A Sweet Unrest

Out After Dark: Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks at the Fillmore

I don't get out as much as I used to, so I'm pathetically excited to post my first gig review. I'll confess, my main motivation for seeing the Stephen Malkmus show was that Janet Weiss, formerly of Sleater-Kinney, is drumming for the Jicks on this tour and I never tire of seeing her beat up on a drum kit. The woman is a force of nature and absolutely exhilarating to watch. The Stephen Malkmus material is a lot more mellow than the Sleater-Kinney stuff but Janet was still the highlight- executing tricky beats, singing great back-up and holding it all together while everyone else noodled around. The mood onstage was jovial and extra laid back, even a couple technical glitches didn't throw anyone. They all seemed to be having fun and feeding off one another, and it was great to watch.

It was also amazing to be out after dark. The nighttime sky is just as pretty as I remember it.

Musicality in Poetry

Today at Writing Forward, writing goddess Melissa Donovan answers my desperate plea for help in understanding meter in poetry. This post addresses many of the things I've been trying to wrap my head around since getting serious about poetry.

Normally I am not a big fan of 'how to write' books and sites, not because I don't see plenty of room for improvement in my own writing but because I believe the best way to make those improvements is simply to read literature and write, write, write. But I love Melissa's site. Her posts are clear, concise and practical. I find myself sitting up a little straighter in the chair every time I read one.

I owe you big time, Melissa. Thank you so much.

Mix Tape

The San Francisco Chronicle today has a sweetly nostalgic article about the mix tape. I'm lucky enough to have quite a few of these tucked away in a box, and now I want to go and dig them all out. I met some of my favorite bands this way.

Ode to a Nightingale

Just a little more Keats. I am reading other things and I want to share those too- but first this.

I chose Ode To A Nightingale because to me it feels the most personal of all the odes, and of all the great poetry that Keats wrote in the last year before he became ill. All the odes touch on similar questions- the place of art and poetry in life, the meaning of suffering, the development of human consciousness among them- but they each explore them differently. Often in his poetry Keats used mythological figures and stories to illustrate his points; this makes the directness of the third stanza of Ode to a Nightingale standout so much:

Fade far away, dissolve and quiet forget
What thou among the leaves has never known,
The weariness, the fever and the fret
Here where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last grey haris,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

This is something a reader today can understand without any notes or secondary commentary. It's immediate. One of Keats's preoccupations was the direction of poetry itself, and how it seemed to be turning inward and becoming much more personal that the poetry of Shakespeare or Milton which he admired. Keats was conflicted about this, but here he seems to give over to it and he gives us something that sounds very modern in an age where everything is personal.

The poem also displays what every commentary I've read acknowledges as one of Keats's strongest characteristics, his extraordinary empathy. Here it shines through as he addresses the nightingale throughout the entire poem, but it also comes across in a two line description of, "...the sad heart of Ruth, when sick for home,/she stood in tears amid the alien corn;"

This is another wonderful poem to read aloud. Pure, lovely genius.

Lost Love

Here's one more from the Antonia Fraser anthology that has stuck with me. I like the contrast of the sing-song like rhythm of the lines- almost like a children's book- and what it actually says, which is something you have to be much older to understand.

Lost Love

Who wins his love shall lose her,
Who loses her shall gain,
For still the spirit woos her,
A soul without a stain;
And memory still pursues her
With longings not in vain!

He loses her who gains her,
Who watches day by day
The dust of time that stains her,
The griefs that leave her grey-
The flesh that yet enchains her
Whose grace hath passed away!

Oh, happier he who gains not
The love some seem to gain:
The joy that custom stains not
Shall still with him remain;
The loveliness that wanes not,
The love that ne'er can wane.

In dreams she grows not older
The lands of dream among;
Though all the world wax colder,
Though all the songs be sung,
In dreams doth he behold her
Still fair and kind and young.

Andrew Lang

Update

One of my favorite blogs, The Vinyl Villain, has a beautifully written review of the Edwyn Collins gig in Edinburgh last night.

I highly recommend The Vinyl Villain. They own every record I ever eyed longingly in the import section of my local Tower Records, back when I was just a slip of a girl in leg warmers and a spiral perm. Plus a lot of other stuff since then including plenty I'm unfamiliar with. They are very generous with the mp3s and they've turned me onto some new bands too.

Edwyn Collins

Photo courtesy of PJ Miller

(4/24/08: The Vinyl Villain has posted video from the Edinburgh gig here!!)

Over here, Edwyn Collins is most known for A Girl Like You, which is a modern rock classic. Well before that though he put out some great music with his band Orange Juice, including the absolutely irresistible Rip It Up. Many young bands today cite Orange Juice as an influence. Edwyn Collins has a truly unique voice- deep and nuanced, capable of conveying complex emotion and sly humor. There is really no one to compare him to. He had a career of great solo albums behind him, with the the sixth almost ready for release, when he suffered a stroke in 2005. He had to learn to walk, talk and play guitar all over again. You can read about his illness and hard-won recovery here.

