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Another Wintry Morning
(dec. '08)
And on T.V., this snow-bound, wintry morning,
The talking heads themselves are plowing through
Huge drifts of words, and give repeated warning
Of what just one glance out the window proves,
"It's snowing!" hard, with clear intent to rout
Or stall, at least, all human locomotion
And turn us to an hour of devotion
To the art and science of digging-out.
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I wrote the verse above last Christmastide,
all in one quiet early morning session,
at least that's how I recollect it now.
It's easier to recall one spin drift morning,
hunched over a legal pad while outside laid
the windblown drifts out in that crystal land;
than a set of un-notable revisions
made over the breadth of half a dozen days.
I think I plucked rout out of my thesaurus.
The other rhymes came from some hidden place
I never knew before, nor known much since.
Still it remains a favorite confection
of a most un-fattening kind of frosting.
Listening to
A Ceremony Of Carols
(1942)
is a private tradition I observe
going back a good number of years.
And I remember back when I was twenty,
an album given to me by a friend.
Our ways diverged, un-amicably,
two years ago, amid sad circumstances.
Time unravels everything it seems.
Ben Britten's set of carols for boys' choir
and solo harp was written during his
returning transatlantic voyage to
war torn England in nineteen forty-two.
U-boats prowled the north Atlantic waters.
That chill still shivers in a harp's tinklings.
Above it all he set this set of songs
based upon some old medieval verse.
How odd it is, this prescient meditation,
discovered casually in my youth,
and my present concern with Middle English,
for Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales.
Out of that collection there's one song
that I especially admire, it's called:
There is no Rose. I hope you'll take the time
out from the hectic season and listen to it.
It bears a certain similarity
to another song of my memory
whose name itself is close enough to make
one wonder if it was not in fact based
upon it; it was called There is a Rose
in Spanish Harlem.
I've re-recorded everything I think
in my
Anthology of Winter Verse
(page 7 of A Little Garden of...)
which includes some verse for Christmastide.
A Visit from St. Nick is there of course.
After a couple years I've got it down
I think. But all the stuff is spoken rather well,
Try listening, you might be well surprised
at what repeated practice can derive.
And now on to another note and theme...
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Sophisticated, set in early winter,
is Hart Crane's famous
Proem to Brooklyn Bridge.
A background graphic shows the awesome structure,
now scheduled, I hear, for sad destruction,
when its inviolate curve foresake our eyes,
forever. Gone. Too unbelievable!
My notes include a useful paraphrase
of a poem that's often found obtuse.
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Musing much lately upon how the material I've been mastering
might be used, organized, and somehow staged.
It might most plausibly be done by trying to sell the idea
of a series of lectures two or three a weeks over perhaps
a two or three week period. These lectures would feature live performances
mostly exploring the use of iambic pentameter and especially the heroic couplet
as demonstraded in Chaucer, Nabokov, and Shakespeare, and to a lesser extent,
Frost, Stevens, Browning, Eliot, and Yeats, maybe Tennyson and Keats.
The aim would generally be to perform and have comprehended
some sections from the Canterbury Tales, perhaps all of Nabokov's Pale Fire,
Romeo's: O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Juliet's: My only love sprung from my only hate!
Friar Laurence's:
The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night
On Iambic Pentameter
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Prose, and no pictures either.
Returning to
Pale Fire, big time.
Just finished the first filled-out interpretation.
Should have something available by turkeyday.
The CD packets, include both Pale Fire and Canterbury?
Intro's, texts, notes.
Might as well try to assemble something like that.
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Prose, and no pictures either.
Taking a break from
Pale Fire.
Had hoped to have some CD packets produced by turkeyday.
Something provisional at least.
Should print out the current notes just to see where things stand.
Otherwise trying to complete recordings et al
for the General Prologue of Canterbury.
Why I'm not sure. Just to do some recording?
Because I don't care much for the current models I'm listening-to?
A sense of closure.
What really needs doing is the promotion,
which is coming along after a fashion,
which is to say, slow.
Written a link[request]letter
that's turned into a history of the project,
and maybe even biography. This may turn out all right.
