- It’s superficial. Surfaces are beautiful and necessary, especially to us primates with our extreme reliance on vision.
- Chaucer Doth Tweet.
Yn Norse mythologye, the realme of thos wyth a persistent cold ys yclept Sniflheim.
— Chaucer Doth Tweet (@LeVostreGC) November 2, 2013
- Enforced concision has a way of sorting the sheep from the goats where writers and humorists are concerned.
Book of Martyrs
Office. Then dined at home, and by chance Mr. Holliard called at dinner time and dined with me, with whom I had great discourse concerning the cure of the King’s evil, which he do deny altogether any effect at all.
In the afternoon I went forth and saw some silver bosses put upon my new Bible, which cost me 6s. 6d. the making, and 7s. 6d. the silver, which, with 9s. 6d. the book, comes in all to 1l. 3s. 6d. From thence with Mr. Cooke that made them, and Mr. Stephens the silversmith to the tavern, and did give them a pint of wine. So to White Hall, where when I came I saw the boats going very thick to Lambeth, and all the stairs to be full of people. I was told the Queen was a-coming; so I got a sculler for sixpence to carry me thither and back again, but I could not get to see the Queen; so come back, and to my Lord’s, where he was come; and I supt with him, he being very merry, telling merry stories of the country mayors, how they entertained the King all the way as he come along; and how the country gentlewomen did hold up their heads to be kissed by the King, not taking his hand to kiss as they should do. I took leave of my Lord and Lady, and so took coach at White Hall and carried Mr. Childe as far as the Strand, and myself got as far as Ludgate by all the bonfires, but with a great deal of trouble; and there the coachman desired that I would release him, for he durst not go further for the fires. So he would have had a shilling or 6d. for bringing of me so far; but I had but 3d. about me and did give him it. In Paul’s church-yard I called at Kirton’s, and there they had got a mass book for me, which I bought and cost me twelve shillings; and, when I came home, sat up late and read in it with great pleasure to my wife, to hear that she was long ago so well acquainted with. So to bed.
I observed this night very few bonfires in the City, not above three in all London, for the Queen’s coming; whereby I guess that (as I believed before) her coming do please but very few.
A great evil I saw:
a book comes
to give stairs to people,
but they hold up their heads
to be kissed, not to kiss.
And so bonfires
desire the book
and read it with pleasure
to that long night, the city.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Friday 2 November 1660.
Poem Beginning With a Typo by Nicelle Davis
I would rather stable myself in the eye
than hazard the high saddle of the nose
or wander across the shoulder blade’s
desolate salt. I would rather wallow
in the vitreous humor than smother
under the belly button’s lint.
And oh, the keening of the wind
as it passes over the bottle mouth of the ear!
Bodies are treacherous & prone
to spells of heat. Keep me as
the apple of the eye, cool & crisp.
*
In a recent post at her blog, California poet Nicelle Davis used the phrase “I would rather stable myself in the eye,” which struck me as so poetically correct that I couldn’t imagine what “stable” might be a typo for, and had to click through from Feedly to find out (“stab,” of course). I hope she doesn’t mind my drawing attention to what I’m sure was some device’s autocorrect mistake.
L’esprit d’escalier
This morning Sir W. Pen and I were mounted early, and had very merry discourse all the way, he being very good company.
We came to Sir W. Batten’s, where he lives like a prince, and we were made very welcome. Among other things he showed us my Lady’s closet, where was great store of rarities; as also a chair, which he calls King Harry’s chair, where he that sits down is catched with two irons, that come round about him, which makes good sport. Here dined with us two or three more country gentle men; among the rest Mr. Christmas, my old school-fellow, with whom I had much talk. He did remember that I was a great Roundhead when I was a boy, and I was much afraid that he would have remembered the words that I said the day the King was beheaded (that, were I to preach upon him, my text should be “The memory of the wicked shall rot”); but I found afterwards that he did go away from school before that time.
He did make us good sport in imitating Mr. Case, Ash, and Nye, the ministers, which he did very well, but a deadly drinker he is, and grown exceeding fat. From his house to an ale-house near the church, where we sat and drank and were merry, and so we mounted for London again, Sir W. Batten with us. We called at Bow and drank there, and took leave of Mr. Johnson of Blackwall, who dined with us and rode with us thus far.
