The reading last night at UBC Robson was really fun. A great turnout. So good to meet all the other writers. And quite a diversity of voices: a new novel from a young woman, about a man who looses his job and starts to de-evolve into a pig-like creature, and his wife who at first hates it, but then starts to like it, and to de-evolve a bit herself. Poems made from wordplay, tabloid titles, serial killers' lives, and Penny Dreadfuls (yes sounds like mine, but this was from Shannon Stewart). A wonderful essay written using the form of a "Table of Figures" to tell a woman's coming of age story, and to explore her single adulthood. I read some cross-cultural poems, in honor of the "Border Crossing" theme, as well as some new stuff. A nice panel discussion and reception/chit-chat after. I think all in all it was a really good event all around! Thanks to Rachel Rose and UBC for having me.
*
I'm giving a workshop out by UBC tonight. On line endings, line breaks. A mention of it here on the local blog Geist.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Friday, October 09, 2009
Dean and I are having a great time in Vancouver. We took the train up Thursday morning. Just gorgeous out, the Pacific coast going by as we watched from the comfort of our coach seat. Such a genteel way to travel. I wish America had not gone so wrong with all its cars and highways, and had instead constructed more rail travel.
Our first night we had a quick bite at the hotel before taking a taxi (I wish we could have taken a sky train, our Ethiopian taxi driver nearly got us lost!) out to Jericho Arts Center to see two one act plays, titled "The Gift of Screws" -- the title taken from an Emily Dickinson poem:
Essential Oils—are wrung—
The Attar from the Rose
Be not expressed by Suns—alone—
It is the gift of Screws—
The plays were billed to be about the price we pay for truth, in art (in the hands of a tyrannical director) and in politics (the torture of political prisoners). The first play "What Then Must We Do" was incredible. A sort of Brechtian situation, with two actors, a director, and a dramaturge, playing out the conflict between their roles. Very metaphysical. Can the play exist without the vision of the director, without the embodiment of the actors, without someone watching that the script is followed? Pretty amazing stuff. And a little on stage nudity to boot.
The second play, "Muzzle of Bees" was less successful. But my oh my the eye candy. I had never seen anything quite like it -- five men, entirely nude except for black hoods over their heads (imagine Abu Grhaib) together on the floor of a prison, acting out the conflict of being made to do things, of being watched, being made to submit. It was oddly unsettling. And missed the mark, for me.
*
Spent part of today out at Capilano and Grouse Mountain. Vancouver has such great public transportation. We took the water ferry, then a bus, then the gondola up the mountain. Great views, a very clear day. All sorts of these athletic types having done "The Grind" (running up the mountain and taking the gondola down).
*
Reading tonight. Hope it goes well!
*
Our first night we had a quick bite at the hotel before taking a taxi (I wish we could have taken a sky train, our Ethiopian taxi driver nearly got us lost!) out to Jericho Arts Center to see two one act plays, titled "The Gift of Screws" -- the title taken from an Emily Dickinson poem:
Essential Oils—are wrung—
The Attar from the Rose
Be not expressed by Suns—alone—
It is the gift of Screws—
The plays were billed to be about the price we pay for truth, in art (in the hands of a tyrannical director) and in politics (the torture of political prisoners). The first play "What Then Must We Do" was incredible. A sort of Brechtian situation, with two actors, a director, and a dramaturge, playing out the conflict between their roles. Very metaphysical. Can the play exist without the vision of the director, without the embodiment of the actors, without someone watching that the script is followed? Pretty amazing stuff. And a little on stage nudity to boot.
The second play, "Muzzle of Bees" was less successful. But my oh my the eye candy. I had never seen anything quite like it -- five men, entirely nude except for black hoods over their heads (imagine Abu Grhaib) together on the floor of a prison, acting out the conflict of being made to do things, of being watched, being made to submit. It was oddly unsettling. And missed the mark, for me.
*
Spent part of today out at Capilano and Grouse Mountain. Vancouver has such great public transportation. We took the water ferry, then a bus, then the gondola up the mountain. Great views, a very clear day. All sorts of these athletic types having done "The Grind" (running up the mountain and taking the gondola down).
*
Reading tonight. Hope it goes well!
*
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
I'm reading in Vancouver BC this Friday night. If you are around, come on down! See below for details.