He did a few live shows back in the fall. BBC had footage from one of the gigs up for a while and it was fantastic to see him performing. He sounded strong and radiated happiness and triumph. And now, starting tonight, he is touring- with his friend Roddy Frame (I may have mentioned him) again playing guitar in the band. I wanted to write about it because life is always throwing us curve balls. I'm thinking too of Keats, writing Hyperion as he nursed his dying brother, and going on to write even greater poetry in the wake of that loss. Our curve balls aren't usually on this scale but occasionally, they are. And we have to learn, we have to keep learning how to create in spite of them. With them. Rip it up and start again.

It's inspiring to see someone doing what he loves, especially when he has had to fight so hard to do it. I wish so much that I could attend one of the live shows and applaud him in person. Instead, I'll cheer him on from here and cross my fingers that some kind soul sneaks in a camera and posts some footage on one of the video sites. I'll be looking for it!

In the meantime, here is a gorgeous song from his latest album, and a recent quote from his MySpace blog:

"I'm going back on tour. It's amazing to me. What an adventure it is. I sense a real joy in my life. This is my reality. Hope and expectation. Onstage I sometimes feel overcome with emotion. The changes that have taken place in me affect me. But it's all grist to my mill. I will celebrate it, with my band. And my audience! Corny, but true.
Love Edwyn"

Love back to you, Edwyn!!! Thank you for a lifetime of great music!!!

Progress

There's been an awful lot of music talk around here, but I haven't abandoned the poetry. Now I am getting into some of Keats' most highly-regarded work. It's taking me a long time to work through the biography at this point, because it is covering his most productive period ('the fertile year') and there is a lot to grasp in terms of his intellectual and philosophical development: basically all the things he'd been thinking about which laid the foundation for this poetry. I am constantly flipping back and forth from biography to poetry to letters, trying to make sure I really get it. There is a lot to digest, is what I'm saying. And I love it, but some nights my brain is all in after 3 pages.

One thing that all this outside reading has done, however, is make the reading of the poems themselves much easier for me. Recently I went back to The Fall of Hyperion, a long poem I hadn't read since I first took up with Keats back it December. And it was easier! I mean, I am getting used to reading poetry, reading every word- not skipping ahead or gleaning- and pausing at the end of each line to allow the image to form in my head. And it helps so much that I am now familiar with Keats life, some of his experiences and thoughts and the imagery that was important to him. It feels miraculous to me to read this stuff that was so incredibly beautiful but almost unintelligible to me four months ago and actually GET it. I lived in a foreign country once upon a time. I worked really hard to learn the native language and I can clearly remember when it first dawned on me that I was actually understanding what the people around me were saying. The language was no longer meaningless background noise with a word or two I could make out once in a while. It was suddenly a living means of communication which I understood and could participate in. That's what reading The Fall of Hyperion this time felt like. Does anyone know what I mean?? Or am I the only one so lost to begin with?

I expect I will be almost starting over again when I start a new poet. But I still think it's progress. And even if I only ever understand Keats (to the extent that I do, I'm not getting cocky over here), I am so much richer for it!

Thoughts? Similar or different experiences with reading? Please share if you have the time, I'd really love to hear about it.

Record Store Day Is Tomorrow!

(photo courtesy of Maol)

Just a friendly reminder that tomorrow is Record Store Day. I hope some of you are planning to get out to your local independent record store to soak up the happy vibes. Even though I am a frequent visitor as it is, I am going to make a special trip. It's my duty, right?!

To get into the spirit of things, here are my three favorite in-store performances, brought to you by the miracle of YouTube. The first two are from my beloved San Francisco Amoeba (pictured above, thanks again Maol) and the last one is from a store in Tempe, AZ.

1. The legendary Mos Def in 2000 (a few bad words in this one, I would say not safe for children or office. But awesome!)

2.Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova in 2007 (less than 6 months later, they performed at the Oscars and won for this song- how cool is that??)

3. The Trashcan Sinatras in 2004. These guys are wonderful, always.

Happy Record Store Day, everyone!!!

Poem In Your Pocket Day

Today, April 17th, is Poem In Your Pocket Day. This is another event to mark National Poetry Month. The Academy of American Poets wants us all to carry a poem in our pockets today, and they want us to unfold it in a public space and somehow share a few lines with the world. I think they should advertise this event by making a video clip: get Will Ferrell to dress up as Ron Burgundy or any of his washed-up sports guy personas and approach an uptight female with the line, "is that a poem in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?" Because let's be honest, isn't that what we're all thinking? I cannot be the only one.

Nonetheless, the idea of carrying around a well-loved scrap of poetry does have a certain romance to it and I'm all for it. Here's the one I'm taking along today. It's a translation of a traditional Welsh verse from perhaps the 17th century, and is found in the book A Celtic Miscellany.

Longing

Tell me, men of learning, what is Longing made from?
What cloth was put in it, that it does not wear out with use?

Gold wears out, silver wears out, velvet wears out, silk
wears out, every ample garment wears out- yet Longing
does not wear out.

Great Longing, Cruel Longing is breaking my heart every
day; when I sleep most sound at night Longing comes and
wakes me.

Longing, Longing, back, back! do not weigh on me so
heavily; move over a little to the bedside and let me sleep
a while.

On the sea-shore is a smooth rock, where I talked with my
love; around it grows the lily and a few springs of rosemary.

May the mountain which covers Merioneth be under the
sea! Would that I had never seen it before my gentle heart
broke.

Longing has seized on me, between my two breasts and my
two brows; it weighs on my breast as if I were its nurse.