So home by moonlight, it being about 9 o’clock before we got home.
I batten like a mad king
on remembered words.
My text should be: “The memory
of the wicked shall rot.”
After I go, I make sport
in imitating the dead,
grown fat on moonlight.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Thursday 1 November 1660.
Catskin Banjo (videopoem)
A semi-narrative videopoem using footage and music from the documentary And So They Live (1940) by John Ferno and Julian Roffman and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. I first tried to make a banjo videopoem with footage from this documentary three years ago, but chose the wrong poem (“Banjo Proverbs”) — it didn’t work. Even for this one, I felt compelled to minimize the amount of screen time devoted to the banjo player, Richard Berry, in part because the banjo he’s playing is not the kind of homemade catskin banjo described in the text. But I wanted to use the film somehow for at least one of the Breakdown videos. Its subjects deserve better than the treatment they got with the original narration, which stresses their supposedly extreme ignorance, poverty, malnutrition and disease. One suspects the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, named after the founder of General Motors, of ulterior motives in seeking to cast subsistence economies not dependent upon the automobile as the essence of deprivation. It does, however, show that the use of the banjo as a marker for hillbilly backwardness long predates the 1972 movie Deliverance.
I am indebted to the graphic artist and collector of American roots music R. Crumb for identifying the banjoist in the film. Also, it’s worth noting that my friend Marc Neys, A.K.A. Swoon, independently discovered And So They Live in the Prelinger Archives, and has used snippets of it in two of his videopoems: Odds and Ends, featuring a text by Joseph Harker, and The Pioneer Wife Speaks in Tongues, featuring a text by the wonderful Donna Vorreyer. As Marc put it, the documentary contains “some great looking shots but a typical and very patronizing narration.”
News junkie
Office day. Much troubled all this morning in my mind about the business of my walk on the leads. I spoke of it to the Comptroller and the rest of the principal officers, who are all unwilling to meddle in anything that may anger my Lady Davis. And so I am fain to give over for the time that she do continue therein.
Dined at home, and after dinner to Westminster Hall, where I met with Billing the quaker at Mrs. Michell’s shop, who is still of the former opinion he was of against the clergymen of all sorts, and a cunning fellow I find him to be. Home, and there I had news that Sir W. Pen is resolved to ride to Sir W. Batten’s country house to-morrow, and would have me go with him, so I sat up late, getting together my things to ride in, and was fain to cut an old pair of boots to make leathers for those I was to wear.
This month I conclude with my mind very heavy for the loss of the leads, as also for the greatness of my late expenses, insomuch that I do not think that I have above 150l. clear money in the world, but I have, I bless God, a great deal of good household stuff.
I hear to-day that the Queen is landed at Dover, and will be here on Friday next, November 2nd.
My wife has been so ill of late of her old pain that I have not known her this fortnight almost, which is a pain to me.
A troll in anger, I quake
at the news:
the heavy loss,
the greatness of the world.
But I hear the land and
her old pain that I have
not known.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 31 October 1660.
Medicine Show (videopoem)
The second poem from my collection Breakdown: Banjo Poems is the 11th to get the videopoetry treatment — not because I don’t care for the text, but because it was damn hard to figure out how to do it. I hope I got it right. (The title in the collection is actually “Medicine Show (1).”)
Video footage is courtesy of the Image Science & Analysis Laboratory, NASA Johnson Space Center. I still think the International Space Station is a colossal waste of money, hardly justified by the few science experiments they conduct. But it sure is a great source of imagery of the earth, and all in the public domain! I downloaded many more videos than I needed, then looked for those that were shot in the same or similar ways. Since the space station orbits in the opposite direction from the rotation of the earth, the direction of travel in those that cross the Americas or the Atlantic is back toward Africa, though I don’t expect that point to be immediately obvious to viewers. Mostly, I was looking for images of calabash- or banjo-type things, epic voyages, the suggestion of sails or oars, the suggestion of dancing, a certain whiff of the hereafter…
“Down to the Valley to Pray” is played clawhammer-style by Tim Hosgood on SoundCloud, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. He’s kind of self-deprecating about his playing, but the track was just what this needed, I thought. The heartbeat recording is from freesound.org user GrimmjowJ, who released it into the public domain. My first draft of the video used a recording of my own heartbeat that I’d made on a sudden whim just before recording my first take of the reading, but the H2 digital recorder was not the best instrument for that, and I realized I had to find something more recognizable. I did numerous takes of the voice recording, trying to keep from sounding too melodramatic and to speak from the diaphragm. I also experimented with increasing the volume of my intakes of breath during the reading, but ultimately felt that was a bit too much. I wanted to make the soundtrack feel as embodied as possible so as not to reinforce the footage’s ethereal spaciness.