Rachel Rose in conjunction with the Robson Reading Series presents
Cross Border Pollination - an evening of readings and discussion
with authors from the U.S. and Canada,
featuring Nancy Mauro, Brenda Miller, Peter Pereira, and Shannon Stewart
Friday October 9th, 2009, 7pm
UBC Library/Bookstore at Robson Square
Plaza Level, 800 Robson St. (between Howe and Hornby St.)
Vancouver, BC Canada V6Z-3B7
Sunday, October 04, 2009
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Here are a few recommendations from what I've been reading lately:
First up, Unrest by poet and Master Gardener Joanna Rawson. I love the look of this book, from the wide format of the pages, to the amazing cover photograph of a swarm of bees in flight. It practically jumped off the shelf and lit into my hands. (I am reminded of something a publisher at CCP said once, "You don't judge a book by its cover, you sell a book by its cover.") Anyway, the poetry here is what I mean to recommend. The second poem, "Killbox" totally blew me away. It uses the story of 11 Mexican illegal immigrants, who get locked into a grain car by their "coyote", cross the border and end up in a rail yard in Oklahoma, in sweltering June heat . . . but miss their connection . . . and aren't discovered until October. It's riveting and tragic stuff. The story haunted me for days. And Rawson uses it as a framework to explore larger issues of fate, nature, the garden, changing of the seasons, death. Other poems use language from our current state of war and terrorist events in general, as well as images from bees and hives and natural disaster, as a trellis for her philosophical musing. It's pretty heady and intense stuff.
I picked up a copy of BAP 2009 at Bailey Coy Books a week or so ago, and have been enjoying dipping in here and there, and reading the sometimes-annoying sometimes-interesting contributor's statements. Some fave poems so far: Mark Bibbin's "Concerning the Land to the North of our Neighbors to the South" is a delightful collection of oddities (real and imagined) about the 50 states. It's very similar to the 50-state poem in Matthew Dickman's "All America Poem." And in the contributor's note, Bibbins reveals it also bears some resemblance to a 50-state poem of John Ashbery. Who new?! Other fun poems in this issue of BAP: Martha Silano's paean to Hate, titled "Love," Marianne Boruch's "The Doctor," and Barbara Hamby's wild "Ode to Airheads, Hairdos, Trains to and from Paris."
Campbell McGrath's Shannon. It's a booklength poem, all in the voice of George Shannon, the youngest member of the Lewis & Clark expedition, who becomes separated from the rest of the group, and wanders the Missouri plains for 16 days alone. These are pretty amazing and entertaining linked internal monologues (no small task), as Shannon talks to himself, perhaps writes in a diary, perhaps becomes a little disoriented and loopy (one poem just says "buffalo buffalo buffalo" cascading across the page), and nearly starves before he is reunited with the group.
Finally: the latest issue of Prairie Schooner, the Baby Boomer issue, is just a hoot, I love the groovy wavy trippy cover. Perhaps because the poets here are in my birth cohort I naturally relate, but I think it is more than that, there are a lot of good poems here. Check it out.
First up, Unrest by poet and Master Gardener Joanna Rawson. I love the look of this book, from the wide format of the pages, to the amazing cover photograph of a swarm of bees in flight. It practically jumped off the shelf and lit into my hands. (I am reminded of something a publisher at CCP said once, "You don't judge a book by its cover, you sell a book by its cover.") Anyway, the poetry here is what I mean to recommend. The second poem, "Killbox" totally blew me away. It uses the story of 11 Mexican illegal immigrants, who get locked into a grain car by their "coyote", cross the border and end up in a rail yard in Oklahoma, in sweltering June heat . . . but miss their connection . . . and aren't discovered until October. It's riveting and tragic stuff. The story haunted me for days. And Rawson uses it as a framework to explore larger issues of fate, nature, the garden, changing of the seasons, death. Other poems use language from our current state of war and terrorist events in general, as well as images from bees and hives and natural disaster, as a trellis for her philosophical musing. It's pretty heady and intense stuff.
