In an effort to prove that I am not like Jono, I come before you to speak now of poetry. Specifically, jazz poetry. More specifically, the poetry of Vachel Lindsay, and to place our discussion right on the button, his most-famous (probably) ode, The Congo.
Under one’s breath, parenthetically
Actually, it’s called “The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race)”, but we’re here to talk of rhyme and metre, not politics.
Inquisitively, as of a church mouse
How’s your poetry knowledge? Better than mine, no doubt. The world is divided into two categories, those who think poetry is all effete verbiage and those with a favourite poem. My favourites are all epics, by which I mean that they’re long and they rhyme: The Lady of Shalott, with her magic web and now-cracked mirror; Alan Moore’s This Vicious Cabaret, which isn’t even a poem but a song; Hiawatha, and Don Juan, and A Shropshire Lad with its elevation of beer above Milton. Rightly so, since Paradise Lost doesn’t rhyme. Poems should rhyme. Yes they should; you know it in your soul. And why should they rhyme?
Boomingly and with malice aforethought
Because they are to be read aloud! Everyone knows this, too!
No-one does it, though. Unless you’re the sort of wet bleeding-heart sap who goes to poetry readings, that is. (I must go to a poetry reading one day.) As that great orator Josiah Bartlett told us, words when spoken out loud for the purpose of oratory are music; they have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume [and] these are the properties of music. Which brings us back to jazz poetry, which is both words and music and should be spoken out loud for the purpose of oratory. Read The Congo. The first verse:
Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room,
Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable,
Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table,
Pounded on the table,
Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom,
Hard as they were able,
Boom, boom, BOOM,
With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom,
Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision,
I could not turn from their revel in derision.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN TRACK.
Lightly
Read it out loud. You have to read it out loud to get at the centre of the thing. With a silk umbrella and the handle of a broom. Hannibal Lecter tells Clarice Starling about the “pease porridge hot” quality of Sammy the schizophrenic’s poetry: “the meter varies but the intensity is the same.” Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old. Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom. It’s compelling, syncopated. Once you’ve started reading, it’s difficult to stop.
Wistful and reflective
Speaking out loud for the purposes of oratory is not as easy as it could be, I feel. This is much on my mind with my agreement to speak at conferences. I’m not too bad at it; after doing the reading at my aunt’s funeral I was asked if I was thinking of becoming a priest, seemingly because I made eye contact with the congregation rather than muffling my words into the lectern. That’s because I treated it like a business presentation; perhaps a bit unfeeling, but if I’d have chosen the reading then I would have put my hands in my pockets and talked about how much I missed her, not recited a passage from the Bible. I’d love to be able to do what Lindsay does in Congo. Jed Bartlett’s speechwriter, Toby Ziegler, talks (in words given him by his speechwriter, Aaron Sorkin) about “the science of listener attention”. If you can get your audience to follow the words along, if they have to sit on their hands to avoid clapping the beat, you’ve won. On I’m Sorry, I Haven’t A Clue, when they sing, sometimes the audience will start clapping along with the song. Builds up a rhythm, just like Toby says. Just like Lindsay says, “a rapidly piling climax of speed and racket.” I’m dimly perceiving that this is the approach of great speechmakers. Churchill repeated the word “fight” about thirty times in quick succession in the speech everyone remembers. You can be sure he wasn’t just reading off the bullet points on his Powerpoint slide one after the other.
These things turn from general to specific pretty quick, you may have noticed. Those of you with oratorical abilities, any suggestions are welcomed. Note that I’m not trying to overcome stage fright here, nor am I inexperienced in public speaking; I would, however, like to be better at it…
Great post.
I’ve only recently started to make a proper effort with poetry. Currently flicking between some Ted Hughes and William Blake. We should swap some stuff – you got a copy of Paradise Lost?
Get stuck in at librarything.com – I wanna see your bookshelf…
Posted by Rob on October 4th, 2005.
Rob: All poetry, unless it’s very recent, is on the internet, and therefore I don’t have real paper copies of any of it. This is helped by not liking much recent poetry, although that’s likely because I don’t know much recent poetry; I didn’t like what little Ted Hughes and Philip Larkin I read, and who else is there?
Posted by sil on October 4th, 2005.
