kirwani

new land / new blog

2007-05-29T03:50:00.000-07:00

KINDLY NOTE . . .

After spending almost six months in India -- and staying afar from blogging -- I've launched a new blog.

The gentle reader's attention is herewith directed to:

Bhairo in the Morning

Bhairo (or Bhairava) is a name of Siva in a certain phase of his myth, and is likewise the name of the morning raaga evoking this.

Due to some complications involving user identity, email address & whatnot, I've not been able to link the new blog into my prior virtual self (in Blogger). No matter. I remain

yours truly,
d.i.

merry xmas / world music

2006-12-25T14:30:00.000-08:00

Much enjoyed, last night, a midnight mass at the newly restored Basilica of the Assumption in Baltimore ("America's First Cathedral" -- or more fully, and per Wikipedia, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary), officiated by a friend-of-friends, Bishop Denis James Madden. A good 80% (or so) of the choir's music was drawn from Handel's Messaih -- a treat. Madden's well-wraught sermon musings were likewise most enjoyable. What could have been merely ritualistic and dry, was rendered thoughtful, heartfelt and fresh.

/ / / /

Another treat: clips of diverse world musics -- from one Robert Garfius, spanning performances from 1966-1982 -- including a lot of Korean music, and also notably featuring (under rubric of Indian music) Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar's Rudra bin, and T. Brinda's Saraswati vina. (Needs Real Player to view.)

prolixity [couplet into rubai]

2006-12-01T00:45:00.000-08:00

What frenzy has of late possessed the brain
though few can write yet fewer can refrain
as we sink into the basin of prolixity
the sound you hear is us gone down the drain

============

The first two lines are borrowed from Samuel Garth (1661-1719). (I suppose I felt his showoffy snobbery required more nuanced embelishment.)

A Marathi proverb [gyan]

2006-11-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

Do not look for the source of a river
nor the ancestry of a rishi

per: Water and Womanhood ... Maharashtra (1995)

Day to day [rubai]

2006-11-29T01:30:00.000-08:00

From moment to moment and day to day my mood keeps changing
whatever it is that comprises me keeps rearranging
at times the sense of love prevails at times it dwindles
are we designed for ardency? or built for estranging?

whatever I'd hoped to learn I have not yet discovered
whatever I'd feared would burn I have not yet recovered
the simplest fact of being alive has fiction bested
except perhaps when we discern how truth is covered

we initially felt an ambition for film
but somehow it faltered
we originally sought for to sail the brine whelm
but somehow it altered
we primoridally dreamed how we'd live in a palace
and drink cherry tea
we once were disposed to explore the wide road
we somehow got sheltered

============

That history deals with real events and literature with imagined ones may now be seen as a difference in degree rather than in kind.

(Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, in her essay "'Breast-giver': for author, reader, teacher, subaltern, historian," in Mahasweta Devi, Breast Stories (1997))

The interest of this fine formulation transcends, for me, the particular context of its original presentation. It seems to have diverse, ubiquitous, and perhaps one may say endless applications.

Dakshineswar Kali Temple [pilgrimage info / notes]

2006-11-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

Pilgrimage to Sri Ramakrishna 2002 has useful information and a bunch of photos (plus a map of the temple grounds). Among other things, the chap writes:

Travel to Dakshineswar is easy by taxi or by Metro to Dum Dum then cycle-rickshaw (neither avoids the noise and pollution but the latter does minimise it). The best way by far is boat to/from Belur ghat but you still have to take a taxi to/from Belur. And finally, on the basis of harsh experience, never go anywhere without a supply of toilet paper.

I definitely like the boat idea! He also notes that there is

no guide book for visitors to the Ramakrishna sites although the book 'Sri Ramakrishna's Dakshineswar' by the Ramakrishna Sarada Mission, Delhi, is extremely useful.

(Paramahamsa Ramakrishna's room)

==============

Meanwhile, a woman in my office remarked, "I hear you're heading for greener pastures."

"I plan to take a year's sabbatical from my American life," I explained.

"What do you plan to do?"

"I'll mainly be in India, studying music . . . "

She instantly fished out the current issue of Red Herring, pointing to an article --

Many 20-something Europeans are heading to India to give their careers a kick start. “Eastward-Bound” tells why U.S. and Asian expats may soon follow.

-- but the article's not available online right now (sans rigamarole). Perhaps I'll have to fend for meself, lacking cutting-edge rumor. :-)

Mehera-Meher [books / Meher Baba]

2006-11-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

This just in: David Fenster, painstaking scholar-author of the significant dual-biography Mehera-Meher (chronicling the linked lives of Mehera J. Irani and Merwan Sheriar Irani a.k.a. Meher Baba) has launched a website:

Mehera-Meher: A Divine Romance

A special feature on the website is a little selection of audio recordings of Mehera telling stories -- her voice colorful, distinctive, vivid.

Ali Akbar Khan [music documentary video]

2006-11-27T21:24:00.000-08:00

There's a likeable little documentary video (streaming, 8min 43sec) about Ustad Ali Akbar Khan as music teacher, here. Evidently it was created for a public television program in San Francisco. The level of info is basic; but it's nice to have a glimpse of Khansaheb. His young son, Alam (whom one finds humble and likeable), is hintingly introduced as the face of the future in Khansaheb's teaching lineage. Khansaheb's wife Mary also figures in the footage. Overall, it's a good snapshot of the music teacher. He could spend his whole life concertizing, if so disposed. Instead, he tours for a couple months of the year in the winter (some of that time, teaching at the music school in Basel, Switzerland), spending the rest of his time indefatigably teaching students (of all levels) in San Rafael, California.

Born in 1922, the maestro is now in his mid-80s. May he live long, may we enjoy his music more.

=========

Relatedly, see my earlier posts about Mehfil Tube and Gauhar Jan.

Pacific Ackworth Friends School [recollections]

2006-11-27T19:14:00.000-08:00

Googling can be general, cultural, personal. Somehow I finally got around to googling Pacific Ackworth Friends School (Temple City, California) -- the small, well-loved educational institution that (I can say without irony) nurtured me from the age of 5 through 14. There's surprisingly little info about the school online. It's not yet included (for instance) in the Wikipedia roster of Friends Schools.

This overview history of Quaker educational activities includes a brief sketch of PA's origins (under section "Quaker Educational Experiments"):

The first educational venture of Western unprogrammed Friends was Pacific Ackworth School. This alternative school was founded in 1942 because Friends felt that children in the public schools were being pressured to support the war. John and Alice Way , along with several other Orange Grove Meeting families, purchased five acres of property in Temple City, California (not far from Pasadena). The Ways moved a house to the property and settled there in early 1942. [etc.]

Those five acres were the world for us, for a stretch of years.

I'll expand on these reflections a bit, later.

Meher Baba on couch [image + rubai]

2006-11-26T21:08:00.000-08:00

a rare photo (found on Tribe). My speculation is, it may have been around 1952 or so? (obviously in India -- but where exactly?)

You might call this a parlor game
(at least we know the sitter's name)
we might not know the where and when --
to know not who would be a shame

Success and its discontents [gnomic rubai]

2006-11-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

He seeks the chair of nothingness and nothing less
allowing as his happiness is nothingness
there's nothing stopping someone from attaining that
except perhaps a hint of wanting something yes?

=============

Responsive to Kirby Olson's evidently ironic rumination on the topic of success (for a poet), in a comment on Silliman's blog, viz.:

I think success would be to have a large independent income and do nothing at all. Not even stare at one's feet. Just sit in a bathtub all day pretending to be dead with eyes closed and ears plugged, and the water at skin tem,perature so you can't even feel it.

Given that that is next to impossible, the closest thing to it would be an ideal academic job: a chair of nothingness at nothing state university in nothingsville.

Now that would be something!

Google Book Search

2006-11-26T14:46:00.000-08:00

rather cool, it is

For example: I submitted a line from Tagore ("Who stole sleep from Baby's eyes?") and presto! here's the source for your full perusal:

The Crescent Moon (page 13, but this link shows the full book).

Learned about it via article in Slate (Dead Plagiarists Society)

passage to India cont'd [travel research]

2006-11-26T04:12:00.000-08:00

(picking up from my earlier post of misc. research notes)

This wiki-based page at MaxTravelz.com -- re: Bangalore-by-plane -- has a good rundown of airlines (and origin cities) with Bangalore destination.

As I'm trying to work out an affordable route to Bangalore (from DC) via Beijing, this point seems of poss. interest:

From Jan 2006, the low cost airline JetStarAsia will fly between Bangalore and Singapore five times a week.

Indeed, on dates that there are flights, one finds a "JetSaver" rate circa $179 (1-way) from Singapore to Bangalore (nonrefundable; $30 charge if changing date of flight). At the moment, I find these dates & rates:
Jan. 1 (Mon. $168): 01:25 Singapore / 02:55 Bangalore
Jan. 3 (Wed. $179): 01:25 Singapore / 02:55 Bangalore
Jan. 6 (Sat. $168): 01:25 Singapore / 02:55 Bangalore
Jan. 8 (Mon. $189) . . .
So, perhaps it's just Monday/Wednesday/Saturday
(The "JetFlux" rate is about double the JetSaver rate, but has less restrictions.)

Via CheapoAir.com, I find 1-way flights DC/Singapore as low as around $560 (United)

Maybe best for me is DC / Beijing / Singapore / Bangalore.

Yes, via CheapoAir, I find a United flight 1-way (DC/Beijing) for $465 (Jan.9).
Via CheapoAir, I find a Garuda flight 1-way (Beijing/Singapore) for $211 -- but not right date. Garuda Airlines seems maybe the airline to look for though.
(Their website does show some Beijing/Singapore flights, but doesn't give rates; one has to check via contacting their representatives.)

(Poss. also notable is the AirGorilla.com/Asia site.)

=============

Regarding Bangalore, note:

MEHER BABA UNIVERSAL SPIRITUAL CENTRE,
Byramangala, Abbanakuppe Village, Ittamadu Post,
Bidadi Hobli, Ramangaram Taluk,
Bangalore 560109 Karnataka.
(Mr.V.Deva Rao - 080-27202160, +919880311569)
Monthly Program, Every Second Sunday - 10.30 AM to 12.30 PM1.

(per this list)
Ah, this site seems to have the clearest info (and an email address).
Which is the "2nd Sunday"? -- if it's once per month, it must literally be the 2nd Sunday, viz. January 14. (This, now confirmed by email.)

So: Sunday, Jan.14 can be departure day from Bangalore for Bhopal (via rajdhani express, Train No. 2429, as noted earlier):

Days of service M,W,Th,Su
Bangalore (Dep) 18.35
Secunderabad (Dep) 06.55
Nagpur (Dep) 15.10
Bhopal (Dep) 20.50

(ergo, arriving Bhopal evening of Monday, January 15th -- presumably by around 8pm)

=============

Also of note in Bangalore --

The Samadhi of Sadguru Shri Narayan Maharaj is at Bangalore at the following address / location which you may like to visit to take the Darshan:

Sri Bet Narayan Maharaj ashram and Brindavan
No 70, Gavi gangadhareshwara circle
Gavipura, Kempe gowda nagar
Bangalore - 19 (Karnataka) India

(It is opposite to Gavigangadhareshwara cave temple (1 kms from Bull temple) and near a lake called Kempambudhi tank.)

-- per detailed webpage about Narayan Maharaj.

Of course during his life, Narayan Maharaj was based at Kedgaon, which is near Ahmednagar (Maharashtra). His bio-note mentions his having travelled to Bangalore just prior to completing his life; evidently this is why his Samadhi is in Bangalore.

Jigar Muradabadi's Aadmi Aadmi-se milta hai [Urdu verse translation]

2006-11-17T09:47:00.000-08:00

When one man another man merely meets
the heart within the other man he rarely meets

the ways she injures me I keep on overlooking
with round simplicity my soul she squarely meets

the weirdest thing! the exact color of those flowers
today in the arbor of your smile one clearly meets

O she's the sort you'll meet but can never meet
till mere survival the broken heart barely meets

=============

My rendering of Jigar's poem is based on a literal translation provided by Max Babi. The original Urdu poem is transliterated thus:

Aadmi Aadmi-se milta hai
Dil magar kam kisi-se milta hai
Bhool jaataa hun mein sitam uske
Voh kuchh iss saadgi-se milta hai
Aaj kyaa baat hai ki phoolon ka
Rang teri hansi se milta hai
Mil ke bhi joh kabhi nahin miltaa
Toot kar il us-hi-se miltaa hai

Maryam Gazala: "These moments" [ghazal translation]

2006-11-17T08:10:00.000-08:00

Lacking clear cause I'm assaulted by these moments
when I'm minded to move I'm halted by these moments

say I'm settling to sit? these moments push me along
do they peddle mirages? yes I'm exalted by these moments

they have levied from me the habit of regular sleep
a midnight knock my door has defaulted from these moments

on some days they raid my larder of every morsel!
other days my begging bowl's filled and salted by these moments

O when I make a try for the path of being simple
with what riddles and puzzles I get pelted by these moments!

day and night I keep on piling up more errors
like a soothing friend I'm lulled and lilted by these moments

the entire world is disclosed as a vast museum
when into its labyrinth I've been tilted by these moments

what I most cherish is my desire for the murmur of roses
but here on the stairwell thorns are belted by these moments

oh what courteous physicians they can prove to be!
when you wound me I'm gauzed and felted by these moments

why now falsify your newsbrief darling Gazala?
when they choose to leave you'll be jilted by these moments

=============

Rendering of a Gujarati ghazal ("Amthi amthi mujhne aklaave kshano") by Maryam Gazala Radhanpuri -- following from Max Babi's literal translation.

"20-sec shoeshine" [ghazal]

2006-11-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

a short line you seek?
no deep wine you seek?

begone long horizon!
a nano-eglantine you seek

no sprawl of the tall pole-vault
a quill of porcupine you seek

no gambol of the giraffe now
a 20-sec shoeshine you seek

no thousand-page doorstop
a neon's flash-sign you seek

no endless lace of digression
a tie of terse twine you seek

who'd guess Max favors mini?
a micron engine you seek

the diety of fire is
"Ardeo" in Greek

while in Latin "to love" is
a nom-de-plume (mine) you seek

Ardeo's but tuning the strings
when jhala in double-time seek?

======

Regarding my light ghazal, Search Engine, Max Babi wrote:

This one reads well, d.i.

One small nitpick though -can you rephrase the whole ghazal with slightly shorter lines please?

The lyricism of ghazal shines out like a nova, when it is compact, for instance some of the tersely worded ghazals by Jigar Muradabadi, or even Ghalib at times.

The import does get diluted with longer lines. The profusion of words, distracts the wisdom seeker, as it were.

Pray enlighten this moron with genesis of Ardeo, a nom de plume you have used since long.

The above poem is by way of reply to those remarks.

Search Engine [ghazal]

2006-11-16T01:48:00.001-08:00

I'm burrowing into the net with a search engine
but what has my seeking soul met with a search engine?

abandoning the world and abiding in virtual limbo
you'll discover a land of regret with a search engine

though born in one city growing up in another & dying in a third
can you reach past your micro-hamlet with a search engine?

if I start with one word it will sire an ocean of words!
all these fishes my loaf can beget with a search engine

you could google for God but Sunyata is absent from Ebay
still you'll nab each wine-dark epithet with a search engine

is the library outmoded? will the papersome book be abandoned?
is it turned (like a rock) to a pet with a search engine?

when you live incognito none guess at the ruse for a spell
all bewildered they look for you yet with a search engine

When Ardeo reached out for the moon in her arc through the night
did he round out his peripatet with a search engine?

Shambhu Das: Guinness World Record (sitar) [music oddities]

2006-11-14T09:52:00.000-08:00

He played sitar for 24 hours nonstop [to win a place in the Guinness Book of World Records -- and raise money for Bangladesh] . . . details here. shambhu Das, a student of Ravi Shankar's (and noted as long-ago instructor of the late George Harrison), evidently lives in Toronto.