I picked up a copy of BAP 2009 at Bailey Coy Books a week or so ago, and have been enjoying dipping in here and there, and reading the sometimes-annoying sometimes-interesting contributor's statements. Some fave poems so far: Mark Bibbin's "Concerning the Land to the North of our Neighbors to the South" is a delightful collection of oddities (real and imagined) about the 50 states. It's very similar to the 50-state poem in Matthew Dickman's "All America Poem." And in the contributor's note, Bibbins reveals it also bears some resemblance to a 50-state poem of John Ashbery. Who new?! Other fun poems in this issue of BAP: Martha Silano's paean to Hate, titled "Love," Marianne Boruch's "The Doctor," and Barbara Hamby's wild "Ode to Airheads, Hairdos, Trains to and from Paris."
Campbell McGrath's Shannon. It's a booklength poem, all in the voice of George Shannon, the youngest member of the Lewis & Clark expedition, who becomes separated from the rest of the group, and wanders the Missouri plains for 16 days alone. These are pretty amazing and entertaining linked internal monologues (no small task), as Shannon talks to himself, perhaps writes in a diary, perhaps becomes a little disoriented and loopy (one poem just says "buffalo buffalo buffalo" cascading across the page), and nearly starves before he is reunited with the group.
Finally: the latest issue of Prairie Schooner, the Baby Boomer issue, is just a hoot, I love the groovy wavy trippy cover. Perhaps because the poets here are in my birth cohort I naturally relate, but I think it is more than that, there are a lot of good poems here. Check it out.
Friday, September 25, 2009
THE WRITER'S LIFE
Amy Gerstler's message: Be not afraid
(from the LA times)
*
Rescued Eagle Scout Billed $25,000
A controversial New Hampshire law that charges those who get lost for the cost of their rescue is facing renewed scrutiny.
Some Eagle Scout? I'm sorry but I think ALL of these dopey people who get lost hiking in the woods or climbing mountains should be billed for their rescues. Why should we all have to foot the bill for their thrill seeking or poor planning?
*
Amy Gerstler's message: Be not afraid
(from the LA times)
*
Rescued Eagle Scout Billed $25,000
A controversial New Hampshire law that charges those who get lost for the cost of their rescue is facing renewed scrutiny.
Some Eagle Scout? I'm sorry but I think ALL of these dopey people who get lost hiking in the woods or climbing mountains should be billed for their rescues. Why should we all have to foot the bill for their thrill seeking or poor planning?
*
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Values Voters, or Dogma Voters?
I totally agree with this comment about the recent conservative "Values Summit."
“Dogma voters” is the more fitting label. “Values voters” is a label invented by people who like to think of themselves as championing good human values. What many of them are pushing actually is dogma. “Values” are “the principles that help you to decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in various situations.” Cambridge Dictionary of American English. “Dogma” is “a fixed, esp. religious, belief or set of beliefs that people are expected to accept without any doubts.” Id. The two, we can only hope, overlap to some extent, but they are hardly the same. Some of what religious fundamentalists hold up as values others find plainly wrongheaded and even immoral. Labels count. Those pushing the “values voters” label hope it will help them pass off their dogma as values. If they want to push their dogma, that’s their right. But “dogma voters” they are, and that’s what I’ll call them.
- Posted by Doug Indeap
“Dogma voters” is the more fitting label. “Values voters” is a label invented by people who like to think of themselves as championing good human values. What many of them are pushing actually is dogma. “Values” are “the principles that help you to decide what is right and wrong, and how to act in various situations.” Cambridge Dictionary of American English. “Dogma” is “a fixed, esp. religious, belief or set of beliefs that people are expected to accept without any doubts.” Id. The two, we can only hope, overlap to some extent, but they are hardly the same. Some of what religious fundamentalists hold up as values others find plainly wrongheaded and even immoral. Labels count. Those pushing the “values voters” label hope it will help them pass off their dogma as values. If they want to push their dogma, that’s their right. But “dogma voters” they are, and that’s what I’ll call them.
- Posted by Doug Indeap
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Bookfest is Back: In Columbia City!
Columbia City is a great, old, new-again, hip neighborhood. And you can take light rail to get there!
Announcing
Columbia City's
2009 Seattle Bookfest
Remember the old Northwest Bookfestival on the waterfront?
How much fun it was? Well, it's about to happen again!
Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood is bringing it back October 24-25 at the Columbia City Event Center, a former school that's one block from the new Columbia City light rail station.
