Before we get into banning plastic bags, here’s what happens to reusable paper bags in Casa Jaquandor!
So…yeah.
National Poetry Month, day twenty-four
We’re down to the last seven days of National Poetry Month, so why not a bit of the Bard?
From Much Ado About Nothing
by William ShakespeareSigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny, nonny.Sing no more ditties, sing no more
Of dumps so dull and heavy.
The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny.
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National Poetry Month, day twenty-three
Here’s a lovely poem about a train. Or is it?
Still Life
by Carl SandburgCool your heels on the rail of an observation car.
Let the engineer open her up for ninety miles an hour.
Take in the prairie right and left, rolling land and new hay crops,
swaths of new hay laid in the sun.
A gray village flecks by and the horses hitched in front of the
post-office never blink an eye.
A barnyard and fifteen Holstein cows, dabs of white on a black
wall map, never blink an eye.
A signalman in a tower, the outpost of Kansas City, keeps his
place at a window with the serenity of a bronze statue on a
dark night when lovers pass whispering.
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Symphony Saturday
Another work by Anton Bruckner, this time his Symphony No. 7 in E major. After the 4th, the 7th might be the most familiar of Bruckner’s symphonies. It is the most Wagnerian in sound, right down to his use of four Wagner tubas in the Adagio movement. (The Wagner tuba is an instrument specifically designed by Wagner himself, who thought nothing of inventing instruments to achieve the sounds he wanted.) In fact, Bruckner himself indicated that the theme from that movement came to him in a dream after a sudden realization that Wagner was soon to die (which Wagner did indeed do, less than a month later). Bruckner’s writing in this symphony is typically organ-like, and the work reflects his deep faith and his pastoral background.
As with other Bruckner works, what sounds noble and profound to one ear might well sound trite, repetitive, and pompous to another. I tend toward the former category, myself; I find that Bruckner wrote the kind of music inside which one can easily get lost for a while.
Next week, we’ll wrap up Bruckner with his most massive work.
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National Poetry Month, day twenty-two
Wow, we’re coming into the home stretch.
I wonder just what percentage of poetry can be accurately classified as “love poetry”. I assume it’s a pretty large percent, but who knows. It would be an impossible task to identify every love poem in the world, obviously, and there would be many that some would consider love poems and that some would not. But love is one of the great human themes, and it stands to reason that it would be also one of the great themes found in poetry. Just look at your local bookstore’s poetry section, and depending on the size of the store, you will almost certainly see a good portion of the selection devoted to collections of love poems. (And yes, I own several myself.)
Here is one of my favorite love poems, written by the great National Poet of Scotland, Robert Burns. Burns is always a delight to read, with his use of Scottish dialect and his unerring sense of poetic rhythm. The third stanza here amazes me each time I read this poem, because it suddenly elevates what seems, at first, like a fairly simple little rhyming love poem. “While the sands o’ life shall run” is a gorgeous, gorgeous line, ripe with wonderful metaphor.
A Red, Red Rose
by Robert BurnsO my Luve is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.
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The in-between spaces (on the passing of Prince)
One of the stranger parts of having been the kid in high school with very different interests from most everybody else is that whenever a prominent musician dies now, I can almost never join in the chorus of those who claim that musician as a big part of the soundtrack of their lives. It’s very strange, this curious sense of not really being a part of the larger culture that surrounds me.
I had nothing against Prince. I liked some of his music a great deal, and I could leave other stuff of his on the table. I know very little about his output beyond Purple Rain and whatever else he did over the next few years back then. This is not meant as an indictment of Prince in any way at all; it’s just an observation of what was important to me at the time and what remained so. In my teenage years I was not a huge rock or pop listener. At that time, I was going deeply into classical music, and the thing about classical is…well, most of the big ones are already dead. Classical music doesn’t break your heart quite the way I suppose pop music does. I mean, classical music does break your heart, but it’s not the same.
Likewise, when people pass away who are a part of the fabric of my cultural life, there’s a certain loneliness involved. I don’t set out to not really be a part of my own culture, but the heart loves what it loves and really, that’s about all there is to it.
Anyway, farewell, Prince. I kind of wish I’d known you better. And who knows…maybe I will.
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Bad Joke Friday
National Poetry Day, day twenty-one
This poem seems to be about one thing…but when you reflect on when it was written (April, 1919), you realize that it’s actually very much about something else.
Everyone Sang
by Siegfried SassoonEveryone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on – on – and out of sight.Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun:
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away … O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
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A Moonlight Triptych
Something for Thursday
I heard this delightfully, pompously British piece on the radio yesterday and promptly fell in love with it. Here’s the London Suite by Eric Coates, in a live performance.
(Oddly, the applause at the end of the piece sounds tepid, but I’m guessing that’s the microphoning and not really a good gauge of the audience’s actual reaction to the work, because they soon shift into rhythmic applause, which is right up there with the standing ovation.)