I'm going to need several summaries or characterizations of my work
before this promotion phase is done.
See the Amway salesman at his rounds,
selling verse, making mighty progress:
The unusually warm November wind
gently tousles the patch of hair that's left
above his forehead as it might some sparse
brown graveside mourners huddling together.
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For Bill Brauker, after viewing his Facebook page
I like the paintings; and who knew,
I never did, this about you.
(Why do they make this edit box so small,
one scarcely rambles in its space at all!)
Wonderful, the colorful scenery
makes me sad that no one ever splayed
an easel in that backyard on those days
when Gordie and I quietly mused and played
at chess; and over pensive Brightmoor blazed
a smiling sun; the southern air so dense,
the rank ailanthus growing through the fence.
O' Kentucky on Detroit's west side.
Who could capture that odd butterfly?
My email and
Facebook portrait
And only recently I was informed:
I liked those jpegs of you even though
you look a little scary in a couple;
very artsy, nonetheless I say!
And I thought I appear wryly amused,
just as indeed I very often am.
But now I fear even this simple pose
or gesture is misunderstood. Oh well;
perhaps I should take smiling lessons soon!
Of course the one deriding my visage
grew up with a brother who often seems
wholly nitrous oxide-dly deranged.
So it may be what one's accustomed-to.
I'll try my best to smile more, and show
a lack of shame for teeth so coffee-stained.
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[a quick introduction to this site]
early june '09
To help you understand, and that full quick,
some part of what this site is all about,
(as if by good ensample, so to speche)
may I suggest that you should listen to
Chaucer's portrait of the
Pauvre Persoun,
(which is Middle English for poor parson,)
taken from the Canterbury Tales
written by Geoff Chaucer long ago;
performed in Middle English by yours truly,
G. S. Lipon, noted reciteur.
So Jump right in! and hear in Middle English
this rendering of Chaucer's good ensamble,
from whom we all can take recurrent lesson,
to which we will return full ofte time,
in the course of my forth coming blather,
that you can read then at your own sweet leisure.
But first please please me, take this time to hear
my sweet rendition of the
pauvre persoun.
Toward Canterbury
is a set of recordings
of selections from the Canterbury Tales,
performed in Middle English,
accompanied by text and brief analyses,
hoping to entertain as well as to instruct,
When completed, which should be soon,
it will consists of seven excerpts
comprising 40 minutes.
Enough has been accomplished to merit your attention,
or so I think.
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Pale Fire.
As if I needed more creative thoughts,
direction, scope of vision, one more project;
more memorizing, writing and recording,
when there's so much to do just trying to
get the site to work right, and get filled
all the many notes, semantic holes —
into the gin joint wanders Pale Fire.
Pale Fire is a capturer, seducer;
something that makes the many thoughts I have
about the role of poetry these days;
its use and relevance, its proper place,
its power to entertain, fully concrete.
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Pale Fire is the name of 1962 novel by Vladimir Nabokov.
A curio, a novel in the form of a long narrative poem
with copious eccentric notes that themselves forms a narrative.
Perhaps any attempt these days at verse
can be viewed as trying to prove, establish,
the relevance, power, and place of poetry in modern times.
Viewed in this way most poems fail.
For how many of our modern poems
attain to any kind of currency,
and can be said to circulate, even
among the literati, if such a thing
even exists, in the form of mere
mention or quotation?
Mention and quotation are the acts
that tell us just how deeply poetry,
or a particular verse, affects society.
There is mention, PBS' newhour, its semi-regular poetry segments,
but this is mainly laudable civic duty,
the continuing quixotic journals and reviews,
but not a piece of work that rises on its own power
to prominence and affect in the greater population.
What are our great poems, the memorable lines,
or whole poems even that compel memorization?
Reflection in a Convex Mirror?
To me Skunk Hour rises to this height,
but admittedly it's not said or quoted much...
The Idea of Order in Key West is likewise of a higher order,
but not much known among the general population,
and I suppose this shows a long time failure to get traction.
Both Stevens and Lowell can be difficult,
yet they still seem to achieve something affective and memorable.
...