Maryam Gazala: "Slumbering deep" [ghazal translation]

2006-11-14T03:33:00.000-08:00

Slumbering deep the morning bringing please don't be
let me abide in dream! rude-wakening please don't be

go and inscribe my name with care on a plinth of marble
don't scrawl it in sand and forever erasing please don't be!

I've come back out of the river Ganges after centuries!
my vacuous moments freshly reviving please don't be

amid these worlds far stars keep twinkling firefly-like
forever along my path lamp-lighting please don't be

my eyes aren't actually eyes! no these are darkling mirrors
mine own visage yet again revealing please don't be

but what after all is life? merely the play of breathing
leave it victorious back from losing please don't be

in the mirror-hall of my heart how many scenarios blossom!
with shyly lowered gaze herein stealing please don't be!

shading your peepers with phony glamour of darksome glasses
at the starkly real monotonously gazing please don't be

unheeding of the unscattered shadows in your own dwelling
in blazing day a dozen torches kindling please don't be

if Gazala's tears don't look so appealing in your opinion
with vapid dewdrops decorating please don't be

=============

From an Urdu ghazal ("Neend Gehri Hai") by Maryam Gazala Radhanpuri -- following from Max Babi's literal translation.

Maryam Gazala [ars poetica] [rubai & translation]

2006-11-14T02:25:00.002-08:00

Hunar khilta sada hai sadgi se
Gazal ka rabt hai deevangise
panapte hain kawal dal dal me yaaro
Guhar chupte nahin hai aadmi se

Genius blossoms clearly through simplicity
the ghazal is entangled with insanity
don't lotuses develop in the mud my friend?
it's deeply human to reveal one's misery

=============

When I posted a note to Maryam Gazala's Ryze guest book mentioning a recent attempt to translate her ghazal ("On a surface of fog"), she replied with a pleasing surprise of the above (extemporized, it seems) Urdu rubai (quatrain). The latter -- with help (in form of a literal translation) offered by Max Babi -- I forthwith rendered into English, as seen above.

The verse somewhat calls to mind a couplet by Huang Jingren (黄景仁, 1749-1783):

perhaps it is for poetry-books that grief turns into sight
birds in spring bugs in autumn naturally make their sounds

Sivakami Vellangiri's poetry reading [media coverage]

2006-11-13T23:05:00.001-08:00

a poet-friend in Chennai gets some notice . . .

dhrupad etc. [Indian classical music notes]

2006-11-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

A scholar, Deepak Raja Suvarnalata Rao, published an essay found here: Perspectives on Dhrupad (from Journal of the Indian Musicological Society, 1999). The approach he takes to the topic seems both interesting and somewhat dubious; its gist is suggested by this summary paragraph at the article's conclusion:

At the present juncture in Dhrupad's history, it is not cynical, but realistic, to analyze Dhrupad primarily as a response to a "market". The genre will merit examination afresh when, and if, it attains the stage of delivering an abundant supply of quality musicianship.

At any rate, I found these paragraphs interesting:

From a contemporary perspective, the feasibility of a Dhrupad revival owes a great deal to the towering duo, Ustad Nasir Ameenuddin and Ustad Nasir Moinuddin Dagar. They demonstrated the value of what Indian music was about to lose, perhaps irretrievably. But for their legacy, Indian society might not have mustered the will and the resources to initiate revivalist movements.

Their recordings remain, to this day, the most powerful testimony available to the maturity and sophistication of the genre. Their formidable musicianship remains a durable challenge for all vocalists -- Dhrupadiyas as well as Khayaliyas. Their music also earned for them the admiration of serious musicologists in Europe, who helped to create an international constituency not only for Dhrupad, but for all of Hindustani music.

The departure of the Elder Dagar Brothers from the concert platform created the conditions for Dhrupad enthusiasts to clamor for revivalist initiatives. Two significant initiatives, each qualitatively different from the other, are noteworthy. Both of them have attempted to extend the boundaries of musicianship in Dhrupad beyond heredity.

The Bhopal initiative was spearheaded and funded by a state government, with pedagogical and stylistic inputs from one of the streams of the Dagar tradition. In contrast, the Brindaban movement was initiated and funded by the hereditary clergy of a Vaishnava denomination, and functions under the guidance of another reputed Dhrupad lineage, the Mallik family from Darbhanga in Bihar.

The Bhopal initiative has attracted good talent, and so far trained about twenty Dhrupad musicians, of whom a handful are now established concert performers. In terms of its sustainability, this initiative faces two major uncertainties -- the uncertainties associated with all government supported cultural projects, and the scarcity of competent and dedicated Gurus.

The Brindaban movement's contribution to musicianship has been comparatively modest. However, it has utilized the growing interest in the culture of the Vraja region and its Vaishnava cults, to promote the hitherto lesser known Darbhanga gharana.of Dhrupad. The movement claims significance also on account of having restored Dhrupad's link with its original home in the Vaishnava temples. From available evidence, this link appears tenuous, and its long-term value to either Haveli Sangeet or to classical Dhrupad is debatable.

Neither of these establishments has been around long enough to bring Dhrupad to a state of self-generating growth. Dhrupad requires superior momentum to reach such a stage. This will probably come from the future role of the alumni of these establishments as teachers and performers, and the continued growth in Dhrupad's popularity with audiences.

The website presenting this essay is called Ragascape -- including a musical archive as well as this section of essays (including, for instance, Deepak Raja's good essay, More about the Surbahar).

/ / / / / / / / /

One can hear Shubha Sankaran's surbahar [excerpts from the "Resurrecting a Raga" CD (2005)] via the CD Baby website. Also, from her Seven Ragas in Seven Talas.

The Prakriti Foundation (in Chennai) held a dhrupad festival last February; their site has good bio-notes about several performers.

The MusicalNirvana site has a couple of good clips of the Gundecha Brothers singing -- especially nice is the 2nd (Komal Rishabh Asavari, 5 min excerpt).

Lost and Found [reply poem]

2006-11-12T05:23:00.000-08:00

for John Matthew

As with reincarnation
begin again with a new one!

admittedly it won't remember
all those old phone numbers

yet won't it bring the very same
beloved voices to your waiting ear?

and might it suggest the selfsame
cellphone disguised in fresh garb?

=============

Responsive to the poem Sonnet for a Stolen Mobile Phone

Maryam Gazala: "On a surface of fog" [ghazal translation]

2006-11-11T09:30:00.000-08:00

On a surface of fog to seek this face to find
what's the purpose of such a peek this face to find?

Why return yet again with your platter of empty hunger?
day and night of the watchman's pique this face you find

The seductive allure of the beautiful world gets sundered
when in flowery bowers an oblique dry face you find

Is it not a lost heartbroke vagabond whom you glimpse
on his hill brought low till no cheek-of-face you find?

With no hesitant thought you'd let Gazala jump right in
if yourself a well right deep aface you find

=============

A transliteration of the original, his literal translation, and his own transcreated version of this Urdu ghazal (composed by contemporary poet Maryam Gazala Radhanpuri) are all presented by Max Babi here. The poem was drawn from Gazala's volume of ghazals, Kshitij ki Dehliz Par (On The First Rung of The Horizon).

See also another (version-of-a-)ghazal of hers, blogged earlier: "It's delicatesse"

vichitra vina [Indian classical music notes]

2006-11-07T04:30:00.000-08:00

Further google-notes on the Vichitra Vina.

The Nad Sadhana [Jaipur, Rajasthan-based] site includes these notes:

In general appearance and structure, the vichitra veena is very similar to the northern bin or veena. For an instrument so young, it is fairly widespread. The main difference between the northern veena and the vichitra veena is that the former is a fretted instrument with a bamboo stem while the vichitra veena has a much broader and stronger wooden stem without frets which can accommodate the large number of main and sympathetic strings. This hollow stem, about three feet long and about six inches wide, with a flattop and a rounded bottom, is placed on two large gourds about a foot and a half in diameter. An ivory bridge covering the entire width of the stem is placed at one end. Six main strings made of brass and steel run the whole length of the stem and are fastened to wooden pegs fixed to the other end.

The vichitra veena has about twelve sympathetic strings of varying lengths which run parallel to and under the main strings. They are usually tuned to reproduce the scale of the raga which is being played.

The vichitra veena is played by means of wire plectums (mizrabs) worn on the fingers of the right hand which pluck the strings near the bridge. The notes are stopped with a piece of rounded glass, rather like a paper weight. The musician slides the glass piece from one note to another over the strings by holding it in his left hand. It is rather difficult to play fast passages on the vichitra veena but slow passages emerge on this instrument with a beauty and richness of tone which few other instruments possess.

The obvious disadvantage of this instrument is that a paper weight can never do what human fingers can. And so, some of the delicate graces and embellishments in very fast passages have to be sacrificed. The vichitra veena has these advantages in common with the gottuvadyam of the south.

It is said that the Vichitra veena was introduced by the late Ustad Abdul Aziz Khan who was a court musician at Indore. In fashioning the instrument, Ustad Abdul Aziz Khan, during his musical contacts with the south, probably took his ideas from the southern gottuvadyam which was already popular.

Mustafa Raza's vichitravina.com site may also be noted. He is said to play "khayal gayaki style." His father was Ustad Ahmed Raza (who was a student of Ustad Abdul Aziz Khan). Some interesting remarks about the instrument found there include:

Vichiter Veena's ancient name is Shiv Veena. It is also known previously in different names -- Shutri Veena, Tantra Veena, Batta Veena etc. But today it is known as Vichiter Veena. Ustad Abdul Aziz Khan of Patiala family has given a new life to this instrument. Vichiter Veena is believed to be a divine instrument and the music produced through it always devoted to the absolute. The Veena has the distinction of being the only plucked instrument that is considered to be the purest musical sound and by legend is the foundation of all art.

The Vichiter Veena has four main strings three front side supporting strings and along with two chikaris, 15th Tarabs (resonance strings) having a range of three and half octaves. Resonance strings confine a player to "pure" or "perfect" note as they themselves are tuned on "perfect"....

Dr. Raza is also amusingly quoted in one press clipping: "You can learn the sitar in a year or two, you make more money with it too so why should any one spend six years learning the Vichitra Veena?"

/ / / / /

The Sadarang Archive website says it is dedicated to "Safeguarding the classical music traditions of Pakistan."

Lakshmi Tewari's website includes a nicely detailed bio-note about the late vichitra vinakar, Lalmani Misra (1924-1979). Leaving aside here his interesting childhood, this portion has many points of note:

From 1944, he began to be influenced by the Batta Bin of Ustad Abdul Aziz Khan of Patiala. Around 1946, he came to the realization that the Veena is primarily a Hindu devotional instrument. The responsibility of preserving its tradition lay primarily with Hindu artists. If the Hindu tradition that had survived due to the efforts of Muslim musicians now disappeared, the responsibility for its demise would lie with Hindu artists. Therefore, he learned to play Veena in the traditional manner from Abdul Aziz Khan and began his practice in secret.

In 1950, on the invitation of Dr. Ratanjankar to the Bhatkhande Jayanti in Lakhnau’s Morris College, he performed on the Vichitra Veena for the first time. Encouraged by the response of the artists and connoisseurs in the audience, he made the Vichitra Veena his primary instrument.

In 1946, Lalmani Misra established the Kanpur Orchestral Society, and created many compositions. He composed music for plays, as well as directed several of them. In 1947, together with close associates he founded the Bharatiya Sangeet Parishad in Kanpur; under its auspices the Gandhi Sangeet Mahavidyalaya was established on August 16, 1947. He resigned from Kanyakubja College to dedicate his full attention to the new institution.

In 1951, the world renowned dance maestro Uday Shankar appointed him the music director of his troupe. Lalmani Misra was just 27. In 1951 and 1954, with Uday Shankar’s troupe, he toured countries like Sri Lanka, England, France, Belgium, America, and Canada, to very favorable reviews of his music direction and Veena concerts. A Hollywood film company invited him to help make an Indian film. Not used to the atmosphere in the West, he turned the offer down. After returning to India, he was asked to compose music for Hindi films. But his interest in music scholarship and teaching pulled him back to Kanpur. In the course of his world travels, he came to realize that musicians require higher education as well. He went on to receive a Sahitya Ratna, an M.A. from Agra University, and a Ph.D. from Kashi Hindu Vishwavidyalaya.

In 1955, in his capacity as the first Registrar of the Akhil Bharatiya Vandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal, he organized the work of the institution. But the growing demands of the job took him away from his music practice, and he gave up his duties at the Mandal. At the urging of friends, he became Principal of Gandhi Sangeet Mahavidyalaya in 1957. Sangeet Martand Omkarnath Thakur wanted him to join the Music Department at Kashi Hindu Vishwavidyalaya. After much persuasion, he agreed to leave Kanpur for Varanasi, and joined the Instrumental Department as Reader in 1958, believing that it was not the title but the work that brought greatness to an artist.

He made many major advances in the field of music instruction at Kashi Hindu Vishwavidyalaya. After intense effort, he created a Veena on which all the exercises in Bharat’s Sarana Chatushtadi could be played, and the 22 shrutis recorded by Bharat could be heard and played. After hearing these shrutis on his Veena, Indian and Western scholars alike praised his achievement.

He studied both academically and empirically Indian instruments of the ancient, medieval, and modern eras, and proved that Amir Khusro had nothing to do with the evolution of the Sitar and the Tabla. The sitar evolved naturally from the ancient Tritantriya Veena, and Tabla from the Pushkar Vadya. The modern Sarod and medieval Sursingar and Rabab are evolved forms of the ancient Chitra Veena. His research findings in the field of music created a sensation, and debunked many commonly accepted myths.

Lalmani Misra helped create and reform the syllabi of prominent educational institutions and universities. Having created many instruments, he demonstrated them to the public. After the publication of material for smaller classes, he started work on books on Vedic music and the Sitar, but could not complete them due to poor health.

Lalmani Misra is one of those seminal artists of the music world who excelled as a performer, critic, and scholar. According to him, India has two types of scholars: academic and empirical. The empirical scholar is the one that tests ancient principles on the platform of contemporary music, and puts his faith in its growth and evolution. On the other hand, the academic scholar worships tradition at the cost of new currents in art, and wants the artist to retreat in the past rather than look forward.

Lalmani Misra was working on specific research, such as Vedic music, the rebirth of dhruvapad-dhamar, and the promotion of instrumental music, when he suddenly took ill. At the age of 55, on July 17, 1979, he left the music world and ended his tenure on earth prematurely.

My question include: what is that Batta Vina of Abdul Aziz Khan? And what is this about Lalmani Misra "creat[ing] a Veena on which all the exercises in Bharat’s Sarana Chatushtadi could be played, and the 22 shrutis recorded by Bharat could be heard and played"? Does this suggest that he MODIFIED the Vichitra Vina? If that's the meaning, then one should wish to know about those who may build instruments on his model.

/ / / / /

Lalmani Misra's son Gopal Sankar Misra also played vichitra vina (and recorded one LP with Real World records in UK -- I've not yet heard it); he passed away in 1999. His sister, Ragini Trivedi (of Indore), plays sitar. (She could be a good source for info about her father's vina.)

More about Ragini Trivedi: here's her very interestingly written review of a sitar album (viz., Chandrakant Sardeshmukh's Pure Joy [Darshanam, 1998]).

Another, longer article of Ragini Trivedi's: "If Music be the Soul...." (from ArtScape) -- she writes knowledgeably and interestingly.

Ragini's interestingly appreciative yet critically equivocal review of Shahid Parvez's performance (at a music festival in Indore in 1999) is worth quoting:

The second half of the evening carried the audience into realm of further abstraction. Shahid Parvez, on the verge of being a legend, revealed all on his magical Sitar. Bageshri was the vehicle for demonstration of his skill, this evening. During the Alaap itself, he fascinated one and all with his Meend work. Enticing and amazing, while it succeeded in riveting the attention of the audience, the deft display did little to maintain the mood of the Raga. The slow and rapid compositions were both in Teen Taal and the medium paced composition was in Ek Taal. He brought the evening to a reluctant close with a rendering of a Bhairavi Gat composed in Addha Taal. Even though the compositions were different, the style could easily be discerned as that of his mentor and uncle, Ustaad Vilayat Khan. With a perfect accompaniment on Tabla by Mukesh Jadhav, Shahid could well involve the audience and transport them; he could also break the charm and make them evaluate his effortless mastery over the instrument without any undue influence. Such a practice might bode ill for ancient aesthetics, but it certainly goes a long way in garnering support for Indian Classical Music in its own fashion.

