Category Archives: nostalgia

Acappella Friday: The Jabberwocky

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A cappella music (without instrumental accompaniment) is particularly enjoyable for me to listen to. As a poet (and an avocational musician), I am drawn to the similarities that poems and a cappella music have. Lyrical phrasing, meter, rhyming, and onomatopoeia mean so much to a cappella music, because it relies so heavily on the human vocal element.

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OK, so first of all…this setting of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky is not done acappella. The composer is Sam Pottle (1934-1978). Interestingly, he also wrote many songs used on Sesame Street and cowrote The Muppet Show theme (with Jim Henson).

This song one of the most enjoyable songs I’ve ever performed in a choir…I *chortle* as I think about it. This poem has always held a special place in my brain. The nonsense vocabulary, the heroic details, the wry grin of people who recite it…Lewis Carroll had a tremendous ability to draw pictures with words, some that didn’t even exist prior to him using them. This poem is largely responsible for my foray into poetry. It has inspired some of recent poetry, The chnott and the sarborant and pub song.

So it is not acappella, but it is done with piano accompaniment and toy percussion accent instruments (I think I played the tamborine/rattle when we performed this in 1985-86), and much fun to listen to. The music fits the poem. An interesting point about performance is interpretation. This is true for poetry read as well as sung.

I present two versions from cyberspace. First, a very proper choral performance by the University of Utah Singers – well done (performed with great sarcasm) and a great recording to hear the different lines and harmonies and pay attention to the toy instruments.

Jabberwocky – Utah

And a second performance by the University of Maine Singers (a larger choral group), done with choreography, and some jocularity at the end. The performance revels in silliness….plus the video has the bonus of the Maine Stein Song (don’t know it, never been to Maine). Callooh!! Callay!!

Jabberwocky – Maine

I hope you enjoy it.

pub song

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is it already time in sparity
for tomorrow’s song, conspiring
just past a moment’s caesura beshinding
and a quaver in triplets sequiling?

staccato, legato, and elluish garnishes,
reveling beats and cantabile varnishes,
capriccio encores, as slathibirs and borespors,
such singing will leave you reciting
the extrons and motile warblings
of pub-songs, warm and inviting.

and when you are done with the chorusing
of colly-woos and the hollo-joy-cholla,
drink a toast to the wencesial spirit, of course,
and say a prayer from the wells of your golla.

Learning to walk

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with small hands wrapped around
a father’s thumbs,
looking out onto a horizon
of -things-
yet undefined to a young mind
move to the edges
sounds and things,
as destinations.

Mommy claps.

Just yesterday, you would have lunged
on all fours,
but today you took that step
upright,
foot slung forward
slightly sideways,
and unsure of the placement of it.

Daddy holds on,

as a stride begets another,

and wanting to drop to the floor
you hang on to the moment
and balance
to repeat what you have learned.

Tomorrow, you run.

Blues under the wheelbarrow

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The white chicken
longs for

her li’l red rooster,
and cries

pooling tears
-same as the rain water-

on the barnyard floor
for a day.

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Inspired by William Carlos Williams poem XXII (The Red Wheelbarrow) and The Little Red Rooster, a blues standard, recorded by Howling Wolf.

A thanks to the good folks at WordPress for selecting my blog for Freshly Pressed feature and thanks to all who have dropped in via “Freshly Pressed.” I hope you like the poetry. Please feel free to visit often and comment.

Aftermath

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The addition of slaw
– made with vinegar and equal parts
horse-radish, mustard, and ketchup
to any picnic dinner
Is rivaled by the
subtraction of potato salad,
the kind with sweet relish and
mayonnaise.  Divided loyalties about
how these dishes get made
and who gets the leftovers,
stored in plastic bowls
and covered with multi-ply towels
to keep away the flies.

NaPoWriMo 2013 Day 22

Hall of mirrors

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Open
the mirror’d soul
to speak in blues and green.
Colours of the landscape canvas
grazing

the tales
of old places, new embraces.
Heroes’ travels on crisp
printed paper,
whisper.

NaPoWriMo 2013 Day 19

A response to a prompt to celebrate National Library Week over at Earful of Cider

doppler collusion

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speak the sound,
then it resonates back
in waves that traverse time,
sometimes delayed.

When I was a child,
I used a tape
recorder to
compose sounds
and mimic noises and
imitate voices from what I heard.

Then played them back.

They were old,
voices
from movies and
TV shows, trustworthy sounds
to my ear, both as I spoke them and
as they were played back to
me from the tape.

sometimes
Stan Laurel wouldn’t
come out the way I heard him
when I spoke,

and I realize now,
I was only six.

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NaPoWriMo 2013, Day 6

On a rock

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The incantations of the morning
rose with the mist
among the open walls
and cast-about ruins of the facade.

No alleluias
drifted from the chancel,
silenced long ago.
Yet, a whisper crept past
my ear to look up
at the garden wall, past
where roses once stood.

The sun met skewed blossoms
growing from the mortar,
casting shadows.

Here, something built
to extol eternal majesty,
a victim to weathering and decay.
Now, its fragments and remains
laid bare to anchor wildflowers,
set there by circumstances,
in gaps and sills of battered stone.

A cappella Friday: To Be Sung on the Water

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A cappella music (without instrumental accompaniment) is particularly enjoyable for me to listen to. As a poet (and an avocational musician), I am drawn to the similarities that poems and a cappella music have. Lyrical phrasing, meter, rhyming, and onomatopoeia mean so much to a cappella music, because it relies so heavily on the human vocal element.

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There are few things more lovely in nature than the calm surface of a body of water. The way a rowboat or canoe cuts through the still waters is direct, and appeals to one’s sight. The sounds of oars dipping into the surface and being pulled forward, leaves an echo. If there are no other sounds around, the setting is serene.

Louise Bogan (1897-1970) was a poet of the early/mid 20th century. She was born in Maine, into a family of mill workers. As a child, she was unfortunately witness to the adulterous affairs of her mother, which definitely shaped her views on love and betrayal, a common theme in her poetry. Most of her poetry was written early in her life. Later in life she worked as a poetry reviewer for the New Yorker. Bogan was fairly reclusive and reticent about sharing personal details of her life. Her poetic voice has a deep romantic resonance, and she manages to pull every bit of emotion out of minimal use of words. Among her works is a poem entitled “To be sung on the water”.

TO BE SUNG ON THE WATER
By Louise Bogan

Beautiful, my delight,
Pass, as we pass the wave.
Pass, as the mottled night
Leaves what it cannot save,
Scattering dark and bright.

Beautiful, pass and be
Less than the guiltless shade
To which our vows were said;
Less than the sound of the oar
To which our vows were made, –
Less than the sound of its blade
Dipping the stream once more.

Samuel Barber (1910-1981) was a highly prolific American composer. While his best known work is arguably Adagio for Strings^, he also wrote vocal music and was highly acclaimed as a choral/vocal composer. He was an avid fan of poetry and composed works based on poems by Matthew Arnold, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and James Agee. In 1968, he composed a choral setting of Louise Bogan’s poem ” To be sung on the water.” There is no indication that Ms. Bogan ever heard a performance of this piece, but perhaps she would have nodded in agreement.

It is hauntingly beautiful.

^Adagio for Strings has been used in the soundtracks of The Elephant Man, Lorenzo’s Oil, and Platoon, as well as several other films.