The loosening of both form and semantics in modern poetry
has not achieved, moved, much or many,
in the general population, perhaps not even
among devoted readers. Perhaps it is
that the modern poem aims at more modest effects,
and doesn't mind that much being read and forgotten.
Pale Fire pushes, romantically, against these trends,
by embracing poetic convention, i.e. metric form,
and, perhaps more important, an antic poetic function:
narration, storytelling. And on a large scale.
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Of course the poems and their recordings are
enchanting, but what's most noteworthy here
is something called
Medea's Incantation
by Arthur Golding. It's from his translation
of Ovid's epic Metamorphoses.
This piece served as a model for a speech
in Shakespeare's play The Tempest, that's well known,
in which old Prospero predicts the day
when he will toss his magic books away.
That speech begins then with this borrowed phrase:
“Ye Elves of Hills, Brooks, Standing Lakes and Groves”
A fuller exploration of these texts
is also available at:
Westron Wynde.
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Golding's depiction of Medea's quest
and conjurations is, I think, great fun,
the perfect piece for a young female witch,
some budding wiccam, brash enthusiast,
to learn to say upon a hollow's eve
to hear what kinds of magic words achieve.
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My absorption into Pale Fire has stalled progress on almost everything else.
I stop to record parts of it, and write down commentary.
Specifically it has stalled the promotion of the Canterbury section of the website.
I've made some progress in trimming back the wonderful multi-windowing features I've designed into the site using Javascript.
I've had to concede that on a majority of implementations of Javascript browser
routines do not support very well the kinds of innovations I seek to provide the viewer. So I've had to concede and simplify, and move away from the practical eloquence of modularism. There will be more on this, fttb you might like to read a brief, somewhat old, hypertextual essay on the subject,
Notes on Multi-Windowing Html.
latest on Chaucer
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[review]
early august '09
What have I been up to?
uhh, I seem to move in so many directions
at the same time. I've written some poems
to go with everything else. And I think they're good.
There's about fourteen of them,
which I'm trying to shop a round.
We'll see how that goes. No real money,
but recognition, publicity, promotion,
of the other stuff,
Chaucer,
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a collection of readings, writings and notes about
the Canterbury Tales. Starting to complete memorization
of the complete introduction, have recently learned
the Monk, the frere, the franklin, the wyf of bath, persoun;
am working on the millere; the marchant, the clerk;
but I listen to all the remaining portraits regularly now,
along with thte ending. It the continuing practice,
preoccupation, discipline.
And then there's the writing! beside the lyric verse.
I've produced, or am producing, three audio projects,
concerned with using digital resources to more fully
explore poetry, especially traditional, i.e. metric verse.
These latest projects focus on
Chaucer, and Iambic Pentameter in general.
They're an evolving set of annotated and recorded lectures with dramatic readings,
from Chaucer, Golding, Shakespeare, Thayer, and Mandelbaum, and some others.
They are called,
Toward Canterbury, an audio introduction to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
Westron Wynde, a study of early verse,
translations of Ovid's portrait of Medea
from his the Metamorphoses,
as well as study of fouteeners.
On Iambic Pentameter, an historical survey with recordings
This last one's only now getting started;
but it makes use of pieces already recorded
and marked-up, and so is capable of
some amount of quick development.
The other projects need a filling in of notes,
definitions, analysis, especially with regards to prosody
and performance, for each piece in each collection
and for each collection overall.
And this writing is the thing that most occupies me.
Some of this,
the definitions of Middle English wordes,
other factual elucidations of limited value
perhaps, but needed for a complete comprehension
of the text, can be simple, almost mindless.
Others take longer. Sometimes some thoughts come out
that are a pleasure to set down.
But others, especially some of the longer introductory essays
tend to get lost, and need extensive editing and revising,
which truth to say, I'm not that practiced-at.
Although in lyric verse writing I am,
but their there almost is no boundary
between writing and revision, there
revision is always ongoing.
But here things need to be studied,
hacked a part, the parts saved,
things pasted together, lengthened,
or shorted, and eventually concluded.
But I'm getting better at it...