-- from her review in ArtScape.

Indore is the largest city in Madhya Pradesh (186 km from Bhopal -- due west, looks like).

Note: This is one of the very best listings of professional musicians' contact info in India -- Art India Net. Astonishingly good in fact.

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Note: there's a Pt. Lalmani Misra Music Festival held annually in Bhopal, in August, organized by Madhukali (the organization named after a raaga created by Lalmani Misra).

Also note (per Wikipedia bio for Allauddin Khan): the Bhopal-based, state [Madhya Pradesh]-run Allauddin Khan Sangeet Academy has an annual festival, in Maihar, in February or early March. (Allauddin Khan had been court musician for Maihar maharajas.)

Distance between Bhopal and Maihar: 359 km.

/ / / / /

I've seen two or three websites that offer vichitra vinas for sale.
Offhand, this is the only one where the photos impress me -- as presenting a nice-looking instrument. (Some I've seen seem to overdue the inlaid ivory. This has some, but not excessive.) The company in fact is based in Germany; they import their instruments from various manufacturers; so one doesn't (from this site) know who the builders are. The price however (1290 EUR = $1645) is also lower than other vichitra vinas I've seen online.

The Ali Akbar College of Music offers a vichitra vina (for $3,000), noting it's built by Mangla Prasad Sharma. Their guarantee is worth noting (as is likewise a similar one from the German folks at Tarana).

Another purveyor (are they actually builders?) of vichitra vinas is the new outfit called Madhubani (in Delhi).

Also note the Bina Musical Stores website (Delhi-based).

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This article (in The Hindu, by Leela Venkataraman) reports on a conference in Delhi regarding the culture of instrument-making, and mentions the Calcutta instrument-builder Murari Mohan Adhikari as having "fashioned "over 100" Rudra vinas -- "which starts with an elaborate prelude of ritual and prayer before selecting the right wood, seasoning it and then sizing and fashioning it to the exact torso and neck measurements of the individual musician!" The article also amusingly quotes the late Gopal Krishan, regarding his practice of vichitra vina: "When I settled down in the Padmasana, with the baby I was asked to look after ('or else no food,' was the threat held out) on my lap, and practiced for hours, the little one just slept through."

The article also mentions (and critiques) a newer instrument:

For the today's musician, in Damascus today, in New York a couple of days later, travelling with large instruments with two resonators like the veena can be a nightmare. Vainika Suma Sudhindra of Karnataka has invented a new instrument named Tarangini — one that is compact, light, weather resistant and travels well. Sruti stability, ensured by guitar keys, does away with the pegs of the veena. The acoustic resonator of the conventional veena is replaced by a magnetic pickup and the hind resonator made of fibreglass can be unscrewed and packed away separately! But its music sounds more like the electric guitar. Some instruments, it would seem, will not be easily substituted.

Yet another interesting point made is this:

Teak forests are no longer plentiful and other types of wood have to be used for making musical instruments. Raw material like bone and ivory are no longer easily available and substitutes are being experimented with. Ravi Kiran, the chitra veena expert recounting his experience with the instrument, said that after trying out many metals for the slide bar called gottu used to glide on the strings, he now uses a Teflon side bar, which is smooth and easy to wield.

The article concludes with this anecdotal flourish:

Gopal Krishnan [sic; Krishan], the vichitra veena maestro, was jailed during the British Raj. He mesmerised the hardened criminals in his cell with music played on ektara, the only instrument he was allowed to take with him. He played it like a veena and his live demonstration during the symposium floored all with its undiluted sweetness.

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A certain Concise Dictionary of Hindustani Music, by Ashok Da Ranade (2006), lists a section on the Batta Been.

Ah! here is why it is called the Batta Been! (and note, too, the important point about variations in numbers of strings) --

The vichitra veena has nine to eleven main strings and eleven to fifteen sympathetic strings. The number of strings (main as well as sympathetic), their tuning system and their gauge vary from artist to artist.
The vichitra veena is played with the help of a small egg- shaped glass, called batta, which looks like a paper weight (although it is bigger than a paper weight), held in the left hand and made to slide upon the strings. In the right hand, the artist wears sitar-like plectrums on the index and middle fingers. Some artists wear a small plectrum on the small finger as well to facilitate playing the drone strings.

The author then follows that up with an interesting but mildly absurd remark --

Because of various reasons the instrument is now losing its popularity among the younger generation of artists. The introduction of the slide guitar, a popular western instrument, to Hindustani classical music is one of the principal reasons for its decline.

(Evidently these notes, generally good, are drawn from a certain Suneera Kasliwal, Classical Musical Instruments, Delhi (2001))

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Curiously, the flowery prose in the opening paragraph of an essay (Nestling Among Honey-Buds) by Dr. Rajiv Trivedi [presumably related to Ragini Trivedi?] hints at vichitra vina conceived not as modern invention, but as a revived ancient instrument:

If it was Rosebud that haunted Citizen Kane all his life, it was nectar of honey-buds, which sweetened the notes of that ancient instrument, whenever the maestro caressed it. Vedic Bana, called Brahmaveena, Ghoshvati or Ektantri Veena in ninth century AD is known today as Vichitra Veena. When one comes to learn that Madhukali [sliver of honey?] is an organisation dedicated to the memory of internationally renowned Vichitra-veena player Sangeetendu Dr. Lalmani Misra, he ceases to wonder why such great masters as Pt. Ravishankar, Pt. Hariprasad Chourasia, Pt. Shivkumar Sharma, Ustad Zia Fariddudin Dagar, Dr. N. Rajam, Pt. Rajan & Sajan Mishra have accorded their patronage and unreserved support to it. Named after one of the Raga-s this avid scholar created, Madhukali is also the name of the choral group that in the past fifteen years has established the joy and power of group-singing. Madhukali Vrind performed with probably the largest group ever, which included almost 5,000 children in 1986. By picking up choicest poetry of traditional and modern poets, Madhukali Vrind has created awareness in the young generation for the form of Vrindagana, as well as good poetry throughout Madhya Pradesh.

The Poetry-Makers [nonce form]

2006-11-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

The poetry-makers dined on figs and seseme sticks
they stayed at the office late Friday well into Saturday
they'd browse the internet vacantly observing the flux
of thought and language the way it flows in their latter day
that day late in the game of loss and breaking
that forms the code and norm of poetry-making

The poetry-makers would study languages fleetingly
they'd moil for hours when translating a line or two
they weren't concerned about publishing repeating the
old adage "publish or perish" twisted resigning to
the joy of fading into the slumbrous baking
obscurity's oven complicit in poetry-making

At Nam Viet Pho 79: dining alone, I browse the paper [boomerang]

2006-11-04T00:20:00.000-08:00

An international group of ecologists and economists warned yesterday that the world will run out of seafood by 2048 if steep declines in marine species continue at current rates, based on a four-year study of catch data and the effects of fisheries collapses....

-- World's Fish Supply Running Out, Researchers Warn (front page, Washington Post, November 3, 2006)

As a special treat I've ordered Pho Seafood tonight
awaiting my bowl I glance at the newspaper headlines
if marine biologists really have got things right
the bowl of the ocean is facing a treacherous deadline
the sea after all is source of an ancient breadline
the fisherman stands at its window beaming and bright
every day for a million years on these loaves he's fed fine
as a special treat I've ordered Pho Seafood tonight

passage to India [travel research]

2006-11-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

Googling the puzzle of affordable air travel, this site (Make My Trip) helps.

Points (per Bhopal Travel Guide) about Bhopal:

Regular flights connect Bhopal with Delhi, Gwalior, Indore and Mumbai.
Bhopal is an important railway station, as it is on the main Delhi-Madras route.

Maps of India

Rail Transport in India (Wikipedia)

Indian railway timetables and maps.

Indian Railway -- reservation site

The Rajdhani Express (recommended for Bangalore-to-Bhopal). The Chennai Rajdhani is noteworthy:

The Chennai Rajdhani covers a distance of 2194 kilometers in just over 28 hours. It is one of the fastest trains in India. It departs from Delhi at 1530 and arrives in Chennai at 2000 the next day. From Chennai it departs at 0620 and arrives in Delhi at 1100 the next day. It is an important train and is a wonderful and fast substitute to the overbooked GT and TN expresses.

NOTE: the route of the Chennai Rajdhani is "Hazrat Nizamuddin [station in Delhi] to Chennai via Bhopal."

Ah, and here are specific "abstract timetables" -- including:

Train No. 2429: Bangalore - Nizamuddin [Table No. 9a = pdf]
Days of service M,W,Th,Su
Bangalore (Dep) 18.35
Secunderabad (Dep) 06.55
Nagpur (Dep) 15.10
Bhopal (Dep) 20.50
Nizamuddin (Arr) 05.15

So this is the Bangalore Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express. Via this route, the distance from Bangalore to Bhopal is 1760 km (1,094 miles).
[current online schedule seems to show departure at 20:00 hours, arrival next day at 20:50 hours = basically a 25-hour trip, Bangalore to Bhopal]

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Thumbnail notes about Madhya Pradesh -- Gwalior, Bhojpur, Ujjain, Khajuraho, Sanchi.

(Picture imagining the poet Kalidasa -- per online gallery from the Kalidasa Academy, Ujjain.)

Tansen Music Festival -- in Gwalior (city where his tomb is), also known as the Tansen Sangeet Samelan or Tansen Utsav. Said to happen in December. (But, alas, evidently early in the month.)

Other festivals.

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The Alauddin Khan Samaroh, Maihar (16 to 17 February - 2006, per a Madhya Pradesh site; exactly when in 2007?) may be worth catching.

The other festival I may be able to catch is in Kolkata -- the Dover Lane Music Conference, running approx. January 20-25. (Or this site says, Jan. 22-26. Not yet seen exact dates for 2007.)

It seems worthwhile to catch one or both of these -- to immerse myself in hearing the maestros in all-out day-after-day mode.

Also note: the Khajuraho Dance Festival (one week, sometime in Feb. or March). That could prove a superb occasion to visit Khajuraho.

François Balthazar Solvyns: etchings of India [art]

2006-11-02T04:07:00.000-08:00

Worth a look --

The complete Solvyns etchings--250 from the Calcutta edition; 60 plates from the pirated Orme edition; and 292 etchings from Les Hindoûs--are here reproduced online following the organization of Robert L. Hardgrave, Jr., A Portrait of the Hindus: Balthazar Solvyns & the European Image of India 1760-1824 (Oxford University Press and Mapin Publishing, 2004).

-- from The Etchings Online

Night Journey [terza rima]

2006-11-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

(by way of PROLOGUE)

In the midst of life suppose I lost my way?
if I jot as one sitting fast beside the road
unstymied words inscribing sans dismay

albeit the fall of evening could forebode
a land of chill unfazed were I by fear
befuddlement serves as wine withal my load

what satchel of thought I carry held as dear
were light to bear nor needs untoward exertion
but whither proceed? direction’s far from clear

then what if I strum my zither? (heart’s assertion
proposes) mightn’t the scene’s dark disarray
gleam lucent amid minstrelsy’s devotion?

and supposing here one settled a spell to stay?
beside the way where a pool could play as ocean
one voyages where shadowing branches sway

========

A few months back, I wrote AN INLAND JOURNEY -- a narrative poem (in five Parts plus an Epilogue). I had tersely described it thus:

Written July 5-10, 2006, this narrative cycle (a fabulistic ballad), divided into 16 sections, is comprised of 64 quatrains in all.

The above little poem (in terza rima) will now serve as the poem-cycle's Prologue. This, then, fully completes the cycle.

========

The gentle Reader may understand that the stanzas of the PROLOGUE propose a scene wherein the overall POEM will, then, unfold -- as (that is) a Ballad sung by the Poet whom we hear in the prologue.

The portions are as follows:

============

AN INLAND JOURNEY (a fable)

PROLOGUE: Night Journey (in terza rima, above)

PART ONE: At World's End
PART TWO: An Evening's Tale
PART THREE: Voices in Fugue
PART FOUR: Late Beyond Matins
PART FIVE: Figments of Figure

EPILOGUE

more stray strands of research [Indian classical music notes]

2006-10-21T18:50:00.000-07:00

Sitar Factory (a blog)

débloque-notes -- which is source of the astonishing chart of Indian classical musicians.

From A to Z, the chart appears to have 2,068 entries. The following are the musicians listed as vichitra vina players --

Also to note:

The website of the ITC Sangeet Research Academy (Kolkata) includes a good and extensive audio archive, called Raga Online.

Also note:

The DoveSong.com MP3 Library lists a bunch of Indian classical music (though so far I've not succeeded in hearing any of it).

(Similarly), I'd like to hear the audio clips peppering pandit Parrikar's expositions, but so far haven't managed to do so.

A lot of Sikh singers here:
The Gurmat Sangeet Project. These, anyway, I'm succeeding in hearing (streaming audio).

Ah, now the DoveSong audio is working. Recommended: Elder Dagar Brothers' Darbari Kanada -- see the Kanada Ragas page.

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Also -- good news! in the Karnatic [or if you wish, Carnatic] music sphere: Carnatic Kritis Online. When I discovered the Anahata blog recently, I figured it might prove a trove of good things. So it's proving -- as for instance that Karnatic music link, thanks to a good discussion of Dikshitar's Kamalambam Navavarna krithis.

"Midnight's memorandum" [boomerang triptych]

2006-10-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

The best the poets could say was "I cannot say"
yet they strove anyway to define the precise unsayable
so they faded into a gloam as does the day
ah isn't the dusk a thing that's quite undayable?
should fringe of the afternoon remain unfrayable
won't silhouettes of the trees incline to sway?
what if midnight's memorandum seems okayable?
the best the poets can say is "I cannot say"

The best the poets could say was "I cannot say"
the miasma of the morning proved alayable
when we wandered into the foyer what was the play?
why assume the wisest sayings always are nayable?
for every joust or feint that's half replayable
there's a babble rabbling prepared to shout "touché!"
but maugre its waves the main remains long-stayable
the best the poets can say is "I cannot say"

The best the poets could say was "I cannot say"
the bill albeit exorbitant became playable
if the jungle's fierce predations prod the prey
was the Voyage of the Beagle not pureeable?
well be as that may the grins are often "hey-hey!"able?
did the grimace portend a grouse that wanted to stay?
when at last the awning-with-owls was twilight-arrayable
the best the poets could say was "I cannot say"

========

This expands on the original (more modest) quatrain, Puriya Kalyan

Sanskrit et cetera [Bhopal research]

2006-10-21T04:40:00.000-07:00

The curious fact is that, in terms of internet research on various topics, a handy place to park the results is here on my blog. (Accessible, searchable, not lost on some or other storage device I might or might not have at hand . . .) Following this logic of handiness, here is some preliminary research into institutions of language instruction in Bhopal. As I'm contemplating making that city my basecamp -- perhaps for extended periods -- and as I'm eager to dive into study of several Indian languages (first being Sanskrit and Hindi, followed by Urdu and perhaps others), getting the possible lay of the academic land seems useful (though possible routes for such studies hardly need be restricted to academies per se, but it's one place to start). So --

Thumbnail sketch of Madhya Pradesh (various basic facts and statistics) here.

Main cities: Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Raipur [though the latter is technically no longer classed under M.P., being now a province all its own].

Ujjain (where the Gundecha Bros. were born) is of special interest due to its association with Kalidasa.

A Bhopal Tourism blurb.