The resurrected fair will feature more than 70 local authors, including poets and writers of fiction, nonfiction, mystery, romance, fantasy, and children's books. In addition, the fair will showcase over 50 area bookstores, nonprofits, and small but influential publishers as exhibitors. There is also a long list of panels, workshops and special events including a spelling bee, SCRABBLE contests, bookbinding demo, and a How-to-Write-a-Novel-in-a-Month workshop.
The event is produced by Columbia City Cinema and co-sponsored by the Columbia City Business Association and the Rainier Chamber of Commerce. Lacking corporate sponsorship, the event has become a grassroots effort, with funding and volunteer support coming from the community, the Seattle School District, the Seattle Public Library
I am definitely going to check out the readings and panels, the Scrabble tournament, and the "How to Write a Novel in a Month" workshop. What fun!
*
Announcing
Columbia City's
2009 Seattle Bookfest
Remember the old Northwest Bookfestival on the waterfront?
How much fun it was? Well, it's about to happen again!
Seattle's Columbia City neighborhood is bringing it back October 24-25 at the Columbia City Event Center, a former school that's one block from the new Columbia City light rail station.
The resurrected fair will feature more than 70 local authors, including poets and writers of fiction, nonfiction, mystery, romance, fantasy, and children's books. In addition, the fair will showcase over 50 area bookstores, nonprofits, and small but influential publishers as exhibitors. There is also a long list of panels, workshops and special events including a spelling bee, SCRABBLE contests, bookbinding demo, and a How-to-Write-a-Novel-in-a-Month workshop.
The event is produced by Columbia City Cinema and co-sponsored by the Columbia City Business Association and the Rainier Chamber of Commerce. Lacking corporate sponsorship, the event has become a grassroots effort, with funding and volunteer support coming from the community, the Seattle School District, the Seattle Public Library
I am definitely going to check out the readings and panels, the Scrabble tournament, and the "How to Write a Novel in a Month" workshop. What fun!
*
Saturday, September 12, 2009
I was invited a while back to write some poems in response to the Imogen Cunningham photography up at SAM. I'll be presenting that, and also reading from other recent work this Thursday at the Seattle Art Museum, along with poet Nicole Hardy (who sounds like she is a real hoot)-- see below for more details. And come on down if you are free.
SAM Word
September 17, 2009
7:30–8:30 pm
South Hall
Seattle Art Museum
Poets Nicole Hardy, author of "Mud Flap Girl's XX Guide to Facial Profiling," and Peter Pereira, author of "What's Written on the Body," a finalist for the Washington State Book Award, read new work in response to the SAM exhibition Everything Under the Sun: Photographs by Imogen Cunningham. Curated by Richard Hugo House.
Free with museum admission.
*
In other news, I was reading today in the new issue of Out Magazine, about transsexual surgeon Marci Bowers, who does some really incredible and important work in small town Trinidad, Colorado, otherwise known as the "transsexual surgery capital of the world." As I read more about her, I discovered she used to be Mark Bowers, a Seattle OBGYN. And then I realized, OMG, this was a guy I did residency at UW with 20+ years ago, who was an OBGYN Resident while I was a Family Medicine Resident. I would never have guessed he was transsexual. Maybe he was just closed in and defended? Regardless, it's amazing how people can change, isn't it?
Check out some cool you tube videos about Dr. Marci Bowers here.
*
Sunday, August 30, 2009
This is one of the most interesting books of poetry I have read in months. I picked it up blind off the shelf at Elliott Bay Books last week. I had never heard of it, don't know who Ted Mathys is (though the name seemed vaguely familiar), had not read a review. I just peeked at a couple poems and thought they looked interesting, so bought it. This is one of my favorite ways to "discover" a new book of poems.
According to the back matter, The Spoils is three long poem series, one about Henry Kissinger and a soccer ball, one about the environment/environmental degradation, and one about a "transformative road trip through the Deep South." I think the language is amazing: a mix of political verbiage, lyric/philosophical musing, dead-pan humor, word lists and mash-ups (sports and politics have an amazing amount in common). Perhaps the coolest part (for me) was in the first section where the shape of some of the poems is similar to a World Cup Soccer bracket (the sports geek in me really liked this): there are 4 groups, with two stanzas of four lines giving way to two stanzas of two lines, giving way to two stanzas of one line, giving way to a single line. These four single lines then would be like the four finalists.
