Author Archives: weinberg

poetry

But what about Wordsworth?

“…Schizophrenic poetry
Tends to be loose, disjointed, uncritical of itself, in some ways
Like what is best in our modern practice of the poetic art
But unlike it in others, in its lack of concern
For intensity and nuance. A few great poems
By poets supposed to be “mad” are of course known to us all,
Such as those of Christopher Smart, but I wonder how crazy they were,
These poets who wrote such contraptions of exigent art?
As for Blake’s being “crazy,” that seems to me very unlikely.
But what about Wordsworth? Not crazy, I mean, but what about his later work, boring
To the point of inanity, almost, and the destructive “corrections” he made
To his Prelude, as it nosed along, through the shallows of art?
He was really terrible after he wrote the “Ode:
Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,” for the most part,
Or so it seems to me. Walt Whitman’s “corrections,” too, of the Leaves of Grass,
And especially “Song of Myself,” are almost always terrible. ”

– Kenneth Koch, The Art of Poetry, continued

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poetry

Mental health is certainly not a necessity

“To write a poem, perfect physical condition
is desirable but not necessary. Keats wrote
in poor health, as did D.H. Lawrence. A combination
of disease and old age is an impediment to writing, but
Neither is, alone, unless there is arteriosclerosis–that is,
Hardening of the arteries–but that we shall count as a disease
Accompanying old age and therefore a negative condition.
Mental health is certainly not a necessity for the
Creation of poetic beauty, but a degree of it
Would seem to be, except in rare cases…”

– Kenneth Koch, “The Art of Poetry,” which I have in his collection, The Art of Poetry. It has some essays, but also parodies, interviews, and long poems with discursive subjects. I read this for the first time last year, at my advisor’s suggestion, and loved it. I’m going to, if I keep to it, post pieces of “The Art of Poetry” up here till I finish it.

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a propos of nothing

Go to the woods and bring me back

(1) the cow as white as milk
(2) the cape as red as blood
(3) the hair as yellow as corn
(4) the slipper as pure as gold
(5) forty pages of poems
(7) a partridge three boxes of letter-sized hanging file folders
(8) a reason / reason things went wrong / (got to find a) reason why my…
(9) a woman true, and fair
(12) fish tacos
(14) The Drama Lab
(15) Erin, Dan, Cricket, Bree, Karen, Megan, Bo, Dawn, Geronimo
(16) An unlimited supply of John Frieda Frizz-Ease Clearly Defined Style Holding Gel
(17) our deceased childhood dog in living form
(19) New aviators

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LA theater

people of los angeles,

go to Unknown Theater’s last show in the awesome 1110 Seward space. Performance artist John Fleck at 8 pm, bands at 10 pm.

AD Chris Covics said in an email to the mailing list this morning,

“In less than 12 hours, we lost our space at 1110 Seward, but through the generosity of so many of you, we managed to find a new space to set down roots (literally: we’re taking up the stage and moving it). We should be ready to open our next show, Mondo Don Juan, on schedule on August 20!”

More power to them. Please go, watch John Fleck “saturate the audience with Trader Joe’s products,” and be part of this company’s transition into their next home. I wish I could be there.

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Uncategorized

put your thumb down on the cement

Jousters like Andrews use bigger horses than their medieval counterparts because they themselves are so much bigger than the knights of old. Their mounts are 2,000-pound draft horses — Percherons, Clydesdales and Belgians. If you add the weight of horse, rider, saddle and armor, you end up with something like 2,500 pounds at either end of the list moving toward each other at about 25 miles per hour. Roy Cox, a pioneer of American jousting, calculates the force of the resulting impact as 50,000 pounds per square inch. ‘If you want to experience that for yourself,” he says, “put your thumb down on the cement, take a sledgehammer and slam it really hard.’

NYT, “Is Jousting The Next Extreme Sport?”

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Uncategorized

last weekend,

the students from the chorus workshop I taught in LA had a public showcase.

I wasn’t there; I was back in Baltimore, and I was nervous on their behalf. It’s strange to have something you’ve worked on as closely as theater going up without your presence, and on the other side of the country. I’ve had this experience before, although I was always in the same city when the performance was happening. From the opposite coast, I really had to come to terms with there being nothing I could do.

But it went very well; I’ve heard back from D, who was there playing piano for them, and he says they remembered what we had created and did a great job.

I’m especially pleased because this end-of-workshop presentation of choruses felt like the most advanced of any I’ve put together from a student workshop. Also, the students arrived at all the final choruses in their own improvisations. So it really was their own work they were sharing, not mine. (That may be–probably is–why they didn’t have any trouble remembering it.)

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the chorus

more develchorusupments

Last night, we did our first in-home Baltimore ||8ve field recording session. Sound files not up yet, it’ll probably be awhile, because more is involved here. We visited the home of two actors, prepared with recording equipment and poems. No music. We recorded their voices with the intention of adding music and effects later. We read some Dickinson and some Bishop.

This is a new dimension of the project, and one I’m excited to keep exploring.

There seem to be 3 main parts to what we’re doing now:

(1) – weekly improv sessions, to keep up the record-a-poem-a-week business, and to keep the work open to anyone who is interested in choruses. With improvised music. First take, final take, etc.

(2) – field recordings (I don’t know what to call this): going to the homes, theaters, studios of people who want to collaborate with us but can’t make regular times. These are going to incorporate more composed music, more post-production, and also include the intention of working with people who have previous experience together, like theatrical ensembles, families, couples, etc. Our theory–my theory, inasmuch as I have one, again–is that there are choruses all over the place, people who are used to speaking and working in unison. We might as well record them.

(3) – core group meetings, where a much smaller group of people with a long-term commitment to the project work on memorized texts, with the goal of eventual performances. We’re going to have our first one of these on Saturday.

For some reason, the ||8ve site itself doesn’t seem like the place to put all these ramblings about process and what we’re doing and not doing. I like how streamlined it is. I’m glad this blog still accepts my meanderings.

I’m going to have to write this up properly and add it to the “About” section of that site.

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