Poetry Postcard 36: Singing the Blues

One of the most important things I have learned from the Poetry Postcard Project is that I love research.

The postcards have taken me to new places (City of Rocks, New Mexico; Fort McClellan, Alabama) and introduced me to fascinating lives (Vera Ellen, Debra Paget, Sarah Bernhardt).

Postcard 36 came from the book, Women Who Dared. I’d heard of blues great Bessie Smith (on the cover), but didn’t know anything about her.

Step 1: Listen to Bessie Smith recordings on YouTube.

I’ve only written one intentionally blues-influenced poem. It is a tribute to Etta James, who died last year. You can read the found poem, taken from a Women In Jazz interview with James, at the SPARK website. Several artists used the poem, “Feel What I'm Singing,” as an inspiration piece. Check out the cool art!

Step 2: Read some online biographies.

I thought I might write about Janis Joplin’s obsession with Smith, which led Joplin to buy a gravestone for the singer. But I abandoned that idea. I wanted the poem to focus on Smith.

Instead, I ended up using lyrics from several of Smith’s songs to structure a new poem, inspired by the hat she holds in the photograph. (Another feathered hat appeared in postcard poem 33.)

The Day You Quit Me

I got a hat made of feathers,

put it on and men start to cry.

I got a hat made of feathers

and someday they’re gonna fly.

If you ever quit me, honey,

they’re gonna lift me to the sky.

I’ll put on a red dress,
I’ll put on my hat,
I’ll sing like a robin
if you’ll just stay

where you’re at.

I got this hat made of feathers
bluer than the empty sky.

The day you quit me, honey,

is the day I’m gonna die.

Laura Shovan

The person who received this postcard suggested setting the poem to music. What do you think?

Here's another intersection between postcards and music, sent to me by poet Allan Roy Andrews:

Violinist Hilary Hahn's online "Postcards From the Road."

Hahn started the project fifteen years ago as a way to communicate with a group of third graders. Her project includes photographs from her travels accompanied by postcard-length reports and musings.

Allan suggests great listening if you track Hahn’s performances on YouTube. Here, Hilary Hahn performs Ernest Chausson "Poeme" Op. 25 in October of 2012.

Postcard Information:

WOMEN WHO DARED

Bessie Smith (American, 1894-1937) made her first recording in 1923 (“Downhearted Blues”), and it quickly established her as the most successful black recording artist of her day. Her personal and musical power as a blues and jazz singer pushed out the boundaries of both female and African-American expression for a new mass audience.

Prints and Photographs Division

©Library of Congress

Pomegranate, Box 6099, Rohnert Park, CA 94927

Links for Bessie Smith:

Biography: http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/smit-besx.htm

Biography: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/jarvis6.html

Inspiration Lyrics, "Downhearted Blues": http://www.lyricstime.com/bessie-smith-downhearted-blues-lyrics.html

30 Habits of Highly Effective Poets #24: Antonio Blunda on Music

Antonio Blunda is an Italian poet, living in Palermo. We have begun a friendship, after we both participated in the 2011 event, 100,000 Poets for Change.

I know that Antonio loves coffee (he talks about it all the time on Facebook.) He is also a music aficionado. Although both play a role in his writing life, Antonio's habit for this series on writing is listening to music.

I get too distracted if I listen to music while I'm writing. I usually prefer quiet. The only exception is if I'm working on a period piece. Then, I find the music helps my mind-set.

I am very excited to share a poem of Antonio's in English and in the original Italian. The subject of Antonio's poem, the ocean, lends itself to musicality because of its natural rhythm and onomatopoeia.

Here's Antonio:

Hi, Laura. Very often the music -- I like all: new age, new classical, classical, jazz, fusion, etc. -- every kind of music opens the mind. Now, for example, I'm listening this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi_0wdXg4Y.

(That's the love theme to the science fiction movie Blade Runner. Great choice.)

I AM THE SEA
by Antonio Blunda

This night has followed me
like a stranger

a foreign spy

I put up a defensive distance

Frisian horses
walking suddenly faster
after crossing the city

All strangers
of a strange land,
strange houses whose insides I cannot read

the prospective dead and the lovers
on a sidewalk
like crushed walnuts

strange souls from hell
on a bus from purgatory
that got a hold inside me
on the sands
on the déjà vus
on the tent of the stars

and in every place anyway
(but have I ever been here?)