Here is a sample from the Henry Kissinger/World Cup Soccer section. I love what is going on here with the riffing on a basic sentence structure, using word and phrase substitutions. It's very musical, very jazzy, a little flarfy. And I think it says some interesting things about politics and power and the individual-- "the poem must reclaim the nature of surveillance.":
The National Interest
We are interested in long criminal histories
because we've never bedded down in a cellblock.
With the sibilance of wind through the swaying
spires of skyscrapers as my witness. When I say
cover your grenades I mean it's going to rain I mean
there is mischief in every filibuster of sun.
We are interested in rigorously arranging
emotions by color as we've never been fully
divested of blues. With drinking till my fingernails
hurt as my witness, with hurt as my witness.
When I say be demanding I mean be fully
individual while dissolving in the crowd.
We are interested in characters who murder
because we've never committed it or to it.
With an origami frog in a vellum crown spinning
on a fishing line from the ceiling as my witness.
When I say please kneel with me I mean between
every shadow and sad lack falls a word.
We are interested in ceaselessly setting floor joists
because we've never pulled a pole barn spike
from a foot. With bowing to soap your ankles
in the shower as my witness, lather as my witness.
When I say did you see the freckle in her iris I mean
the poem must reclaim the nature of surveillance.
We are interested in possessing others who possess
that which we possess but fear losing in the future.
With a fork as my witness. A dollop of ketchup,
hash brown, motion, with teeth as my witness.
When I say you I don't mean me I don't mean
an exact you I mean a composite you I mean God.
We are interested in God because we can't
possess God, because we can't possess you.
With a scrum of meatheads in IZOD ogling iPods
as my witness, technological progress as my witness.
When I say no such thing as progress in art I mean
"These fragments I have shored against my ruins"
We are interested in ambivalence as ribcages
resist being down when down, up when up.
With the swell of the argument and the moment
before forgiveness as my witness. When I say power
is exclusion I mean a box of rocks we don't
desire to deduce I mean knowing is never enough.
*
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Are you mad?
I enjoyed this thoughtful piece of commentary about the "angry mobs" at Health Care Reform Town Halls, that I received in an email today:
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn't get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown.
You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they were sick.
Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all OK with you, but helping other Americans? -- well fuck that.
And have a blessed day.
*
You didn't get mad when the Supreme Court stopped a legal recount and appointed a President.
You didn't get mad when Cheney allowed Energy company officials to dictate energy policy.
You didn't get mad when a covert CIA operative got outed.
You didn't get mad when the Patriot Act got passed.
You didn't get mad when we illegally invaded a country that posed no threat to us.
You didn't get mad when we spent over 600 billion(and counting) on said illegal war.
You didn't get mad when over 10 billion dollars just disappeared in Iraq.
You didn't get mad when you saw the Abu Grahib photos.
You didn't get mad when you found out we were torturing people.
You didn't get mad when the government was illegally wiretapping Americans.
You didn't get mad when we didn't catch Bin Laden.
You didn't get mad when you saw the horrible conditions at Walter Reed.
You didn't get mad when we let a major US city drown.
You didn't get mad when the deficit hit the trillion dollar mark.
You finally got mad when the government decided that people in America deserved the right to see a doctor if they were sick.
Yes, illegal wars, lies, corruption, torture, stealing your tax dollars to make the rich richer, are all OK with you, but helping other Americans? -- well fuck that.
And have a blessed day.
*
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Death Panels? What a joke!
I LOVE this bit of commentary from the Seattle Times the other day. Spot on!
Resist mob rule; get informed
What a joke ... a death panel! Where have people been for the past umpteen years? Are they not paying attention to what's happened around them? Do they not realize that the insurance companies have had "death panels" for a long time?
Denying people insurance due to "pre-existing conditions," refusing to pay for special procedures, driving people to court to sue in order to get lifesaving procedures for cancer and other life-threatening diseases -- Americans need to wake up.
Stop yelling irrationally and start asking the right questions in a dignified, democratic manner. It's absurd to follow these Internet rally-hounds without asking first who's behind it? Mob rule is wrong and we should be resisting it by being smart and well-informed.