It's just that
I'll rotate through these tasks so quickly,
(including recordings mind you) that I
almost lack comprehension of whats been done
over the last few weeks and months; and years.
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about billie jean
july 8 '09
Popular Song amazes me,
how she's worshipped & adored;
there ought to be low drums mainly
whene'er we bury one of her
own sons, who got lost
in a round of dreams,
of ivory-
Lo!
Here Pygmalion
comes...
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[using other verse writing to promote site]
early june '09
Admittedly this hasn't gone that well, (so far,)
and certainly not well attended-to,
either by writer or by audience,
but all of that may be about to change.
I think the weakness of this blog to date
is the result of lack of clarity
about the enterprise and its promotion,
and now, at last, I think that this is changing,
I've got a set of surer goals in mind.
I'm writing verse now, real lyrical verse,
and my opinion is it's rather good,
and worthy of being published and reviewed
by the literary press. And thereto,
there will be no postings of such works
either here, or in this vicinity
(except perhaps for about billie jean.)
And so to save the precious virginity,
of these hopefully attractive works
I'm going to reset this site and blog,
so all such stuff will linger here no longer,
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Hopefully my works will come to light
upon some worthy literary site,
or magazine.
Should I get published, you'll hear about it here,
is all I say, of that you can be sure.
I'll try to leverage each against the other,
my published verse and my quixotic site,
(which seeks to promote Chaucer and recital)
and hopefully advance forward from there.
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[notes for an audio introduction to Chaucer
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early june '09
But more to the point,
and assuming that this is your first visit,
I'll bring myself around again, once more,
and try to define my goals and aspirations,
and thus the purpose of this site and blog.
This site, these words, make up an enterprise,
implausible, outwardly quixotic,
to reinvigorate our language study
(through modern digital technology )
by encouraging the recitation of
set pieces, practiced oration, poetry;
as part of ordinary language study.
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[ poetry, emotion, education ]
early june '09
The art of recital and interpretation
as tool of interest, conjurer of emotion;
as well as subject worthy to be studied;
is likely undervalued; singular efforts
not noted or rewarded; the art & science
of recital, not regularly studied;
and this is quite unlikely to change soon,
(unless efforts like this should gain some traction,)
and this is certainly unfortunate,
and what it is I try to rectify.
For poetry and recitation bring
something special to our language study,
distinct from the dry study
of form and grammar;
(however necessary they may be;)
for spoken verse is able to convey
emotion; and emotions are what guide
our thoughts, and plans and attitudes,
including attitudes toward education.
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To the extent recital stirs emotions
and is enjoyed it should be returned-to
frequently; to gain attention, mold it;
change the mood; useful things to know
when one is seeking to organize an hour.
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[ on Westron Wynde, a step toward Chaucer ]
late july '09
on Westron Wynde.
This project was first intended to be
a kind of pre-introduction to Chaucer,
and the sound of Middle English,
and of the great vowel shift;
and especially of the pronunciation
of the first-person, subjective, pronoun, I;
that's pronounced, ee.
It's easily confused with the pronoun he.
And so I thought to try reciting the early 16th century song,
Westron Wynde, in my best Middle English,
(accompanied by a simple, single note rendering on guitar,
of an early melody that was set to it.)
just to elucidate this pronominal problem.
But then I noticed Westron Wynde was cast in fourteen-ers.
I had been doing some reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses,
and remembered that there was an Elizabethan translation
into fourteeners of the ancient masterpiece by Arthur Golding;
that it is known that Shakespeare was acquainted-with,
since a particular passage, Medea's Incantation,
(that begins her efforts to restore to youth her father-in-law, old Aeson,)
had been adapted by Shakespeare as the very famous Prospero's Farewell to Magic in the play, The Tempest.
It begins:
Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves…
And so I began trolling around there.
Eventually I ended up with something that's more like a study of fourteeners,
and Ovid's Metamorphoses, and Shakespeare, and Thayer's Casey at the Bat, …
rather than an introduction to Middle English,
and the great vowel shift,
And so says something in its own right,
and yet will serve us as a stepping-stone,
of sorts, on our way to Bailey's Tabard Inne.
[ a todo list ]
[from previous posts]
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