This night they were following me
like a dog of this earth
 

what do they clench to themselves?
 

Forgive me, I do not want to understand.

I am the sea
with my usual job
for sailors and guardians

I am the sea,
I am nothing but the sea.
 

A companion
of that pale
eye that is on me.
 

a Rachmaninov melancholy

cooling down
to the right side of dirty windows

a breath
without a strong noise

(Translation Ute Margaret Saine)

IO SONO IL MARE

Questa notte mi ha seguito
come una spia straniera

ho messo una distanza di difesa

cavalli di frisia
aumentando il passo
subito dopo una città

Tutti stranieri
d'una terra straniera,
case straniere che non leggo mai dentro

gli aspiranti morti e gli amanti
su un marciapiedi
sono noci schiacciate

anime d'inferno straniere
su un bus di purgatorio
che si tengono in me
sulla sabbia
sui dejavu
sul panno di stelle
e comunque da qualche parte
(ma io son già stato qui?)

Questa notte mi hanno inseguito
come un cane di questa terra

cosa stringono intorno?

Perdonatemi, io non voglio capire.

Io sono il mare
con il mio solito mestiere
per naviganti e guardiani

Io son il mare,
non sono altro che il mare.

Un compagno
di quell'occhio
pallido su di me

Io sono il mare
una malinconia di Rachmaninov
che si raffredda
sulla destra
dai finestrini sporchi

un respiro
senza rumori forti 

Antonio Blunda was born in Erice and lives in Palermo, where he practices as a lawyer. Among his passions are literature, poetry, fiction, quantum physics, history, philosophy. Among his literary prizes are "Encyclopedia of the Italian Poets Emerging" 2002-2003 published by Publisher Aletti and first place in the 2004 "Prize for Peace" organized by the Culture and Society Studies Center of Turin. He blogs at: www.antonioblunda.com

NPM 50 State Tour: Texas

Texas -- our 28th state -- has had a poet laureate since 1932.


But they've also had some lean poetry years. In the 80s and 90s, the Lone Star State was often laureate-less. They got back on track in 2003, and since that time the P.L. has been a regular, annual appointment.

Texas' state Poet Laureate for 2010 is Karla K. Morton. Here is an interview on Youtube.

Like Florida's P.L. (see the previous post) she has a Wow! project. Morton's Wee Cowrin' Timorous Beastie is, according to her website, "an original Scottish epic poem produced as a Book/CD project with Canadian composer Howard Baer."

Take a listen to the wonderful Celtic music on her site.

I love the edgy humor in Morton's poem "When Texas No Longer Fits in the Glove Box." Using a map of Texas as metaphor for a larger-than-life man -- hot stuff.

When Texas No Longer Fits in the Glove Box
By Karla K. Morton

Once you unfold a road map of Texas, your world is changed.
Towns like Falfurrias, Carthage, and Madill suddenly become
part of your life and once you see them, you can’t go back to
not knowing them. You have to go there, even it it’s just
with your eyes—or your finger—tracing those
crow’s feet county roads into unexplored territory.
That’s how knowledge works. That’s how knowing works.
Life is expanded; there’s no going back.
There’s no refolding the map.

It’s like meeting an alarmingly charming man—
discovering his dangerous detours and thrilling new paths,
finding unforeseen forks and magnificent natural beauty.
You’ll look up at him and know that the crinkly arch between his eyes
goes from Childress up to Amarillo, then back down to Muleshoe;
that the whites of his nails reach from Huntsville to Jasper;
that his green eyes encompass the metroplex—
From Ft. Worth to Denton to Dallas.

And you can’t help but imagine that the crooked hairline
beneath his navel would run all the way down Highway 281...

I don't know about you, but I'm blushing. Go ahead and read the rest of the poem while I fan my face.

My Texan hot mama friends (Michelle, Dana, Betty), I'm dedicating this post to you!

National Poetry Month ends today, but my tour doesn't. We're on to Iowa next. Let's hope we make it to state #50 before the summer solstice.