-- Rosanne Cohn, Redmond
*
Resist mob rule; get informed
What a joke ... a death panel! Where have people been for the past umpteen years? Are they not paying attention to what's happened around them? Do they not realize that the insurance companies have had "death panels" for a long time?
Denying people insurance due to "pre-existing conditions," refusing to pay for special procedures, driving people to court to sue in order to get lifesaving procedures for cancer and other life-threatening diseases -- Americans need to wake up.
Stop yelling irrationally and start asking the right questions in a dignified, democratic manner. It's absurd to follow these Internet rally-hounds without asking first who's behind it? Mob rule is wrong and we should be resisting it by being smart and well-informed.
-- Rosanne Cohn, Redmond
*
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Had a great time at Teatro Zinzanni the other night. The show has really come a long way since we first saw it about ten years ago. All new cast, a more developed show. The little gypsy tent in the parking lot has grown into a full scale theater, with a lounge and lobby area. Very nice!
The show was full of great acts: I especially liked Vita Radionova, the contortionist and hula hoop girl (though she did lose a couple hoops that went flying into the audience), the Vertical Tango couple (a tango done on a dancing pole), and the Petite Freres, three guys who did acrobatics and comedy. But the highlight, for me, was this very romantic song, sung by the madame Liliane and her former lover Caesar (taken from the movie Gigi). It's just such a wonderful evocation of memory, how unreliable it is, and how love/feeling/emotion is what lasts.
I REMEMBER IT WELL
From "Gigi" (1958)
(Lyrics : Alan Jay Lerner / Frederick Loewe)
Honore (Maurice Chevalier) & Mamita (Hermione Gingold)
H: We met at nine
M: We met at eight
H: I was on time
M: No, you were late
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
We dined with friends
M: We dined alone
H: A tenor sang
M: A baritone
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
That dazzling April moon!
M: There was none that night
And the month was June
H: That's right. That's right.
M: It warms my heart to know that you
remember still the way you do
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
H: How often I've thought of that Friday
M: Monday
H: night when we had our last rendezvous
And somehow I foolishly wondered if you might
By some chance be thinking of it too?
That carriage ride
M: You walked me home
H: You lost a glove
M: I lost a comb
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
That brilliant sky
M: We had some rain
H: Those Russian songs
M: From sunny Spain
H: You wore a gown of gold
M: I was all in blue
H: Am I getting old?
M: Oh, no, not you
How strong you were
How young and gay
A prince of love
In every way
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
*
I may just have to rent the movie, to see the original!
The show was full of great acts: I especially liked Vita Radionova, the contortionist and hula hoop girl (though she did lose a couple hoops that went flying into the audience), the Vertical Tango couple (a tango done on a dancing pole), and the Petite Freres, three guys who did acrobatics and comedy. But the highlight, for me, was this very romantic song, sung by the madame Liliane and her former lover Caesar (taken from the movie Gigi). It's just such a wonderful evocation of memory, how unreliable it is, and how love/feeling/emotion is what lasts.
I REMEMBER IT WELL
From "Gigi" (1958)
(Lyrics : Alan Jay Lerner / Frederick Loewe)
Honore (Maurice Chevalier) & Mamita (Hermione Gingold)
H: We met at nine
M: We met at eight
H: I was on time
M: No, you were late
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
We dined with friends
M: We dined alone
H: A tenor sang
M: A baritone
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
That dazzling April moon!
M: There was none that night
And the month was June
H: That's right. That's right.
M: It warms my heart to know that you
remember still the way you do
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
H: How often I've thought of that Friday
M: Monday
H: night when we had our last rendezvous
And somehow I foolishly wondered if you might
By some chance be thinking of it too?
That carriage ride
M: You walked me home
H: You lost a glove
M: I lost a comb
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
That brilliant sky
M: We had some rain
H: Those Russian songs
M: From sunny Spain
H: You wore a gown of gold
M: I was all in blue
H: Am I getting old?
M: Oh, no, not you
How strong you were
How young and gay
A prince of love
In every way
H: Ah, yes, I remember it well
*
I may just have to rent the movie, to see the original!
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Seattle has been cooler and cloudier of late. Strange how we love the familiar.