This chart shows distances of various cities from Bhopal:
Indore -- 108 miles
Nagpur -- 183 miles
Jaipur -- 268 miles
Agra -- 268 miles
Lucknow -- 326 miles
Varanasi -- 376 miles
Pune -- 400 miles
Hyderabad -- 412 miles
Mumbai -- 420 miles
Delhi -- 370 miles
Kolkata -- 700 miles
Bangalore -- 700 miles
Chennai -- 726 miles
Kunming -- 1595 miles
Another, bigger distance chart (but in km units only).

And here's a more comprehensive (Indian cities) distance chart. It lists Ujjain as 188 km from Bhopal (~4 hours)

There was a Sanskrit Festival in Bhopal, Jan. 29-31 2005.

= = = = = = = = = =

This site lists several Madhya Pradesh academies (plus governmental cultural departments).
Among them, the Madhya Pradesh Sanskrit Academy is in Bhopal.

This site lists myriads of colleges in M.P.

Search tool for language schools, teachers, tutors in Bhopal (but with nothing relevant at present).

(Actually, my conclusion from this attempted research is -- internet research isn't very effective here. Direct local inquiry is what's needed.)

Ah, but the Wikipedia entry for Bhopal does have a decenet listing of colleges and universities.

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \

More Madhya Pradesh cultural stuff -- including Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal. (Museum & performing arts.)

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \

The Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan has a Bhopal Campus. The library in Bhopal is said to have 10,000 books. Their campuses evidently also offer study of Sanskrit via extension courses.

This institution also offers a correspondence course (application due by end of December, for course beginning in January) employing written materials plus CDs (40 15-min lessons per term).

\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \

Stumbled on in passing: the future of traditional Sanskrit learning (considered in a Western academic context) -- pdf document.

Also, unrelatedly (this about English rather than Sanskrit) -- How the Past Affects the Future: The Story of the Apostrophe (pdf document).

A tanpura program download.

Puriya Kalyan [gnomic epigram]

2006-10-20T22:25:00.000-07:00

The best the poets could say was "I cannot say"
yet they strove anyway to define the precise unsayable
so they faded into a gloam as does the day
ah isn't the dusk a thing that's quite undayable?

ragamala paintings [music / art]

2006-10-20T07:30:00.000-07:00

Raga Lalita
"The Kangra Miniatures of the Pahari School made a mark in the 18th century. Though influenced by the Mughals, the Kangra School retained its distinctiveness. The paintings were naturalistic and employed cool, fresh colors. The colors were extracted from minerals, vegetables and possessed enamel-like luster. Verdant greenery of the landscape, brooks, springs were the recurrent images on the miniatures. Texts of the Gita Govinda, Bhiari's Satsai, and the Baramasa of Keshavdas provided endless themes to the painters. Krishna and Radha as eternal lovers were portrayed rejoicing the moments of love. The Kangra miniatures are also noted for portraying the famine charm with a natural grace. The paintings based on Ragmalas (musical modes) also found patronage in Kangra."

Ragini Vasanti
"Here, celebration of spring is shown amidst the yellow and white blossoms of trees while a pair of belle charmed by the nature’s beauty are plucking flowers and rejoicing the season. The painting is based on Raga Vasanti. Ragini Vasanti represents advent of spring marked by new leaves, blossoming of flowers and songs of birds."

Raga Kalinga

"The painting personifies Raga Kalinga, one of the sons of Raga Dipaka. In the painting Raga Kalinga is visualized as Krishna resting on a lotus flower cushion spread on a serpent. The crown decorates the head while kundals (the rings) adorn the ears. His flute is potent enough to enchant the universe. His beautiful eyes, arched eyebrows and a garland of flowers around his neck enthrall the heart.
"Between 14th-16th centuries a wave of Krishna worship swept India. Hindu devotees could easily relate to Krishna who was one of like them. He was a loving god who moved among them and shared their pastoral and agricultural pursuits. Krishna worship inspired a cycle of poetry in the 16th century succeeded by a cycle of painting."

source of paintings and texts: Crafts in India

My name is Gauhar Jan [Indian classical music notes]

2006-10-19T18:25:00.000-07:00

Of historical interest . . .

My name is Gauhar Jan

Ah, but a bit of GR [google research] reveals the author of the article about Gauhar Jan to be one Suresh Chandvankar. It earlier appeared here (in an online publication called The South Asian, Oct. 2003) and also here (in Musical Traditions).
Another article, by Pran Nevile (Sunday Tribune, 2002) is here: The importance of being Gauhar Jan. The two articles overlap somewhat, but each includes many details not mentioned by the other.

A fascinating, more scholarly article about the ganewalis ["singing ladies"] was written by Saleem Kidwai: "The singing ladies find a voice"
http://www.india-seminar.com/2004/540/540%20saleem%20kidwai.htm
It includes a number of observations about Gauhar Jan. This little anecdote may serve to suggest the high regard she commanded from the musical cognoscenti:
<< She sang Tagore’s songs, with his permission, but set to her own tunes, a privilege not allowed to others till the recent ending of the copyright covering the Tagore compositions. >>

==========

Here's her discography (or the beginning of one; a note indicates her full discography of known recordings runs to some 160 items), -- with three MP3 "excerpts" (1 min 5 sec each), including:
Bhairavi thumri
Bhupali
Khamaj jogia

==========

More music of Gauhar Jan online!

This remarkable page -- on Patrick Moutal's blog -- features some 272 items of Indian classical music (as MP3 files), including the following:

1. Gauhar JAN, Desh (02:40) 2,4MB
2. Gauhar JAN, Gandhari (02:21) 420KB (24kbps)
3. Gauhar JAN, Gara thumri (02:26) 575KB
4. Gauhar JAN, Jogiya (Jo Piya Aaye Mose...) (02:39) 0,459MB (24kbps)*
5. Gauhar JAN, Pahari Jhinjhoti (Manwa Lubhao...) (03:29) 0,615MB (24kbps)*
6. Gauhar JAN, Sindh Kafi (Naino Se Naina Mila) (03:03) 0,540MB (24kbps)*
7. Gauhar JAN, Bhairavi (Rasili Matwaliyon...) (03:16) 0,576MB (24kbps)*
8. Gauhar JAN, Piloo (Savariyan Man Bayo...) (02:38) 0,465MB (24kbps)

Those are (moreover) evidently the full recordings (ranging from 2min 21sec to 3min 16sec), rather than 1-min excerpts.

= = = = = = = =

Also, a short recording of the legendary Allauddin Khan (sarod) playing Zila Kafi.

I was just yesterday watching his California grandson -- Alam Khan -- on YouTube; or, I mean, on Mehfil Tube. Allauddin Khan emerged from the 19th century; Alam Khan is moving into the 21st.

= = = = = = = =

Relatedly (vis-a-vis Gauhar Jan) and from the same source (I mean, the French blog linked-to at top of this item), see also:

Indian Gramophone Records

Also of note:

Raagabase and the Raaga Finder

Also of note:

Musical Articles Archive (from South Asian Women's Forum)

Our features on the ragas of Hindustani music are written by Rajan P. Parrikar. They contain his insightful analysis and commentary, fortified by around 2000 carefully prepared audio clips that illustrate and illuminate the nuances of raga structure. A large number of these adduced recordings are rare and hitherto unpublished. Rajan, as many of you know, has a penchant to understand not only the music of the masters, but their hearts and minds too.

= = = = = = = =

But every concert should end with Bhairavi.

So let me complete this little series with a 9-min Bhairavi by the late Lalmani Misra (vichitra vina).
Patrick Moutal's page (source of these various recordings) includes several other selections (some longer) by this notable artist, -- some of them (including this one)
from an old radio broadcast.

= = = = = = = =

Speaking of vichitra vina (and radio broadcasts), this morning I belatedly learned that Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish (originally from Lahore, where he was an All India Radio artist) and living in Santa Cruz, California for many decades) passed away in July of this year. He was one of the very few accomplished vichitra vina players this world has seen.
The instrument dates from the early 20th century, so far as I'm aware. S.D. Batish's son Ashwin (with whom I chatted on phone this morning) mentioned that his father had studied vichitra vina from a student of the originator of the instrument (whose name, alas, I failed to jot down). One little pop claim to fame of S.D. Batish's was his playing vichitra vina in the Beatles' film HELP. But as a singer-musician, composer, musicologist, and all-around scholar, his somewhat hidden legacy is likely
to continue sending late waves into the world. Ashwin anyway is minded to promulgate writings and recordings of his father in years to come . . .

Born in 1914, S.D. Batish lived into 90s.
I have happy recollections of meeting him in Santa Cruz about 20 years ago.

= = = = = = = =

Ashwin Batish's website includes a notable Indian classical music teachers list ("The Guru Shishya Database").

Alaka Nandy, exponent of Dagarbani Dhrupad and Damar (and having also a background in Rabindra Sangeet from VisvaBharati/Santaniketan), associated with the Ustad Nasir Moinuddin Dagar Dhrupad Sangeet Ashram in Calcutta, gives instruction on pakhawaj. But possibly it's a girls-only ashram?

= = = = = = = =

Music India Online has a lot of audio files.

For instance:

Rashid Khan's Mian ki Todi (brief alap / khayal)
Budhaditya Mukherjee's Mian ki Todi (sitar). He was born in 1956, like me.

= = = = = = = =

Also: some info on several annual classical music festivals in India.

A Circular Fable [blank verse]

2006-10-18T23:40:00.001-07:00

The Cirque du Soleil has moved in next door!
who would believe it?
"My window overlooks the circus" said Ulrike
when I'd asked her location
so I could drop off the biochemical diagram
I'd constructed in chemdraw
is this how the cosmos is ushering me away
from my present position?
the circus is in residence for a month and on Monday
I plan to submit
to human resources (before exiting stage left)
my letter of resignation

this reminds of the evening Bill Clinton paid a visit
to our building in the old days
we'd only just arrived in this fancy 12-story
a month or two earlier
it must have been summer next door at the erstwhile
convention center (now parking lot)
the Prez (new-elected) was doing a big fundraiser
Whitney Houston was singing
while down in our inner courtyard the Saxophone Club
was fronted by Kenny G
"I taught him everything he knows" quipped William
in innocent comedy

just moments ago I was watching Alam Khan
on YouTube expounding
the rudiments of playing the sarod Alam Khan!
the scion of Ali Akbar
I remember this lad as a 5-year-old tyke
his mother after all
went to high school together with my sister in Spokane
back in the '70s
time's flying in this Circus of the Sun Lord knows
high time I repaired me
to India to study the melodious trapeze
for the circus has snared me

meanwhile today comes news Ravi Shankar's
in a San Diego hospital
the twentieth century is arriving at its close
at last in this autumn
"those who are alone now will remain alone"
quoth Rilke rose-shadowed
I listen and listen to what's probably a thumri
a friend it sent by email
I recall neither the singer nor the raag but the saranghi
and the bandish win me over
I'd regale you with the history of everything were I able
it's a circular fable

============

In case the physical lay of the land (alluded to in the first two stanzas) is unclear: the old Washington Convention Center was, a couple years ago, torn down and replaced by a (perhaps temporary) parking lot. On this parking lot (in the middle of downtown DC), the circus has now made its month-long camp. The President (in the anecdote of stanza 2) bopped between the larger gathering (at the Convention Center) and a smaller gathering (in the inner lobby of our office building); the latter was hosted by a group styling themselves the Saxophone Club, comprised of yuppies eager to support Clinton's bid for a second term. This saxophone theme (or schtick) was bolstered by the presence of the light-jazz/new-agey Kenny G. A big video monitor was also installed -- hence we listened to Whitney Houston (next door) while continuing to ply our trade as word processors (with a view of the inner courtyard from the word processing center).

Regarding Pandit Ravi Shankar, an NDTV.com report indicates his condition is stable.

"In the physical world" [ghazal]

2006-10-18T15:25:00.000-07:00

To walk down the highway in actual fact is different
the verbal abode from the road of the act is different

the gestures of thought are like filligree traced in the air
when carving in marble the total impact is different

both living and dying are staged in the physical world
a realm of ideas from a city that's sacked is different

the fruit of the vine is mundane the vine is its servant
this sacrifice is from a social contract how different?

couldn't concepts suffice? to act on them bristles with hazard!
but the measure of earth that this recipe lacked was different

point A to point B our trajectories need locomation!
a theory of movement when put into practice proves different

in pure speculation the journey is noiseless and dustless
in train and at station the click and the clack are different

although there was no one so eager for life as Ardeo
it's mordantly clear that his knapsack was packed a bit different

when Ardeo popped out he presumed he could loll in the clouds
but the stars that he saw when a wall had been smacked were different

"The felines in Zanzibar" [gnomic rubai]

2006-10-18T09:43:00.000-07:00

I was counting the felines in Zanzibar in lieu of counting sheep
now that isn't to say I was struggling to join the realm of sleep
like an elephant that isn't in the room I sought for 5 blind men
like a rhino who's looking for Wittgenstein I said "the road is steep"

==========

responsive to Stephen Schroeder's "reconciling texts" -- including the epigraph from Thoreau ("It is not worthwhile to go around the world to count the cats in Zanzibar").
The final line's rhinoceros allusion is handily explicated by a blogger here.

Mehfil Tube [music note]

2006-10-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Check it out (seemingly a division of You Tube):

Mehfil Tube

e.g.:

Ram Narayan (sranghi), playing raag Mishra Piloo

Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan (excerpts -- evidently from an old film -- with raag Todi / thumri Bhairavi / thumri Pahadi / raag Yaman Kalyan / raag Marwa . . . )

Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa ("the Mount Everest of tabla") -- from a Films Division documentary, filmed when the maestro was 90 years old, but mighty quick still. (Clip ends abruptly after 10 minutes; -- hard to know how long the original runs.) A black & white film, made when?

raag Darbari, sung by Salamat and Sharafat Ali Khan

= = = = = = =

Hariprasad Chaurasia (bansuri) -- several brief "bootleg video" clips from a concert (the stage vaguely reminds me of Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley -- wonder if that's where it it?) The clips are too short to offer a sustained musical infusion; but this gives a glimpse and reminder of Hariprasad's playing. I think these must be rather recent (even with fuzzy videography, the guy looks older than I recall from gone years).

Zakir Hussein (tabla) -- The Speaking Hand (an excerpt from the documentary film by Sumantra Ghosal).

clips of Pandit Nikhil Banerjee (sitar -- from a nicely-done film).

Partha Bose (sitar) -- a newer sitarist; this is the first I've heard from him, a nice sound and obviously good hand. Objection: clips too short. Note mentions his being "of the Maihar gharana." Who's his music-guru I wonder? In clips with Samir Chatterjee (tabla), the video-guy (perhaps a tabla student) is focused just on the tabla.

Pandit Atmaram Sharma (sitar -- from Hyderabad); another unknown to me. A half-hour clip; gat begins about 16 minuntes into the raag. Too bad the clip ends abruptly (when the chap is just some ways into the vilambit gat).

Ustad Tejendra Narayan Majumdar (sarod) -- "of the Maihar gharana accompanied by Yogesh Samsi on tabla. Raag Jaijaivanti, gat in jhaptaal" (less than 3 min. clip, a brief glimpse)

Mustafa Bhagat (sitar), playing raag Charukeshi. ("This is a recital at a house concert in New Jersey USA. Mustafa Bhagat is a disciple of Prasanna of USA and Pandit Manilal Nag of India.") I like his playing (seems that of a promising student).

Prasad Bhandarkar (bansuri) playing raag Shivaranjani. I wasn't aware of this flautist, but he's quite good.

Among many clips of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, this (from 1989) is quite good

the Maihar Band (this one via Google video -- presumably You Tube competitor) -- an ensemble evidently playing a composition of Baba Allauddin Khan's.

Aziz Mian sings a Mira bhajan in Qawwali style. [one line: "Look, I've turnred both my eyes into burning lamps of worship for my love"]

A younger-generation Kolkata artist -- Rajrupa Sen [born 1982] (sarod) playing raag Malkauns. Also (a direct YouTube link), her raag Bageshree. Her website's here.

Speaking of youngsters, dig this: Alam Khan (son of Ali Akbar Khan) on sarod. I remember this kid when he was like 5 years old . . . -- time flies. (The lad talks and plays in this 2-min. clip.)

