He's on the list though, one of the first I want to read once I've gotten through the Romantics. I have read his book Mythologies and there is some beautiful writing in there as well.
I am so very, very, very excited. Only 48 more sleeps!
On to Book Two then- Wordsworth and his boyhood pursuits and how important nature was to him growing up. He describes an adventure with some friends, after which they dropped off 'the minstrel of our troop' on a small island (let's hope he lived there)...
And rowed off gently while he blew his flute
Alone upon the rock, oh then the calm
And dead still water lay upon my mind
Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky,
Never before so beautiful, sank down
Into my heart and held me like a dream.
Gorgeous. And I absolutely have to stop and talk about a song here because of that phrase, weight of pleasure. I'd heard it before:
If I care enough I will break your heart
Under the weight of pleasure
Different kinds of pleasure, I guess. Any Chris Whitley song is going to have an erotic element that I just don't see so far in Wordsworth. Wordsworth found inspiration and transcendence in nature. Whitley found it... elsewhere. But the need to transcend- I see it everywhere. That's what it's all about.
mp3: Chris Whitley - Vertical Desert
On the album Rocket House, buy here or on iTunes.
I've linked to this before but I thought I'd print it here. I've been crazy about a blog called The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. A while back Forbes journalist Daniel Lyons started it up- he uses the persona of Apple's Steve Jobs to comment on business, politics, entertainment and modern life in general. And every once in a while he wrote a little poetry. At first no one knew who was actually writing the blog and then it came out. I find him really funny.
Well, this kind of thing can't go on forever and Fake Steve announced last week that he is walking away from the keyboard. In appreciation of all the enjoyment I've gotten from his blog, I'd like to share my favorite poem, Eric Schmidt's Serenity Prayer. For those who don't know, Eric Schmidt is the grown-up brought in to run Google when they wanted to go public (more here).
Eric Schmidt's Serenity Prayer
Dear Lord,
You have blessed me with many gifts
including a two hundred billion dollar market cap
and a search monopoly that gushes cash
like nothing in the history of the planet.
For these things, Lord,
and for allowing me to beautify the world
by splattering glorious text ads on every available surface,
I give you thanks and praise.
But now, Lord, your humble servant seeks your assistance.
My stock, though still widly overpriced, has dropped
by nearly one hundred dollars.
My followers, fully vested, grow restless,
and begin to seek a new promised land.
Though free delicious cuisine
from every corner of the globe
is available to them twenty-four hours a day,
like sweet manna from heaven,
still they hunger for more.
Though we offer haircuts and laundry
and saunas and massages
and a roller coaster and bumper cars and a skee ball arcade;
though each drone need work only four days
a week and may devote one-fifth of his or her time
to personal interests, such as designing time machines
and rocket ships that can fly to Mars
or just totally fucking off,
still, these spoiled, bratty, greedy little pricks
keep leaving for Facebook.
Damn them, Lord!
Smite them down!
Send a plague upon Zuckerberg!
Something that itches and burns!
But seriously.
Lord, I need your help.
Give me patience.
And kindness.
And courage.
Help me to put up with Larry's bullshit
and Sergey's smug, condescending tone.
Help me tolerate their Legos and jumbo jets and cockamamie ideas,
like this crazy campus that looks
so much like a friggin kindergarten
that you half expect to see Barney
leaping out from behind the bronze T-Rex
or riding on the replica of Burt Rutan's spaceship
or having his photo taken with Meng.
Dear Lord, how did I get here?
And how can I get out?
You know as well as I do
that I have no idea how to manage this place.
No one does.
You know that our
ridiculous profit margins
have masked our many mistakes
and inefficiencies. You know
this madness cannot go on forever.
You know what time bombs
lie buried in our income statement.
Lord, I come to you now
in most humble supplication
to ask this favor:
Let your servants succeed
at something other than search.
VaporPhone (tm), social networking,
desktop apps, herbal supplements --
frankly, Lord, I don't care.
Just make it happen.
Speak to me, Lord.
I'm listening.
I'm all ears.
Of course, if this be not your will,
I will accept your decision.
But I swear if that's the case
I am so friggin out of here
it's not even funny.
Seriously, Lord.
One year, tops.
Then I'm gone.
That is all.
Amen.
The original post is here.
Namaste', Fake Steve.
Promise me you'll listen to this week's episode of the Contrast Podcast. Or else.
I loved this image from Book One. Young Wordsworth sneaks out one night and steals a skiff:
...It was an act of stealth
And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice
Of mountain echoes did my boat move on,
Leaving behind her still on either side
Small circles glittering idly in the moon
Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light.