One more thought regarding public speaking – I’ve never really processed it formally, but as I sit here typing this, the one thing that comes to mind is the value of the gaps. The spaces you leave for people to soak up your words.
Rather alarmingly this reminds me
of
the way
that Tony Blair
speaks.
Eek.
Posted by Rob on October 4th, 2005.
Librarything.com costs ten bucks! Just so I can let other people see what books I own? Bah.
Posted by sil on October 4th, 2005.
I am a very strong detractor from the opinion that poetry is “meant” to be read aloud- it is a slippery slope that ends in the most tedious and nugatory of analyses, of which I offer up this example: http://www.poemtree.com/articles/Scansion.htm. I couldn’t help but hear “The Congo” as read by Ice Cube: “THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision/ of my MOTHAFOCKING brothers being looked at with derision”.
Posted by G. on October 4th, 2005.
I reckon it *should* be read by Ice Cube, personally. Not all poetry is meant to be read aloud, but, to use a tautology, poetry that’s meant to be read aloud is meant to be read aloud. Jazz poetry, for example, is meant to be read aloud and therefore should be. Whether that’s the case with Edward Thomas is…less clear.
Posted by sil on October 4th, 2005.
*exhales and drops shoulders to demonstrate submission*
So you want to read poetry on some badly formatted web page fired at you by a cathode ray tube, rather than experience it in a lovingly crafted, typographically delicious book? But you don’t want to experiment with engaging with your library in new ways on a well constructed site that represents fresh, forward thinking, inventive use of the internet? For £5.
I have a new book to recommend to you. ‘The Machine Stops’ by E.M Forster.
Oh, look, that’s handy, there’s a copy on the web, I won’t have to lend you mine.
http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/~prajlich/forster.html
*wanders off to find someone who hasn’t had their soul sucked out by the internet*
Posted by Rob on October 4th, 2005.
Bwaahhhahaha! My sentiments exactly. Not only has his soul been sucked out by the internet, he’s ruining my livelihood! Buy more books and stop eating, dammit! I have a nicotine hbit to feed!
Seriously though, £5? What for?
Posted by G. on October 5th, 2005.
I’m unclear how I can experiment with my library in new ways by using librarything (G: that’s what costs the £5), since it’s not about *me* using my library, it’s about other people using it. It might give me hints and tips for new books to get hold of, based on intersections between my library and other people’s, but I don’t buy enough books to need tips (I already have an Amazon wishlist, and I buy about five books a year off it; I don’t need more suggestions). As I have discussed here before, books, despite their alleged typographical loveliness, are a pain because they don’t fit in my pocket and don’t contain enough information and can only be carried one at a time.
If someone can give me some indication of what “new exciting things” librarything will let me do, other than spend two weeks typing in all my books, I’d love to hear it, but currently my altruistic tendencies don’t go so far as to spend all that time just so *other people* can see which books I’ve got.
“The Machine Stops” is now on my PDA, where I can read it on the train home, rather than having to organise a meetup with Rob so I can borrow his copy or having to leave work early so I can get to my local library. You see? Isn’t that a lot more convenient?
Posted by sil on October 5th, 2005.
I don’t know what “new and exciting things” librarything will let you do. If I could tell you (or me) then they probably would be neither new nor exciting. Personally, I think I will use it to help me with pending and unfinished reading lists. Maybe new relationships between books will rise to the surface and I’ll understand those behind me better, then choose those in front of me more wisely.
Or maybe just keeping track of friends’ lists via RSS will be cool.
As for the £5 – how about simply showing support for a fellow hacker who’s providing a system that encourages the altruistic tendency of others to go further?
Hope you enjoy The Machine Stops. It’s an eye opener for anyone who thinks Neuromancer was the first prophetic work about I.T.
However, the fact that you can conveniently read it on the train home without having to organise meeting up with me is exactly my point. Can’t you see what we’ve lost?
*sobs, alone, into his virtual beer*
Posted by Rob on October 6th, 2005.
Hey. I just realised. I never said ‘new exciting things, just ‘new’. Big difference. Bring your own excitement.
Posted by Rob on October 6th, 2005.
there are no proper explanations of the meaning of the poem.
Posted by malcolm the great on February 27th, 2006.