= = = = = = =

A song by Ghulam Ali (ni chambe diye band kaliye teinuun) -- light classical.

Ghar Aaya Mera Pardesi (a cute old b&w filmsong, orchestrated) -- more interesting thanks to the visuals. Influenced by Busbee Berkeley?

Another dreamy Bollywood number, Saat suron ke tar of sangeet (by Madhuri Dixit) -- 6 min. (color) -- meta-framed as daydream.

and lots more . . .

Asian literary prize unveiled [book notes]

2006-10-18T04:08:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2006

New Prize for Asian Writers
By Lawrence Van Gelder
New York Times
The investment house that sponsors the Booker Prize has begun a new award intended to recognize Asian authors living in the region and writing in their own language, Agence France-Presse reported. The prize, an annual award of $10,000 to be known as the Man Asian Literary Prize, was announced yesterday in Hong Kong and is to be given next autumn for the first time by Man Investments. Robb Corrigan, a spokesman for the company, said, "There is a specific goal to bring Asian voices to the global stage." Peter Gordon, director of the Hong Kong Literary Festival, which took part in the announcement, said the prize would be open to writers in 24 countries in a "triangle defined by Japan, Indonesia and Afghanistan."

Here's the text of the official press release (13 March 2006)

Major New Literary Prize Established in Asia
Man Asian Literary Prize Will Recognise New Works By Regional Authors
HONG KONG - A major new literary prize was launched today to recognise the work of Asian writers and to bring them to the attention of the world literary community. The prize is a joint project of Man Group plc and the Hong Kong Literary Festival Ltd, which together announced the prize’s creation.
Called the Man Asian Literary Prize, the award will seek entries from Asian writers for works that are yet to be published in English. Entries will be submitted in English, and the prize is intended to provide a broader platform for the cream of new Asian literature to be brought to the attention of English-reading audiences around the world.
The Hong Kong International Literary Festival, sponsored by Man Investments, is the region’s most recognised festival highlighting the achievements of authors throughout greater Asia. Man Group plc (the parent company of Man Investments) is a leading London-based global provider of alternative investment products and solutions as well as one of the world’s largest futures brokers.
Matt Dillon, Regional Managing Director of Man Investments, Asia Pacific announced its establishment at the conclusion of the 2006 Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival. The first annual prize will be awarded in Autumn 2007.
“Through this new prize we aim to foster the publication of new Asian voices in English and to help make those voices more widely heard”, Mr Dillon said. “One of the most important tasks facing our world in recent times has been for the English-speaking peoples to have a better understanding of Asian society and culture. We very much hope this prize will encourage that activity”.
Peter Gordon, Director of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, said Asian writers were becoming increasingly significant on the world literary scene.
“Asia is becoming an important source for new writing for major international publishers and this award will help facilitate publishing and translating of Asian literature into English”, Mr Gordon said.
“Since the purpose of this prize is to facilitate publication and translation rather than to merely reward existing publication activity, the Prize will focus on ’new’ works, as yet unpublished in English”, he said.
The Man Asian Literary Prize will be administered by a new and independent not-for-profit entity. It is anticipated that the judging panel will be drawn from international literary and academic communities.
The Man Asian Literary Prize has a unique combination of features. It is explicitly focused on Asia, as distinct from, for example, the Asia-Pacific/Pacific Rim. It is based in Asia and it will be for currently unpublished works with the explicit objective of encouraging the publication of more works by Asian writers.
Further details including application procedures, eligibility and prize money will be finalised over the coming months and will be announced in Autumn 2006.
Man Group plc is also the sponsor of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and the Man Booker International Prize, two of the world’s premier literary prizes.

There was an advance article about this in The Standard (Hong Kong) way back in May. An article in Time Asia likewise made mention of it in May.

Dhrupad notes and research [music notes]

2006-10-18T01:50:00.000-07:00

This is an out-of-season note -- but I want to blog it simply for future reference. The goodly Google has belatedly apprised me of a first dhrupad festival held in Chennai last February. The report (from the English language newspaper The Hindu) reflects a fine gathering. Another report on the same event is found in the magazine Sruthi. The same is also described here. The Music Magazine describes the same (invoking the name Barsi for the festival) here.

The Hindu same also has a report from May of this year on a music festival in Delhi, again featuring dhrupad. (It notes Ustad Fariddudin Dagar held a 2-week workshop in Delhi, too, at the Habitat Centre.) Another shorter notice in the same paper is seen here.

Earlier this month (October 7), Ustad H. Sayeeduddin Dagar (who is based in Pune) held performances at an arts center in Brussels. Also mentioned are Nafeesuddin Dagar (vocal), Aneesuddin Dagar (vocal), and Pandit Mohan Shyam Sharma (pakhawaj). (I had heard of Ustad Sayeeduddin Dagar in past, but didn't realize -- as this notice mentions -- that he is a brother of the Ustads Zia Fariduddin and the late Zia Mohiuddin Dagar.) It also mentions the Gundecha Brothers will perform there next January. The succinct note about the origins of dhrupad is worth quoting:

The dhrupad (from dhruva, Pole Star, and pada, poetry) evokes the ascension of the spirit through poetry. This truly ancient style traces its origins to the samgana, the accompaniment of melody and rhythm to the ritual chanting of the Vedic texts that took place in Hindu temples. Towards the 11th century, the dhrupad attained a degree of perfection that that it has once again regained today under the auspices of the prestigious Dagar dynasty.

Also in music news, as of today (Oct.18) --

The renowned sitar maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar has been admitted in a hospital in San Diego and California. His wife Sukanya is at his bedside. The ailment was not announced. He is 86.

I wasn't aware that this year, the dhrupad Barsi in Mumbai has already happened -- a couple weeks ago.

Annual Zia Mohiuddin Dagar memorial recitals:

BARSI 2006

29TH SEPTEMBER 2006, 6:30 PM
USTAD WASIFUDDIN DAGAR [VOCAL]
USTAD ASAD ALI KHAN [BEEN]

30TH SEPTEMBER 2006, 6:30 PM
PANDIT RAVI SHANKAR UPADHAYA [PAKHAWAJ SOLO]
USTAD Z F DAGAR [VOCAL]

ACCOMPANISTS
PANDIT MOHAN SHYAM SHARMA [PAKHAWAJ]
PANDIT RAVISHANKAR UPADHAYA [PAKHAWAJ]

Date: Friday, September 29, 2006
Time: 6:30 PM
Location: YASHWANTRAO CHAVAN PRATISHTHAN, Churchgate, Mumbai

(per Google Group -- rec.music.indian.classical)

========

This chart lists a lot of Hindustani musicians, with terse notes about their influences. It includes more vichitra vina players than I was aware of.

========

Gundecha Brothers -- music downloads

Noted in the margins [gnomic rubai]

2006-10-18T00:20:00.000-07:00

(on the non-universality of epidemic phenomena)

For the plaguophilic
the worse things get the better
for the life idyllic
the plague is yet a fetter
while plagues embitter
both human and bird critter
there's none angelic
nor plagues for the Irish setter

==========

nonsense verse responsive to a passing remark by Vasudev Murthy (regarding a certain educational institution -- viz., he suggested, "Avoid this school like the plague. Unless you like plague.")

"In Bhopal" [ghazal]

2006-10-17T21:46:00.000-07:00

What it means to be an American
will I discover in Bhopal?
the music that time didn't quite forget
can I recover in Bhopal?

on this rainy October morning my DC cabdriver
chats in Amharak
sargam pearled out from the Sanskritic tongue
may I uncover in Bhopal

it's not that I'm generally depressive but
a malaise with autumn pulls in
I'll be to spring's dark and to winter's light
a cheerful lover in Bhopal

the Earth is the same and yet different in every quarter
of the green globe
she presum- ably sees the selfsame stars
pinioned above her in Bhopal

Ardeo's life wasn't an accident but can he yet
reclaim the disaster?
this riddle's so-intransigent answer he
hopes to discover in Bhopal

==========

chats in Amharak: i.e., on his cellphone (of course); there are myriad Ethiopean cabdrivers in this city; I don't however speak Amharak.
(The poem concerns a contemplated move to a music school in the middle of India.)

initial draft jotted (while en route to office) in blank pages at end of a paperback poetry book at hand -- Agha Shahid Ali's Rooms Are Never Finished (2002)

Ad lib opportunities [cuppa prose - 1]

2006-10-17T02:09:00.000-07:00

He began by viewing life as an almost unlimited ad lib opportunity.
His sentence commenced on Monday, on Thursday he paused for breath and water, and Saturday was his day of rest. On Sunday, the weather being fine, he went for a stroll in the park. The rollerskaters were in fine fettle, and his ad lib entered high gear. Pigeons and policemen took him in stride, and all in all, it was a superior day.
On Monday, his wife phoned.
"How's it going?" she asked.
"It continues swimmingly," he ad libbed, surprisingly tersely.
"Any job prospects yet?"
"I'm considering astrology," he replied, always good for a notional career move.
"What sign are you?" she -- uncharacteristically forgetful -- inquired.
"Libra, darling," he allowed.
On Tuesday, he picked up several astrology volumes at the used bookstore. "It's never too late to learn a thing," he remarked to himself, smiling, ambling down the sun-dappled sidewalk.
Autumn, however, was on its way.

38 | School of Quietude [pantoum]

2006-10-16T19:02:00.000-07:00

When I entered the school of deep quietude
the fish with the rudders were friendly
the village was mantled in solitude
the trees and the brides were like family

the fish with the rudders were friendly
the streets and the moons looked benign
the trees and the brides were like family
the human was all but divine

the streets and the moons looked benign
it seemed at the nadir of turpitude
milkmaids were attending the kine
when I entered the school of deep quietude

========

see also pantoum no. 2 in this autumn sequence, "In the school of disquietude"

"Too many poems" [gnomic ditty / rubai]

2006-10-16T13:50:00.001-07:00

There are too many poems on the writing of poems!
a poet opined in a note
there are too many boats about riding in boats!
I note that a boatman wrote
if a myriad words address speaking in words
how prolix grow thoughts about thoughts!
what with so many "too many"s filling the tomes
would you vote to recite them by rote?

Typed Memorium for Inkpen Poetry [gnomic nostrum]

2006-10-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

The computer keyboard helped kill shorthand, and now it's threatening to finish off longhand.
-- The Handwriting Is on the Wall: Researchers See a Downside as Keyboards Replace Pens in Schools (Washington Post, October 11, 2006)

Poets who wrote in ink could also think in ink
(I type these words at 14 points in a Georgia font)
O smears and jags of ink if a pen were on the blink
whatever you wrote at least weren't lost one could be spont
on a mountain trail with a paper scrap in pocket
you'd just have to plug into the cosmic socket

After the Georgetown Wedding [solitude lyric]

2006-10-15T13:10:00.000-07:00

When silence asked me where was I going
what was I to say?
the autumn evening came to us
in pleasant ways
the fete unfolded memorably
a rarely happy day
we measure out the unsure share
of passing days

When silence asked me where was I headed
how could I reply?
the autumn evening humored us
with sparkling riches
the festival occasion flowed
and drumming thrilled the sky
I measure out in solitude
the seven pitches

"New information" [ballade]

2006-10-14T15:52:00.000-07:00

ballade borrowing lines from Mina Loy

Pocked with personification
the fossil virgin of the skies
waxes and wanes her elation
the casual eye could surmise
are clouds now principally sighs
congealled overhead the nation?
a wind might dispell tacit lies
according to new information

Cyclones of ecstatic dust
and ashes whirl in the margin
one lives on a gulp and a crust
while blooms of imagining burgeon
who'd hire an artist as surgeon
prove prone to outré reformation
entrée will be sorrow and sturgeon
according to new information

Somnambulists of adolescent thighs
draped in satirical draperies
recalling the puddles of paradise
while browsing quaint volumes at bakeries
grow silent a spell lyric quakeries
could serve for a quietude ration
the trouble arises from flakeries
according to new information

Who'd think of the gardens as snakeries
are souls overdue for vacation
the ocean affords sandy nakeries
according to new information

==========

Phrases that begin each of the poem's three main stanzas are borrowed from Loy's Lunar Baedeker (1923/1958); (see also Lunnar Baedecker)

The Mina Loy Feature in Jacket (Oct. 1998) is worth noting

The Three Poeias [ballade]

2006-10-14T13:46:00.001-07:00

Melopoeia was drawing a bath
phanopoeia was lacing his shoes
melopoeia was trilling a laugh
phanopoeia was milling the blues
logopoeia was ready for words
mounting the mountain and clambering to climb
phanopoeia was soaring with birds
melopoeia was dappled with rhyme

Melopoeia was feeling the beat
pulled by the pulse of the phrase as it came
phanopoeia was struck by the street
logopoeia was mulling the name
phanopoeia was topping his game
shooting a film with the face of a mime
logopoeia was burning with flame
melopoeia was dappled with rhyme

Melopoeia was dripping with honey
logopoeia was tripping on thought
phanopoeia was cloudy or sunny
lacking for money were poetry's lot
logopoeia was mining for meaning
melopoeia was musically fine
phanopoeia was golding or greening
melopoeia was dappled with rhyme

"Sight. Sound & Intellect." quoth Louis Z.
quaffing the Poundian lexicon's wine
phanopoeia was often at sea
melopoeia was dappled with rhyme

==========

vide Logopoeia (Wikipedia)

Gene Fowler (who discusses the three terms interestingly, though neglecting to credit Ezra Pound as their originator) translates melopoeia as "melody-making," phanopoeia as "sense-making" (also noting the more literal "image-making" and "fantasy-making"), and logopoeia as "revelation-making" (while skipping over the literal "word-making").

47. "Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia." — Ezra Pound
48. "Sight. Sound & Intellect." — Louis Zukofsky
-- Allen Ginsberg, Mind Writing Slogans

I got on this particular poetics-principles wavelength today thanks to a little argument in Silliman's blog comments stream about whether (and which of) these three poetry-qualities are found in a particular passage quoted from Robert Creeley.

"Something to dare" [ballade]

2006-10-14T12:02:00.000-07:00

Basic confusion is part of the deal
yet it astonishes even the wise
who can distinguish the false from the real?
who can unravel the truth from the lies?
Maya would bind with a bevy of ties
few are the birds who can exit the cage
desire's a cloud with a shadow of sighs
poetry's born with the turn of a page

Basic confusion is ancient and thick
eat it for breakfast and dream it at night
the rabbit is slow and the tortoise is quick
the bird is at sea and the fish is in flight
morning still dawns with its argot of light
paying its fare with a time-honored wage
evening still ushers in lyrical night
poetry's born with the turn of a page

Often the simplest things are confounding
rarely the subtlest thoughts are laid bare
often the difficulties are astounding
rarely the chains seem to vanish in air
was there a wall here we tried to repair?
was that a lion who roared with such rage?
kindness is premised on courage and care
poetry's born with the turn of a page

None are the days lacking something to dare
actors prepare as they pace on the stage
even the ushers are bowing with flair
poetry's born with the turn of a page

"Something ungrasped" [ballade]

2006-10-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

What was I born desiring to speak?
where bides the enexpressed poetry now?
must we cross mountains and oceans to seek
something ungrasped amid heart and brow?
seasons and times and regions allow
varying fauna and flora to grow
who what and where are essential to how
everything forms and when it may flow

What is the work I have yet to perform?
where is the quarry and which is the vein?
is the trail cold? or do I grow warm?
something may glimmer but nothing is plain
clouds are required if one would have rain
patience is needed through sunlight and snow
all to reliance on God may pertain
everything's forming when it may flow

Stopping and starting are part of the play
seeking direction is key to the game
when there is breeze the branches will sway
when there is form there's naturally name
every horizon remembers a flame
night becomes morning because of its glow
day after day things might seem the same
yet everything's forming when it may flow

Sometimes the canvas and sometimes the frame
ask the attention that art would bestow
isn't the river awash in this claim?
everything's forming when it may flow

lyricism defined [quotation + rubai]

2006-10-13T19:05:00.000-07:00

The nature of the lyric is that it is restless and questing. This is what "lyrical" means and produces in matters of sound and tone and closure. A lyrical line veers from side to side, pauses, looks around and up, and continues until it finds a very temporary spot to breathe. It bounces against space. Then it continues again and often finds its way through a number of words that might contradict the meaning of the first lyric. At this level it doesn't matter if one has belief in one set of laws or another. It is faith in the footstep that counts.