*
An interesting little article about some "new" translations of Cavafy. I think I will have to check them out:
"C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems" (Translated with notes) by Daniel Mendelsohn; Knopf (524 pages, $35)
"C.P. Cavafy: The Unfinished Poems" (Translated with notes) by Daniel Mendelsohn; Knopf (144 pages, $30)
A Greek who did not live in Greece, he lived a quiet life with his mother, Herakleia, until her death in 1899, then with unmarried brothers, then alone in his own apartment. An agonized Christian, a voracious reader of ancient history, and a closeted homosexual, he distributed poems and pamphlets privately, but never published a book. His poetry didn't fit the verse of the time, and he gained very limited notice until the 1920s.
So he fell, and still falls, athwart categories. His muted, direct poetry tends to work not through metaphor or simile, but through characters and situations. His effects in Greek are so subtle that translations usually miss them and fall into prose.
Of his two favorite realms, one is Greek/Byzantine history - especially moments narrated by little-known greats, peripheral kings, philosophers, generals, and onlookers. As Mendelsohn so beautifully puts it, the ancient world Cavafy evokes is "rich yet exhausted, glorious yet doomed, proudly attempting to uphold great traditions even as it disintegrates."
Here you'll find a parade of lessers - Alexander Balas, Antiochus Epiphanes, John Cantacuzenus, Anna Dalassene, once-greats now buried by history. They speak of their hopes, disappointments, achievements; few realize they will be swamped in time. These poems teach us much about history, politics, and the foolishness of ever thinking you've got it made.
Cavafy's other realm is sexuality and sensuality. He may have had his first gay encounter when he was 20; for much of his adult life, he'd have a long dinner with Mom at home and then leave her, to visit the tough side of town shopping for tenderness. Although he was extremely discreet about his own life, his poetry becomes more open, especially after her death. After 1911, his attitude and poetry seem to embrace the life he struggled with for so long.
Cavafy's triumph is that his love poems can evoke the same enduring, compelling themes as his history poems: loneliness and loss, the nature of nobility, the ravages of time, the power of pleasure, and the fleeting nature of happiness. The unfinished, exquisite poem "The Photograph" begins with a speaker looking at a former lover's "beautiful youthful face":
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An interesting little article about some "new" translations of Cavafy. I think I will have to check them out:
"C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems" (Translated with notes) by Daniel Mendelsohn; Knopf (524 pages, $35)"C.P. Cavafy: The Unfinished Poems" (Translated with notes) by Daniel Mendelsohn; Knopf (144 pages, $30)
A Greek who did not live in Greece, he lived a quiet life with his mother, Herakleia, until her death in 1899, then with unmarried brothers, then alone in his own apartment. An agonized Christian, a voracious reader of ancient history, and a closeted homosexual, he distributed poems and pamphlets privately, but never published a book. His poetry didn't fit the verse of the time, and he gained very limited notice until the 1920s.
So he fell, and still falls, athwart categories. His muted, direct poetry tends to work not through metaphor or simile, but through characters and situations. His effects in Greek are so subtle that translations usually miss them and fall into prose.
Of his two favorite realms, one is Greek/Byzantine history - especially moments narrated by little-known greats, peripheral kings, philosophers, generals, and onlookers. As Mendelsohn so beautifully puts it, the ancient world Cavafy evokes is "rich yet exhausted, glorious yet doomed, proudly attempting to uphold great traditions even as it disintegrates."
Here you'll find a parade of lessers - Alexander Balas, Antiochus Epiphanes, John Cantacuzenus, Anna Dalassene, once-greats now buried by history. They speak of their hopes, disappointments, achievements; few realize they will be swamped in time. These poems teach us much about history, politics, and the foolishness of ever thinking you've got it made.
Cavafy's other realm is sexuality and sensuality. He may have had his first gay encounter when he was 20; for much of his adult life, he'd have a long dinner with Mom at home and then leave her, to visit the tough side of town shopping for tenderness. Although he was extremely discreet about his own life, his poetry becomes more open, especially after her death. After 1911, his attitude and poetry seem to embrace the life he struggled with for so long.
Cavafy's triumph is that his love poems can evoke the same enduring, compelling themes as his history poems: loneliness and loss, the nature of nobility, the ravages of time, the power of pleasure, and the fleeting nature of happiness. The unfinished, exquisite poem "The Photograph" begins with a speaker looking at a former lover's "beautiful youthful face":
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