Cool Poem From My Son/Sondheim On Music vs. Poetry/Calder's Environment/Ed's Pelican/Writing(humor)

Cool poem from my son, notable NYC poet, John Coletti in the 3-17-13 edition of Everyday Genius.

Dukes Up
by John Coletti

The Easter egg hunt
inherently cruel
religiously obscene
“I see one.” “Let me get one.”
tears. like that.
an epiphenomenelogical account from like organisms
teasing @ the homegrown
in a banged-up locker
that convince me, at the end of darknessses
that I want to enjoy being family-kept-spilling
I never understate
& demonstrate daily
the capital shock then “wooed
& won by wireless”
weeds I thought more beautiful tilted
like a panix’ serpent
calming
core doubts. it’s been a little rough.
pancakes at midnight
pancakes at day
Medieval reenactors
dragging
that one aria
from Turandot
around your eye. forever closed
the tingling of clean, crystal lights
then I laid back down. don’t rot: sayeth Beaker
the tendered non-capital evening so eschewed
now, I have a third wave: Starting fresh!


John Coletti is the author of Deep Code (City Lights, forthcoming 2014), Skasers, a half-book with Anselm Berrigan (Flowers & Cream 2012), Mum Halo (Rust Buckle Books 2010), Same Enemy Rainbow (fewer & further 2008), and Physical Kind (Yo-Yo-Labs 2005).  He has served as editor of The Poetry Project Newsletter and co-edits Open 24 Hours Press. Other projects include a collaborative print with artist Kiki Smith, a chapbook collaboration with Shana Moulton, and a libretto for Excelsior, an opera composed by Caleb Burhans commissioned by Chicago’s Fifth House Ensemble, which premiered in 2013.

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What Stephen Sondheim Has to Say About Music vs Poetry

Music straightjackets a poem and prevents it from breathing on its own, whereas it liberates a lyric.  Poetry doesn't need music; lyrics do."

" 'Poetry seems to me to exist in terms of its conciseness - how much can be packed in,' he told Bernard Levin in 1980.  'Lyric writing has to exist in time...Therefore it must be crystal clear as it goes on.' "

"I firmly believe that lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on.  Particularly in the theater, where you not only have the music, but you've got costume, story, acting, orchestra.  There's a lot to take in.  The whole idea of poetry is denseness, is concision, is abutment of images, and that sort of thing.  You can't do that when you've got music going, and expect the audience to take it in."

"Poetry is something that you can go back and read multiple times to extract its meaning.  But with lyrics, you hear them once, and they have to stick." 

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 Alexander Calder Piece

Submitted by Deetje Boler who enjoyed my poem "How The Gulf Felt" (see below) from my book Germs, Viruses, and Catechisms (historicowarpoligious poems) published by Civil Defense Publications (SF Dec. 2013)

How The Gulf Felt to Me and a Pelican

                       

I felt this same wretched way

the day the grove behind our house

fell and continued to fall to chainsaws,

the same way I felt when George W. Bush

responded to 9/11 by invading hapless Iraq,

the same way I’d felt when my father died,

the same way I’d felt when that wildwood

behind our house where the scrub oaks

as old as our nation fell beneath chainsaws.

The birds I’d come to venerate,

the juncos, woodpeckers, finches

with no home here to return to

simply disappeared along with

the oak trees to become

markets, restaurants, realtors,

coffee shops and a yoga studio.

And oil well may prove to be

the very worst substance ever

put to use by the not-so-human

infant machine we refer to as

a “brain” this engine that may conceive

one great poem or painting

for every million barrels of

gloppy goo fouling the very subject

such slime predicates to slow

tortured death not to mention

each and every act of corruption,

all the wars fought for

this hideous bloody slop,

all of this here and now

summarized in the agony

of one more dazed helpless

pelican.

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 Comment or Read Comments Here  on any of the above or below. If you do not have a Google account, then log in by checking "Name/URL," (it's easy). Just the name (don't worry about the URL). Actual name is best, but use what you like. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net, and I can post it.