-- Fanny Howe

as quoted on the Lyricism Blog

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Riffing on same, a rubai:

restless and questing possibly crazed
hosting or guesting mostly amazed
any new vantage re-riddles the view
grieving or jesting either way dazed

========

Next, I notice Andrea Baker's "Lr" graphic (same source), hence this:

If lyricism's an element
on a strange periodic table
is it volatile? does it oxidize?
is it solid-state and stable?
O does it meander all waywardly
in a myriad transient spasms
through a ghostly cycling labyrinth
in a beaker of frothy babble?

========

And one more rubai (somewhat relatedly) --

The news that I seek seems not to be found
who carries the news that I seek?
the sky whispers sky and the ground reports ground
who carries the news that I seek?
each element mirrors a rumor it heard
through the grapevine of life's causation
this circles and circles around and around
but who's got the news that I seek?

"Earth's blear" [ekphrasis / ballade]

2006-10-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

Something like squares (if examined close)
but smoothed and waved in Peruvian ways
this faceted stone won't wax verbose
its silence sprawls for a slew of days
beyond its crusty fringe there plays
wide water's fluctuant narrative
low comely hills long bathed in haze
my sentence grows declarative

Where tones of water blend green and grise
the Pacific portrays a dark gestalt
earth's blear enjoys a near-timeless lease
our tears but fraction its sum of salt
here high is brought to low's default
this is not a thing so pejorative!
the gully's filled with brine not guilt
my sentence grows declarative

Do hints of trees drape yonder hills?
low-lying firs or ambitious scrub?
what plausible fish with vivid gills
must survive amid this outsized tub?
one drinks one's fill in such a pub
evolution is thus preparative!
the stones' array betrays no hub
my sentence grows declarative

With so much polishing where's the rub?
would I dub such shores despairative?
as a member of this pelagic club
my sentence grows declarative

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Meditation on a photo of the Monterey Coast, thanks to Rachel Dacus's blogged display

1 | Cadmium Orange [color poem / ballade]

2006-10-13T02:27:00.000-07:00

Do I squander my last dollar
on Winton's phthalo blue cyan?
or do I rectify this squalor
maybe prove myself a man
who in artful manners can
afford a glimpse of beauty's range?
for my modest canvas span
Rembrandt's cadmium orange

On a ground of Naples yellow
figure limned in burnt Sienna
wooden floor without a pillow
in the model's hair is henna
says she hails from Vienna
she had hankered for a change
as my palette knife begins to
blend Sienna and the orange!

Is it true her eyes are green?
painting licenses imagination
and that little forest scene
through the window? a vacation
for the viewer information
might amuse the scholar-fringe
but the painting's key narration
reads her tresses' sheer orange!

if you glimpse your heart's elation
in a face whose gaze is strange
do you note the integration
hinges on the tint of orange?

=======

3rd orange poem in color sequence; also commencing a new ballade sequence

[Winton and Rembrandt are two popular brands for oil paints; Phthalo Blue, Naples Yellow (a light, whitish yellow), Burnt Sienna (a rich, dark brown) and Cadmium Orange are common colors used in this medium]

More Orange! [color poem]

2006-10-13T01:35:00.000-07:00

More orange! I want more!
I am foraging to be oranging
it exceeds a canary challenge
to write a poem very orange

More orange! more yet!
some may pillage others bet
my vice is to tint the village
(every hutment) pure orange

Lots of orange! all the juice of it!
what a package! to the caboose of it
where's that red breasted finch?
isn't the henna girl orange?

=======

2nd orange

Orange Bonanza [color poem]

2006-10-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

I saw a strange mirage
it looked like my garage
it seemed I would unhinge
its door was so orange!

I glimpsed a lovely palace
and felt no twinge of malice
one feeling did impinge
the feeling of orange!

I viewed a perfect city
its every part so pretty
above its mountain range
a sunset bloomed orange!

I pondered shining faces
they put me through my paces
but some of them grew strange
their eyeballs turned orange!

I watched a colorful poem
bloom up from turquoise loam
its petals seemed to singe
and soon they glowed orange!

some might deem me a mensch
for writing many a stanza
that blithely rhyme orange?
let's dub this Orange Bonanza

Bonanza ain't a banana
though orange may be naranja
tomorrow -- ah mañana
we'll meet an orange sangha

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Peter Griffin at Caferati did me the kindness of launching a color poem exercise, based on my implied assertion (or semi-demonstration) such color words as orange, purple and silver can (contrary to popular belief) be rhymed (at least "sort of"). The above poem is an attempt to flesh out the idea with regard to orange.

the new Sony Reader [techno note]

2006-10-12T21:47:00.000-07:00

quote
The reading experience is pleasant, natural and nothing like reading a computer screen.
unquote

-- from State of the Art: Trying Again to Make Books Obsolete

Also to note:

[O]nce those microspheres have formed the image of a page, they stay put without consuming any power. Amazingly enough, that means that you don’t have to turn the Reader off, ever. When you’re done for the night, just lay it on your bedside table; the current page remains on the screen without draining any battery power. (According to Sony, one prototype Reader in Japan has been displaying the same page for three years on a single charge.)

But you've gotta have a lamp (or other source of ambient light) to read the thing.

note to self: may be worth exploring for period of winter travels

Blurb blurb [commentative epigram]

2006-10-12T17:53:00.000-07:00

If you can read this book and not shriek with delight your soul is dead
if you can stroll this street amid droll moonlight your wit is living
the soul of the soul is consoled in its lonesome cowboy head
if the sole of the foot is defeated yet the toe is forgiving

toward the end of my days I composed a blurb for my epitaph
if they publish my poetry posthumously will they use it?
it would fit I suppose not unsuitably in an epigraph
"his every note was banal except if you blues it"

=======

“The trouble is that the novel is being shouted out of existence. Question any thinking person as to why he ‘never reads novels’, and you will usually find that, at bottom, it is because of the disgusting tripe that is written by the blurb-reviewers. There is no need to multiply examples. Here is just one specimen, from last week’s Sunday Times: ‘If you can read this book and not shriek with delight, your soul is dead.’ That or something like it is now being written about every novel published, as you can see by studying the quotes on the blurbs. For anyone who takes the Sunday Times seriously, life must be one long struggle to catch up. Novels are being shot at you at the rate of fifteen a day, and every one of them an unforgettable masterpiece which you imperil your soul by missing. It must make it so difficult to choose a book at the library, and you must feel so guilty when you fail to shriek with delight. Actually, however, no one who matters is deceived by this kind of thing, and the contempt into which novel reviewing has fallen is extended to novels themselves. When all novels are thrust upon you as words of genius, it is quite natural to assume that all of them are tripe.”

-- George Orwell

as quoted by Ian Keennan (in comment no. 55 here) on Silliman's blog

"At the parade" [ghazal]

2006-10-12T11:20:00.000-07:00

When an Englishy ghazal was garbed in a muzzle at the parade
its discursive barkle made a beeline buzzle at the parade

studious palempsests rife with inscription were pondering the shadows
on vacuous canvases eager to nuzzle at the parade

an astute connoisseur had stooped to inquire what was the racket?
a tennis-court volley had grown to a tussle at the parade

a dairyland merchant was hawking his dreams "sweet and nutritious!"
a sculptured ascetic showed scrupulous muscle at the parade

old Odin was present and crooning an ode! who would have thunk it?
was a sloe-eyed gazelle making fast with a ghazal at the parade?

"Farsi Urdu only!" a purist was preaching children peeled laughter
the pucca reproval provoked no reprisal at the parade

a blithe Orientalist brandished a garland in lieu of a lariat
he lasso'd a lass by a threshold of miseltoe at the parade

a Victorian princess was swooning on schedule the poets applauded
one wag dubbed her costume more bustle than hustle at the parade

a taciturn monk was cooing a mantram in lotus position
proponents of doodle met dweebs of discussle at the parade

a zealot of limericks was poised to deliver his grand manifesto
the haiku practitioners put mortar to pestle at the parade

the is and the will-be were lost in the has-been nostalgia ran rampant
an Island of Is-le in an Ocean of Was-le at the parade

I couldn't determine what virgule or vermin his booth was purveying
but that boy Raphael was enjoying a guzzle at the parade

"Beethoven tells me" [gnomic verse]

2006-10-11T23:21:00.000-07:00

The romantic era hasn't ended!
Beethoven tells me as much
the notes he wrote remain extant
and speak of current things
ah we who live this dreamy life
you say are out of touch?
there's still a sky! there's still a sea!
and birds are born with wings

The haughty muse [rubai]

2006-10-11T09:30:00.000-07:00

They say that the trove of poetry
resembles a sweetheart's kiss
whoever presumes its mastery
a sorry imposter is
what she of her own desire bestows
is pleasure beyond compare
while swaggering of a braggart goes
how far with a haughty miss?

A river [half-carafe sonnet]

2006-10-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

An unpunctuatable river flows
beyond the villa of commas and colons
past virgule and ampersand it goes
unstopped by period or semicolon

does its whisper elude all exclamation
(though earth & sky offer parentheses)
what question mark arrests information
it brings what need for dashing emphases

it dare not halt till it espies the ocean
of silence wide and pure like its devotion

37 | "Prayer is mainly feeling" [pantoum]

2006-10-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

Small defeats are needful
large delights are strange
devotees are heedful
situations change
large delights are strange
problems loom like storms
situations change
sirens sound alarms

problems loom like storms
clearing brings relief
sirens sound alarms
sagas can't be brief
clearing brings relief
prayer is mainly feeling
sagas can't be brief
language is revealing

prayer is mainly feeling
love involves acceptance
language is revealing
everything needs patience
love involves acceptance
summer's fruit is seedful
everything needs patience
small defeats are needful

=======

This is no. 37 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

36 | "What can be shown" [pantoum]

2006-10-11T06:06:00.000-07:00

What can be shown cannot be said
what can be felt exceeds the thought
the first is something I just read
the second I've this moment wraught
what can be felt exceeds the thought
the thought yet seeks the feeling's form
the second I've this moment wraught
the minute flies before the storm

the thought yet seeks the feeling's form
the form but shows the thought's design
the minute flies before the storm
when hours turn the seconds rhyme
the form but shows the thought's design
the thought enjoys the form's delight
when hours turn the seconds rhyme
the shore is washed by day and night

the thought enjoys the form's delight
the music lives by melody
the shore is washed by day and night
the comic springs from tragedy
the music lives by melody
is rhythm born? or is it bred?
the comic springs from tragedy
what can be shown cannot be said

=======

Pantoum beginning with a sentence borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 4.1212).

This is no. 36 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

35 | "All that is the case" [pantoum]

2006-10-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

The world is all that is the case
a proposition is a picture of reality
do two eyes alone depict a face?
every argument requires keen duality
a proposition is a picture of reality
an inquisition is a darkening of dream
every argument requires keen duality
every unity's a clearing of the screen

an inquisition is a darkening of dream
an inquiry is an opening of a window
every unity's a clearing of the screen
are timid deer gamboling in the meadow?
an inquiry is an opening of a window
the ear desires babble of the brook
are timid deer gamboling in the meadow?
are dank alleys redolent of the crook?

the ear desires babble of the brook
the culture of the ocean brings us fish
are dank alleys redolent of the crook?
Chicago's pizza's famous for deep dish
the culture of the ocean brings us fish
the culture of the voice occasions grace
Chicago's pizza's famous for deep dish
the world is all that is the case

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Pantoum beginning with two sentences borrowed from Ludwig Wittgenstein.

This is no. 35 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

In two cups [mini-fabulism]

2006-10-11T02:33:00.000-07:00

the tempest in its teacup had grown cozy
while regret sought a home for its alas
"are the teacups all taken? I'll not be nosy
let me settle in an espresso demitasse"

the tempest in its teacup was storming
while regret had learned civil deportment
"the cofee-drinker imbibes me while warming
singing 'regrets, I've had a few' -- an assortment!"

the tempest in its teacup had simmered down
and regret likewise seemed much allayed
spake regret "would you like to go to town?"
quoth the tempest "not tonight I'm afraid"

Dogwood in autumn [neo-symbolist lyric?]

2006-10-10T18:05:00.000-07:00

No lavish fluff of dream is seen
this tree is but a scrawl of wood
spare leafage yet in gold or green
some folk profess to hold this good

but I recall more vernal days
how twig on twig were flush with light
however much I pine and gaze
save yonder cloud no sign of white

if still I stand when spring returns
no leaf this branch will obfuscate
while in array again will burn
pellucid lamps of limpid white

I now the wintry dream await
when boughs all naked shorn and stark
in mocking play anticipate
the bright array on branches dark

========

Initially conceived (for an exercise) as a poem "in the style of Robert Frost" (on the premise: what if another lost poem were found?), I think this specimen lands wide of that mark. But I've grown happy with the poem in its own right and terms (and, here, have, among other revisions, dropped Frost-style punctuation & capitalization & indentations -- poetry-typography of a bygone era).

There's also this accoutrement:

publisher's note: typical of some Dogwoods is a phenomenon where the blossoms (in some varieties, a striking white) are seen in full vernal bloom, while the leaves have yet to appear. Later, the leaves grow, and the blossoms disappear. Evidently this is the characteristic Mr. Frost had in mind.

"But now a days" [pantoum]

2006-10-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

pantoum with found language

But now a days, students are not aware of their future life
formerly they were good with crystal balls
Is your parents blaming at you, regarding studies?
the wind can be a whopper with its squalls

formerly they were good with crystal balls
is the big fire burning inside your mind?
the wind can be a whopper with its squalls
Are you suffering from love disappointment?

is the big fire burning inside your mind?
is the small water flowing under your toes?
Are you suffering from love disappointment?
are you giggling amid relentless woes?

is the small water flowing under your toes?
Are you always hanging with friends? (heaven forefend)
are you giggling amid relentless woes?
Is Your innermind is tensed during study, friend?

Are you always hanging with friends? (heaven forefend)
Are you suffering from Bad dreams at night sleep?
Is Your innermind is tensed during study, friend?
do you emulate the willow when you weep?

Are you suffering from Bad dreams at night sleep?
Are you inferior to ask teacher about subject doubt?
do you emulate the willow when you weep?
do you fail to touch the heavens when you shout?

Are you inferior to ask teacher about subject doubt?
Are you much watching the T.V. do you want to avoid it?
do you fail to touch the heavens when you shout?
is the topography of your psyche not reconnoitered?

Are you much watching the T.V. do you want to avoid it?
Is your mind thinks bad thinkings while studying?
is the topography of your psyche not reconnoitered?
is the geography of your estuary too much muddying?