Here's to troubled pleasure and secret midnight adventure!
I am hell-bent, not on compromise, but on making sense of Wordsworth. 104 degrees and a head full of steam. Or something. Here it goes.
I started rereading The Prelude and, as usual, things aren't quite as grim as they appeared last week. I do understand some of it, maybe even a lot of it. It wasn't so hard to read through this time either so maybe I am also getting used to the language.
He starts out leaving the city behind him (so many good songs start out that way but I have to focus on this right now), he is happy to be back in nature, feels breezes both literal and creative, lets us know he's been stuck a while and is now happy to ramble freely but will soon want to apply himself to something. He starts talking about some of his frustrations with himself, his writing, and as I read this passage (lines 228-271) I wondered, how did it not grab me the first time through? Especially this:
Far better never to have heard the name
Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
Thus baffled by a mind that every hour
Turns recreant to her task, takes heart again,
Then feels immediately some hollow thought
Hang like an interdict upon her hopes.
This is my lot; for either I still find
Some imperfection in the chosen theme,
Or see of absolute accomplishment
Much wanting- so much wanting in my mind
That I recoil and droop, and seek repose
In indolence from vain perplexity,
Unprofitably travelling towards the grave
Like a false steward who has much received
And renders nothing back.
(Lines 257-271)
Unprofitably travelling towards the grave? I get that feeling.
It's only after all this that he goes into the Was it for this and the beautiful descriptions of what nature meant to him as a boy that filled my head the first time around.
This week the Contrast Podcast goes ape. I cannot wait to hear what everyone came up with for this one. Listen or download here.
I am new to the podcast and positively astonished at the amount of music my compadres have on their computers. Eiron mentioned that he has over three hours of music about cherries and over two hundred versions of House of the Rising Sun. My hero The Vinyl Villain has over 12,000 songs on his iPod alone.
These kinds of remarks make me wonder if we aren't a bit behind the times here at A Sweet Unrest World Headquarters, where every CP submission involves drifting from room to room to peek into all the little nooks where the CDs live, plus at least two trips to the garage to look through the archives. Perhaps a more aggressive digitization policy is in order.
So if you have time to comment and don't mind getting technical, I'd love to know how you have your music stored- what size hard drive, how you get the vinyl and bootleg concert cassettes into the shiny machine- that kind of thing.
I've written about Edward Hirsch before, but only his prose. I hadn't read any of his poetry until last week when his latest collection, Special Orders, was finally waiting for me at the library. I like the book- I like many of the individual poems and I like the way they all flow together to form a narrative of his life.
This one stood out for me immediately. It's accessible but also made me think a lot over some of his word choices. I think it captures a bit how uncomfortable it can feel to be an American.
Krakow, 6 A.M.
I sit in a corner of the town square
and let the ancient city move through me.
I sip a cup of coffee, write a little,
and watch an old woman sweeping the stairs.
Poland is waking up now: blackbirds patrol
the cobblestones, nuns rush by in habits,
and the clock tower strikes six times.
Day breaks into the night's reverie.
The morning is as fresh and clean
as a butcher's apron hanging in a shop.
Now it is pressed and white, but soon
it will be spotted with blood.
Europe is waking up, but America
is going to sleep, a gangly teenager
sprawled out on a comfortable bed.
He has large hands and feet
and his dreams are innocent and bloodthirsty.
I want to throw a blanket over his shoulders
and tuck him in again, like a child,
now that his sleep is no longer untroubled.
I'm alone here in the Old World
where poetry matters, old hatreds seethe,
and history wears a crown of thorns.
Fresh bread wafts from the ovens
and daily life follows its own inexorable
course, like a drunk weaving slowly
across a courtyard, or a Dutch maid
throwing open the heavy shutters.
I suppose there's always a shopgirl
stationed in the doorway, a beggar taking up
his corner post, and newspapers fluttering
from store to store with bad news.
Poetry, too, seeks a place in the world-
feasting on darkness but needing light,
taking confession, listening for bells,
for the first strains of music in a town square.
Europe is going to work now-
look at those two businessmen hurrying
past the statue of the national bard-
as her younger brother sleeps
on the other side of the ocean,
innocent and violent, dreaming of glory.
NPR has a nice interview with Hirsch- I really, really recommend it. He reads several poems from this collection, including another one of my favorites, Self-portrait. I was familiar with his background but I was still surprised by his voice, his accent. I guess I naively expect all American poets to sound like Boston Brahmins.