Is your mind thinks bad thinkings while studying?
do you seek more ishtyle, more hair, more yoga butt?
is the geography of your estuary too much muddying?
is the phonology of your cacophany in a real rut?

do you seek more ishtyle, more hair, more yoga butt?
it's challenging in modern times to wisely nurture life
is the phonology of your cacophany in a real rut?
But now a days, students are not aware of their future life

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The italicized lines are borrowed from an anonymous source described by Ratna Rajaiah in her light satirical item, The Blossoming of a Genius. Or how I was saved... (excepting the one blue italicized line, borrowed from the author in said item)

34 | "A novel occasion" [pantoum]

2006-10-09T13:20:00.002-07:00

The world is a novel occasion of the possible
the life one leads is a line inscribed in an ink
of striving for the tentatively impossible
the paper bares our vain attempt I think
the life one leads is a line inscribed in an ink
blood-red alike the berries on the thin vine
the paper bares our vain attempt I think
the halting hand maybe managing a fine line

blood-red alike the berries on the thin vine
or green betimes akin to the vernal leaf
the halting hand maybe managing a fine line
it hints at a sea-like saga sketched in brief
or green betimes akin to the vernal leaf
whatever the hue the cry emerges fresh
it hints at a sea-like saga sketched in brief
its instrument being voice and breath and flesh

whatever the hue the cry emerges fresh
whatever the day its picture frames a question
its instrument being voice and breath and flesh
the aim of shadow is variable like suggestion
whatever the day its picture frames a question
the question rolls as a ball it's lightly tossable
the aim of shadow is variable like suggestion
the world is a novel occasion of the possible

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This is no. 34 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

Imaginary landscape [sort-of shi]

2006-10-09T01:30:00.000-07:00

(i)

I came to the table and found a peculiar puzzle
I browsed the puzzle and soon discovered a street

I paced the street anon I arrived at a jumble
I peered in the jumble until I descried a moat

I crossed the moat on a leaf and entered a castle
I ascended its silent tower and admired the view

no bell was tolling they said it was such a hassle
but I could see all the way to Timbuktu

(ii)

In Timbuktu I lived for a hundred years
then I shipped out on a freighter heading for Lisbon

I wangled a job at an inn dispensing beers
the habitues included many a has-been

one summer I took a stroll thru an art exhibit
installed in the basement of a crumbling castle

drawn to the lode no diffidence could inhibit
I came to the table and found a peculiar puzzle

Rhymed verse [gnomic nostrum]

2006-10-06T09:07:00.000-07:00

...and we should all try to avoid it, along with gluttony, avarice, the rest of the deadlies, and rhymed verse (just joking about the latter).

-- Steven Fama (in comment on Silliman's blog)

What bane could be more worse
than rhyming in a verse?
if meter's bad behavior
to rhyme is plain perverse
a central desideratum
in today's new universe
eschew the urge to rhyme
that atavistic curse

quoth Swift one cannot sew
from sows' ears a silk purse
which dictum goes to show
(to state it clear & terse)
when rhymes lie in a row
like branches strewn with snow
it's time to call the Hearse
that tree will grow no Poe

"One by gentle one" [rubai]

2006-10-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

One by gentle one the world is peopled
one by gentle one are churches steepled
the Milky Way exhibits myriad droplets
one by gentle one from Night dark-nippled

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The repeating phrase is borrowed from Ratna Rajaiah's "Flowers Underfoot"

=======

Day by sorry day the week continued
drop by tiny drop the cup was filled
table by charming table the place was menued
degree by cold degree the winter chilled

leaf by amber leaf the autumn mellowed
dream by vapid dream the sleeper slept
page by ancient page the diary yellowed
tear by lucent tear the heavens wept

=======

(a further riff on the "one by gentle one" phrasing)

modern culture

2006-10-05T16:30:00.000-07:00

It’s hard to believe milk comes out of a cow.
There’s so much milk around & so few cows.
It's hard to believe wonder is sourced in a wow.
There are myriad wonders & so few wows.

And what about silk & the unseen silkworm?
Where are the fields producing this cotton?
Still I agree how milk is astounding
There's cheese in from Denmark cultured not rotton

A crushed elation a cycle of ballades [index]

2006-10-04T22:20:00.000-07:00

for W.S. Merwin

1 | "Ensconced in tangles"

2 | "Gypsy plunder"

3 | "Tappings of the blind"

4 | "One motif"

For relevant background, see also: W.S. Merwin's Search Party
(as well as notes following the first of these ballades)

====================

The above small cycle comprised my first experiment with the ballade form.

Here is a new ballade sequence (perhaps still in progress) --

1 | Cadmium Orange [color poem / ballade] 10/12/06

2 | "Earth's blear" [ekphrasis / ballade] 10/13/06

3 | "Something ungrasped" 10/14/06

4 | "Something to dare" 10/14/06

5 | The Three Poeias 10/14/06

6 | "New information" 10/14/06

4 | "One motif" [ballade]

2006-10-04T21:24:00.000-07:00

I've savored the lull of hours
that subside before they leave
I've witnessed the wane of powers
that discover no voice to grieve
I've beheld the swirling sleeve
in wake of the dancer's flow
from this weave there's no reprieve
myself I do not know

I've listened to speech's lie
where masks portray the sincere
I've noticed the beggars shy
and yearning to just disappear
I've sensed the ring of fear
offstage from a jolly show
one thing anyway is clear
myself I do not know

I've looked to the face of joy
from out of the frame of thought
been prey to illusion's ploy
seen how house-mice are caught
I've strolled for miles down streets
that array both sun and snow
every block one motif repeats
myself I do not know

William the world competes
would each dog nab best-of-show?
I'm a wag with a heart that beats
myself I do not know

=======

This is the fourth ballade in a sequence dedicated to W.S. Merwin

3 | "Tappings of the blind" [ballade]

2006-10-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

I've known the autumnal light
as it insinuates sweetness
caught sight of the sparrow's flight
felt its particular fleetness
I've studied leafless neatness
in the bare wintering tree
but I in my incompleteness
mine own self cannot see

I acknowledge the purr of cars
all revved up for destination
I discern the delight of jars
so brimming with information
I recognize rich narration
in summertime's symphony
but mine is a crushed elation
for my self I cannot see

I've trained my eye on the manners
of both the stingy and the kind
descried hope's fluttering banners
counted tappings of the blind
yes fathomed the flow of mind
in dainty volumes of poetry
one bobbin I can't unwind
my self I cannot see

William I pine to find
my right work eventually
through dark while light has shined
my self I cannot see

=======

This is the third ballade in a sequence: A crushed elation

The poems are dedicated (and thus, per an adapted convention, their final stanzas are addressed) to W.S. Merwin.

a meme-poem challenge [sonnet]

2006-10-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Every word of the poem could be a meme!
particularly its multisyllabic expressions
you could make a meme out of saying "hey you seem..."
and might it be memish to wallow in weird digressions?

if the definition is just an infectious phrase
is the poem that features memes conceived as source
or repository? I'll admit I'm still in a haze
of course there's the fine adverbial meme "of course"

an urban legend is thought of as quintessentially
a meme that runs around with virulent zeal
a sheepish meme might sniffle penitentially
its teardrop-memes informing us how it feels

"I had a dream" is a meme from M.L. King
"Irene goodnight" is a folkmeme one might sing

=========

so, um, here's your assignment -- if you should choose to accept it: write a poem that includes the following memes (or, in older argot, phrases):

1) "I had a dream" (which might or might not involve "I had a dream")
2) "Irene goodnight" -- or if you prefer, "Goodnight, Irene"
3) "hey you seem"
4) "of course"
also:
5) some or other multisyllabic expression(s)
6) [optional]: wallow in weird digressions

note: your poem does NOT have to be a sonnet (but that's an option)

Anybody disposed to play (or that is, accept this 'umbly proffered poem-writing-exercise opportunity/challenge) is requested to let me know (& see results) via a link in comments hereto.

thanks!
d.i.

==============

But what exactly (one might ask) is a meme? The Wikipedia comes to our rescue:

The term "meme" (IPA: [miːm], not [mɛm], or [mimi]), coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins, refers to a unit of cultural information transferrable from one mind to another. Dawkins said, Examples of memes are tunes, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches. A meme propagates itself as a unit of cultural evolution analogous in many ways to the gene (the unit of genetic information). Often memes propagate as more-or-less integrated cooperative sets or groups, referred to as memeplexes or meme-complexes.

The idea of memes has proved a successful meme in its own right, achieving a degree of penetration into popular culture rare for a scientific theory....

I would add: the meme of the "meme poem challenge" is probably more a meme than are the particular (alleged) itemized "meme"s prescribed above as recipe-items for inclusion in a poem-to-be-generated by the gentle reader hereof.

Anyway, meme poems are (or the meme of the meme poem is) a growth industry. But is the meme of the growth industry a growing meme? In recent centuries and into the present, it seems so. Is the rhetorical question also a meme? Indubitably.

============

"I reme goodnight" as a Mondegreen

Funny about "Irene goodnight" vs. "Goodnight, Irene." The former is how I recall the beginning of the refrain -- which certainly I enjoyed as a child, but I always heard it as "I reme goodnight" -- and I assumed that "reme" (or perhaps "ream") was a verb. What might it signify? I was never certain, but it seemed -- in context -- to suggest the idea of "bid": I reme goodnight would mean (according to this childhood interpretation) "I bid [thee] goodnight."

This misapprehension of the lyric is an example of what Jon Carroll (among others) has popularized as a meme (he started doing so long before the meme was a very popular meme, I'd hazard) -- a meme known as the Mondegreen.

2 | "Gypsy plunder" [ballade]

2006-10-04T02:35:00.000-07:00

I know a few petty skills
that suffice to ward off hunger
I've been privy to sylvan rills
that grow lyric in wake of thunder
waited through predawn's chill wonder
noted who uncarts the horse
I review such gypsy plunder
but I don't perceive my source

I've watched how promise founders
knowing what time's game portends
I've appraised the batter's grounders
looked at how the goalie fends
I've sustained the loss of friends
muddled through its mute remorse
while afar my footstep wends
I do not perceive my source

I've shuffled through dreams askew
I've marveled how patience gentles
I've steeped medicinal brew
and boiled my share of lentles
I've kenned abject repentance
distinguished fine from coarse
I live out still this sentence
I do not perceive my source

William what is the distance
that describes the river's course?
though I wade through wide existence
I do not perceive my source

=======

This is no. 2 in a sequence of ballades. The sequence is dedicated to W.S. Merwin, who is (perhaps presumptuously) the addressee of the "envoy" (final short stanza).

For ballade no. 1, see: "Ensconsed in tangles"

North and South [gnomic song]

2006-10-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

Life is a hassle
life is a struggle
it's flaunting its tassle
is it seeking to snuggle?

life hit the road southward
I was wandering due north
will I reach its bodega
if I alter my course?

Life is a trouble
life is an effort
it's bouncing its bubble
all unmindful of profit

life took the road southward
I was trekking far north
will I find its cabana
if I alter my course?

Shashi bows out a quatrain for what was not to be [rubai]

2006-10-03T14:30:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, October 3, 2006 (New York):
India's nominee Shashi Tharoor has pulled out of the race for the post of the next UN Secretary General.
The decision came after the South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon emerged a clear winner in the fourth straw polls. . . .
"It is a great honour and a huge responsibility to be Secretary-General, and I wish Mr Ban every success in that task," Shashi Tharoor said.
"I entered the race because of my devotion to the United Nations, and for the same reason I will strongly support him as the next Secretary-General. The UN, and the world, has a stake in his success". . . .
Shashi Tharoor only managed 10 encouragements, and 3 against. but he most importantly received a discouragement from a permanent member, effectively a veto.
Although its unclear who the veto came from for Mr Tharoor, sources in the UN have speculated it was from the US. . . .

-- Shashi Tharoor pulls out of UN race

Whereas Shashi was shushed it's a shame
worldly facts have their wax and their wane
thus Ki-Moon gets the chair while Tharoor
wanders freely in fiction again

============

Shashi Tharoor being known firstly as an Indian novelist, and more lately as India's nominee for the noted 5-year post.

By the willow a sequence of poems [index]

2006-10-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

8 | "Cinéma vérité"

2006-10-02T18:50:00.000-07:00

I'd been planning to be an acupuncturist
and Chinese herbalist a fact that
comes to mind as mildly relevant
as I'm rereading poem no. 5 in this
verse-libre sequence I thought
I was done with but no there's still

some more where that came from
a supply potentially inexhaustible
but exhaustive excavation could
exhaust the patience of poet and
reader so one grows chary of words
a little spare although not fore

swearing the casual pleasures
of insouciant utterance here

here where there's such liberty
to speak on point or at random
the random that isn't necessarily
so random as all that for doesn't
the instinct that shapes the poem
have its simulacrum-of-an-agendum?

but souls or poems like dreams or
daydreams have rules that differ
from the powerpoint manner of
commanding points so in the soul's
powerpoint show there might be
no words a beak of a bird

followed by a snapshot of a cellphone
or a taxicab an old shoe et cetera
cinéma vérité at some remove
from the rumbling world motionless
pictures from an exhibition & in
another room? ballet pathetique

7 | "Muted imaginations" [nonce form]

2006-10-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

Possibly the poem lives
where life that we call real
is barely able to follow
the poem lets one feel
the heartbeat of the swallow
the mind of mauve and teal

possibly the poem finds
a route amid the clamor
soft silence settles there
in a near-familiar manner
when the soul is laying bare
(it's not a practical planner)

its pell-mell observations
and its muted imaginations

it's rather like a museum yes?
it exhibits dreams and notions
and naturally it takes its cue
from mountains clouds and oceans
a thing the soul is apt to do
performing its devotions

the museum of the poem-dream
displays a range of objects
when you place beneath its glass
its quaintly favored subjects
it lets the particular pass
into flowerings of concepts

no thoughts but in things a poet
allowed -- but here the things
once spoken suffer translation
its caterpillar dies into wings
as drawn into strange elation
dim paupers stride as kings

6 | "Two oblivions" [vers libre]

2006-10-02T13:40:00.000-07:00

I used the phrase "really oblivious"
in the second of these poems
and now I'm thinking oblivion
merits further consideration
one may associate it with the
movement of Romanticism

a vogue almost a fetish a
trendish popularization of
a toned-down version (maybe
think now Maxfield Parrish)
of ecstasy -- the urge to get
out of the rut of the familiar

in the 4th poem there's a line
"but the poem doesn't remember"

this too points to a certain
idea about what oblivion means
the first thought is that I might
become oblivious of practical life
if I seek out the life of the poem
the second thought is about how

the poem exhibits selective memory
regarding the mundane world
that befilled my human past --
so these are two oblivions and
they face in differing directions
don't they? are they moral failings?

there's an oblivion the poem seems
to offer generously to those disposed
to quaff of its fictive cup but the
poem's other oblivion its selective
memory its idealizing the scenes
of vanished life -- interests me

5 | "In waking life" [vers libre]

2006-10-02T13:02:00.000-07:00

I wake late from a dream --
in the dream I was visiting in
San Francisco and planned
to fly down to Los Angeles where
I was going to visit with Markar
and Parkar (who in fact live in

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
but in the dream are in LA)
they mention if I come when
I'm planning it'll be too late
since Markar (in the dream)
is dying from cancer

so I'm changing my plan and
coming earlier to Los Angeles

meanwhile a dream person had
asked me about driving directions
to someplace in San Francisco
it seems to be around North Beach
(in a vague distorted way that
doesn't resemble real geography)

and apparently I give what's felt
to be useful advice regarding
how to get from dream point A
to dream point B but I should say
that in waking life my Mother who
lives in Los Angeles has lately

been diagnosed with cancer though
she's not displaying signs of dying
not in the now-visible symptomology --
she's going the naturopathic route
at present shelling out for electronic
acupuncture several times a week

4 | "A-Frame" [vers libre]

2006-10-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

It would seem inadvisable
to try to put everything in the poem
a poem is not a smorgasbord!
and it's not a storage space
of the sort you now think
you'll soon be filling up --

since you're determined
to vacate the basement where
you've been eking out this
reasonable excuse for existence
for ten years, heading to India
and California as you say --

a place to store what you can't
bear to part with among your things

but arranged any-which-way so long
as it fits the dimensions of the little
industrial rectilinear enclosure --
is a poem more like a house?
perhaps an idealised house the way
I can now imagine my Walnut Creek

A-Frame in its field by the willow
where the frogs would sing in those
parts of the year given to raining
the field would flood and frogs
the singing frogs would sing!
with I alone in the room listening

that's more like it if you're asking
me what a poem can be thought of
as resembling -- in terms of the
question of structure and space --
you were always a bit cluttered then?
but the poem doesn't remember

========

This is the fourth in a cycle of eight poems. For the full sequence, see:
By the willow

3 | "A bicycle" [vers libre]

2006-10-02T06:15:00.000-07:00

So is this how you think you'll
invert the rules of the game?
making a virtue out of a vice
and a bicycle out of a fish?
it's true that Marcel Duchamp
made an art of not making art

but this is hardly the time
and I don't suppose you're the guy
but then you're not doing
a Duchamp are you? what
exactly are you doing? well
he played chess and worked

in secret for a long time
but that's another story

the problem of poetry
needs to be lifted out of
the problem of publication
a certain distance, I think
the problem of eating needs
to be removed from the stove

the problem of baking should
be separated from growing wheat
and threshing is another story
the rustic winnowing you'll find
in poetry books particularly
the back-to-the-land kind

imagine that! Wendell Berry
is growing tobacco in Kentucky
he's been doing it so many decades
it's never been considered a scandal
"well we grow tobacco" he told me
twenty years ago at a poetry reading

2 | "Abstaining" [vers libre]

2006-10-02T05:55:00.000-07:00

What if I went on like this
writing poem after poem?
becoming really oblivious
of responsible existence
if they were written on paper
we could pile them very high

how high?
how high is the moon?
how many stacks?
the question smacks of
hyperbole, the way you've
presumed to pose it

(I notice you're putting just
one comma in each poem

tacking it down with one tack
are you? well whatever)
let's not leave the train
of the first thought -- it's
gone from the station
but we can follow it winding

through the charming hills
by the running rills -- you
were imagining writing a lot
let's say a plethora of poetry
a multitude of pages
but don't you know the sages

the wise ones were silent
and the fools became wise
by abstaining from publishing
it's a secret tradition
you've been very slightly derelict
but so far almost a virgin

1 | "Real enough" [vers libre]

2006-10-02T05:03:00.000-07:00

for Ustad Asad Ali Khan

It seems a bad idea to pay
too much attention to poetry
you may start thinking it has
something like a substantive existence
you may soon be assuming
it offers refuge and solace

maybe a room to hang your hat in
maybe a hat to spangle your hatrack
a hatrack implying hat and room --
and a window, oh it could have a window
at this point raag Desh could be playing
on the turntable

and poetry then might seem
very exotic and very domestic

we're not here speaking of
the question of so-called vocation
those who build a resume and leave
breadcrumbs of identity trailing
through the magazines and journals
some of them real go-getters

some of them wary and taciturn
all of them seeming to believe
there's such a thing as a poetry career
you can invent one
send out the letters
and become a professional

no we're not going there
that's not quite what I'm talking about
we can let that one
dangle in the semblance of a wind
the willow would seem real enough
in a poem

========

This is the first in a cycle of eight poems. For the full sequence, see:
By the willow

yours truly (sans beard) [snapshots]

2006-10-02T04:15:00.000-07:00

a few photos of yours truly, snapped by the visiting Professor (Vasudev Murthy), to whom, thanks

This was Tuesday.

Also somewhat germane: "After I shaved my beard"

of comparative note: walking north (self-portrait, one year earlier)

Is the poet in pain? No. He is reciting a poem.

What poem? A pantoum.

What pantoum? I think it was this one.

"Abstractions" [villanelle]

2006-10-02T03:05:00.000-07:00

After the party I dream this: someone is asking me for a drink -- I lift a bottle of tonic water and say, I'm sorry, but I have only abstractions.
Ana Bozicevic-Bowling, "no real drinks"

I'm sorry but I have only abstractions
the tonic is more musical than physical
next door they offer chemical reactions

the realm of thought has many satisfactions
and yet it always leaves me feeling quizzical
I'm sorry but I have only abstractions

the sparkle of the bottle has attractions
the spindle of the body is libidinal
next door they offer chemical reactions

the chessboard's field is limited in actions
the play of war is patently political
I'm sorry but I have only abstractions

the summary required plot-compactions
the comment on the text was not rabbinical
next door they offer chemical reactions

the poem was a congeries of distractions
the compilation couldn't find a pinnacle
I'm sorry but I have only abstractions
next door they offer chemical reactions

1 | "Ensconced in tangles" [ballade]

2006-09-30T01:12:00.000-07:00

By now I know the newsprint
with its inkled smudges
I know night's darkled starglint
and Sunday's drugstore fudges
how the critique curmudges
peering through theory's hole
one thing still never budges
I do not know my soul

I know they claim by sheer dint
of love and will one trudges
through timely victory's end-sprint
with spacious winks and nudges
in briny waves one plunges
compelled by adventure's role
one mountain never budges
I do not know my soul

I know the Mojito's fresh mint
how snowwhite ends in sludges
I've spied the friendy-faced saint
confronted frightening cudgels
cut milk teeth in urban jungles
madly grasped at riverine shoals
tiptoed through classy bungles
alas I don't know my soul

William I've heard of angels
floridly lauding source and goal
still I'm ensconced in tangles
candidly knowing not my soul

=======

This is my first attempt at, essaying of, and enjoyment of writing in the ballade form. As may be easily recognized, it's based on the earlier-discussed ballade of Villon's and tips its hat to Merwin's superb poem as well. I note that Villon addresses the Prince in his Envoy. I don't know what prince that might be. Mine anyway is addressed to W.S.

Happy birthday.

I've stumbled on a likeable interview with WSM here (from April 2004, conducted as "an informal colloquium" at Stanford -- courtesy of Peter Y. Chou).

p.s.: now (after having written the above), I've managed to wrest from google another, rhymed translation of Villon's antecedent poem (translator not indicated, but first published in 1906). If the English rhyming properly follows the original, this suggests my analysis of the ballade rhyme-scheme may have been too simplistic. Ah, but G.K. Chesterton's ballade (offered as exemplary of the form in the Wikipedia) appears to confirm I have the pattern aright (even if [separate topic] I play slow yet a tad loose with some rhyme vowels toward poem's end).

W.S. Merwin's Search Party [Merwin's ballade]

2006-09-30T00:03:00.000-07:00

Search Party

By now I know most of the faces
that will appear beside me as
long as there are still images
I know at last what I would choose
the next time if there ever was
a time again I know the days
that open in the dark like this
I do not know where Maoli is

I know the summer surfaces
of bodies and the tips of voices
like stars out of their distances
and where the music turns to noise
I know the bargains in the news
rules whole languages formulas
wisdom that I will never use
I do not know where Maoli is

I know whatever one may lose
somebody will be there who says
what it will be all right to miss
and what is verging on excess
I know the shadows of the house
routes that lead out to no traces
many of his empty places
I do not know where Maoli is

You that see now with your own eyes
all that there is as you suppose
though I could stare through broken glass
and show you where the morning goes
though I could follow to their close
the sparks of an exploding species
and see where the world ends in ice
I would not know where Maoli is

— W. S. Merwin

=======

Tomorrow is the poet's birthday. I begin the blogo-celebration with this particularly beloved poem. Regarding the poem, one blogger amusingly remarks,

Maybe I’m a sentimental fool, but after he read “Search Party,” a poem about the disappearance and reappearance of his dog, I found myself trying to pretend that the tears in my eyes were from allergies.

Merwin's poem is interestingly modelled on a ballade of François Villon's. The latter finds this English version thanks to Galway Kinnell:

I know flies in milk
I know the man by his clothes
I know fair weather from foul
I know the apple by the tree
I know the tree when I see the sap
I know when all is one
I know who labors and who loafs
I know everything but myself.

I know the coat by the collar
I know the monk by the cowl
I know the master by the servant
I know the nun by the veil
I know when a hustler rattles on
I know fools raised on whipped cream
I know the wine by the barrel
I know everything but myself.

I know the horse and the mule
I know their loads and their limits
I know Beatrice and Belle
I know the beads that count and add
I know nightmare and sleep
I know the Bohemians' error
I know the power of Rome
I know everything but myself.

Prince I know all things
I know the rosy-cheeked and the pale
I know death who devours all
I know everything but myself.

Trans. by Galway Kinnell
François Villon

It is said that among English poets, Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was one who followed the French model in such old forms as the villanelle and the ballade. The villanelle subsequently caught on in English (on & off & on, but it's certainly practiced these days), whereas very few poets in English (so far as I've noted) have opted to practice the ballade. I'd like to see what Swinburne did. A poem like this of Villon's is formidable. I'm somewhat hankering to learn the form myself (including the rhyme structure found in the French -- not evident in Galway's translation). (But perhaps I was thinking of the sestina and the ballade? Well, the point stands: sestinas are essayed in English; ballades, it seems, are not. Which naturally lends the form further interest.)

Ah, well here is Swinburne's translation of one Villon ballade -- a more verbose form of it (with 10-line rather than 8-line stanzas). I'm more interested in the 8-line form.

Ah well, here is a(n 8-lines-per-stanza) ballade of Villon's in the original -- which may suffice to instruct in the proper form. "But where are the snows of yesteryear?" asks the refrain. Ah but I barely can make my way through the presumed sound of the French (leave aside the question of meaning) -- so parsing the rhyme structure is a bit harder than I'd thought. Here's a try.

Dictes moy ou, n'en quel pays, [A]
Est Flora la belle Rommaine, [B]
Archipiades ne Thaïs, [A]
Qui fut sa cousine germaine, [B]
Echo parlant quant bruyt on maine [B]
Dessus riviere ou sus estan, [C]
Qui beaulté ot trop plus q'humaine. [B]
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? [C]

Ou est la tres sage Helloïs, [A]
Pour qui chastré fut et puis moyne [B]
Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis? [A]
Pour son amour ot ceste essoyne. [B]
Semblablement, ou est la royne [B]
Qui commanda que Buridan [C]
Fust geté en ung sac en Saine? [B]
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? [C]

La royne Blanche comme lis [A]
Qui chantoit a voix de seraine, [B]
Berte au grand pié, Beatris, Alis, [A]
Haremburgis qui tint le Maine, [B]
Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine [B]
Qu'Englois brulerent a Rouan; [C]
Ou sont ilz, ou, Vierge souvraine? [B]
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? [C]

Prince, n'enquerez de sepmaine [B]
Ou elles sont, ne de cest an, [C]
Qu'a ce reffrain ne vous remaine: [B]
Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? [C]

Ah, so it seems to be:
ABAB BCBC
ABAB BCBC
ABAB BCBC
BCBC
good!

The hint of rhyming in Merwin's poem is subtle, but it appears to follow the same pattern. He opts for 4 stanzas of 8 lines (rather than the truncated "envoy" of the conventional ballade). But it's interesting to note the light rhyming, thus:

By now I know most of the faces [A]
that will appear beside me as [B]
long as there are still images [A]
I know at last what I would choose [B]
the next time if there ever was [B]
a time again I know the days [C]
that open in the dark like this [B]
I do not know where Maoli is [C]

(though what I'm presuming to call A, B and C rhymes are so similar, we really end with a couplet).

I know the summer surfaces [A]
of bodies and the tips of voices [B]
like stars out of their distances [A]
and where the music turns to noise [B]
I know the bargains in the news [B]
rules whole languages formulas [A]
wisdom that I will never use [B]
I do not know where Maoli is [A]

Again, this is not precise. Now he varies the pattern a bit --

I know whatever one may lose [B]
somebody will be there who says [A]
what it will be all right to miss [B]
and what is verging on excess [A]
I know the shadows of the house [A]
routes that lead out to no traces [B]
many of his empty places [B]
I do not know where Maoli is [A]

You that see now with your own eyes [A]
all that there is as you suppose [B]
though I could stare through broken glass [A]
and show you where the morning goes [B]
though I could follow to their close [B]
the sparks of an exploding species [A]
and see where the world ends in ice [A]
I would not know where Maoli is [A]

(at least approximately!)

See also my recent, earlier rumination on Merwin.

33 | "American shame" [pantoum]

2006-09-29T01:10:00.000-07:00

This is a day and time of American shame
the monster we decry we must not mimic
when fast and loose you play in such a game
the gun of fear is no mere nasty gimmick

the monster we decry we must not mimic
this is a basic principle for the civilized
the gun of fear is no mere nasty gimmick
who'd dream the Magna Carta would be trivialized?

this is a basic principle for the civilized
brutality contradicts our human aim
who'd dream the Magna Carta would be trivialized?
this is a day and time of American shame

=======

Responsive to the headline "Senate Passes Detainee Bill Sought by President Bush" (in the New York Times online)

By KATE ZERNIKE 31 minutes ago
The bill, approved 65 to 34, establishes far-reaching new rules on the treatment of terrorism suspects and is expected to go to the president by week’s end.

Senator Barack Obama (Democrat of Illinois) expressed the central issue succinctly, when he said, "I think most Americans would agree that if somebody is held they should at least be able to respond to the charges. The fact we don’t have that is something that, over time, Americans are going to be embarrassed about."

Cross-posted to DesiCritics.

This is no. 33 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

32 | "About words" [pantoum]

2006-09-29T00:55:00.000-07:00

No more poems about words!
no more lines about lines!
birds can sing about birds
poems sing about minds
no more lines about lines!
draw a box around that
poems sing about minds
using minds to ground that

draw a box around that
place it on a table
using minds to ground that
make the substance stable
place it on a table
microscope its matter
make the substance stable
store it on a platter

microscope its matter
where is mind in utterance?
store it on a platter
bring the bread its butterance
where is mind in utterance?
must it always shout words?
bring the bread its butterance
no more poems about words!

=======

This is no. 32 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

31 | "Buzz-tools" [pantoum]

2006-09-29T00:43:00.000-07:00

If in words we must speak
these symbols that sound
if thoughts we must seek
as we curl on the ground
these symbols that sound
buzz-tools with soft edges
as we curl on the ground
by meaningful hedges

buzz-tools with soft edges
in tones grown congenial
by meaningful hedges
or meaningless finial
in tones grown congenial
or stifling for sameness
or meaningless finial
or popular lameness

or stifling for sameness
or peppered with feints
or popular lameness
or out-of-style ain'ts
or peppered with feints
shall we salt it with Greek
or out-of-style ain'ts
if in words we must speak?

=======

This is no. 31 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

30 | "The sonata as a boat" [pantoum]

2006-09-28T23:40:00.000-07:00

This would be a good day to go sailing
this would be a fine time to tune fiddles
there's little wind I wouldn't call it galing
there's questions in the form of cozy riddles
this would be a fine time to tune fiddles
if only one were schooled in how to play
there's questions in the form of cozy riddles
they need small answers or petite dismay

if only one were schooled in how to play
concertos and sonatas would be beckoning
they need small answers or petite dismay
a smile or yawn a sense of idle reckoning
concertos and sonatas would be beckoning
the audience all hushed up in the rafters
a smile or yawn a sense of idle reckoning
at every phrase a promise of hereafters

the audience all hushed up in the rafters
the sonata as a boat amid its blueness
at every phrase a promise of hereafters
the schertzo fills with tales of olden newness
the sonata as a boat amid its blueness
mightn't the painting finally find unveiling?
the schertzo fills with tales of olden newness
this would be a good day to go sailing

=======

This poem's first line is borrowed the following passage of Ann Lauterbach's poem "Tangled Reliquary":

This would be a good day to go sailing
Or to wash the car, but I have
Neither boat nor car. There's a plotless web
In the air like a banner pulling us along
Into something to look back on. . . .

from Clamor (1991)

This is no. 30 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums

29 | "The source is underwater" [pantoum]

2006-09-28T17:34:00.000-07:00

We are what seas have made us
longingly immense
if trees may come to shade us
it seems a sweet defense
longingly immense
dimension proves pelagic
it seems a sweet defense
though oceans can be tragic

dimension proves pelagic
existence acts oneiric
though oceans can be tragic
I'm not a fusty cleric
existence acts oneiric
the source is underwater
I'm not a fusty cleric
I'd wed the merman's daughter

the source is underwater
yet on the land we live
I'd wed the merman's daughter
but have no shells to give
yet on the land we live
the roadways now parade us
but have no shells to give
we are what seas have made us

=======

This poem's first two lines are borrowed from a poem by Lorraine Nedecker (the words appearing as three lines in her short poem). The source poem (as net-published) is evidently drawn from Lorine Niedecker: Collected Works (2002).

This is no. 29 in a sequence, Early Autumn Pantoums