As an American writer, I feel that the Middle Passage is a part of our history we absolutely must grapple with — especially if we’re white (and in my case, the descendent of slaveholders). I’m not entirely satisfied with the way Breakdown: Banjo Poems deals with slavery and racism, but all the more reason to keep working on it with some of these videos. I hope also to make a video for the poem “Dueling Banjo,” which quotes a former slave’s recollection of how banjos were used to take revenge on especially cruel masters.
Homunculus
Within all the morning and dined at home, my mind being so troubled that I could not mind nor do anything till I spoke with the Comptroller to whom the lodgings belong. In the afternoon, to ease my mind, I went to the Cockpit all alone, and there saw a very fine play called “The Tamer Tamed;” very well acted.
That being done, I went to Mr. Crew’s, where I had left my boy, and so with him and Mr. Moore (who would go a little way with me home, as he will always do) to the Hercules Pillars to drink, where we did read over the King’s declaration in matters of religion, which is come out to-day, which is very well penned, I think to the satisfaction of most people.
So home, where I am told Mr. Davis’s people have broken open the bolt of my chamber door that goes upon the leads, which I went up to see and did find it so, which did still trouble me more and more. And so I sent for Griffith, and got him to search their house to see what the meaning of it might be, but can learn nothing to-night. But I am a little pleased that I have found this out.
I hear nothing yet of my Lord, whether he be gone for the Queen from the Downs or no; but I believe he is, and that he is now upon coming back again.
Within my mind
a mind I long to tame—
a left boy, a little Hercules,
the king of ham.
I find trouble
and learn nothing.
But I am a little
pleased at this nothing,
my no that is no.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Tuesday 30 October 1660.
Partisan
I up early, it being my Lord Mayor’s day, (Sir Richd. Browne), and neglecting my office I went to the Wardrobe, where I met my Lady Sandwich and all the children; and after drinking of some strange and incomparable good clarett of Mr. Rumball’s he and Mr. Townsend did take us, and set the young Lords at one Mr. Nevill’s, a draper in Paul’s churchyard; and my Lady and my Lady Pickering and I to one Mr. Isaacson’s, a linendraper at the Key in Cheapside; where there was a company of fine ladies, and we were very civilly treated, and had a very good place to see the pageants, which were many, and I believe good, for such kind of things, but in themselves but poor and absurd. After the ladies were placed I took Mr. Townsend and Isaacson to the next door, a tavern, and did spend 5s. upon them. The show being done, we got as far as Paul’s with much ado, where I left my Lady in the coach, and went on foot with my Lady Pickering to her lodging, which was a poor one in Blackfryars, where she never invited me to go in at all, which methought was very strange for her to do.
So home, where I was told how my Lady Davis is now come to our next lodgings, and has locked up the leads door from me, which puts me into so great a disquiet that I went to bed, and could not sleep till morning at it.
In the war of good and evil
I pick one side:
the pageants, the show.
Poor thought is a locked door,
a quiet morning.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 29 October 1660.
Shackleton’s Banjo (videopoem)
My tenth banjo videopoem is for one of my favorite texts from the collection. It was prompted by a story on the BBC (which also, incidentally, spawned an effort to manufacture replicas of Shackleton’s banjo for sale in the UK).
The footage is from a silent, color documentary of Admiral Byrd’s 1939-1941 expedition to Antarctica, filmed by unspecified cameramen for the National Archives and Records Administration. There was a great deal of footage that could’ve worked with this poem: seal hunts on the ice, lots of shots of icebergs and other maritime and Antarctic scenery, even scruffy guys clowning around in close quarters. But after much agonizing I decided to stick with penguins, because penguins and banjos just seem like complementary concepts.
For the soundtrack, I blended an atmospheric, experimental piece called “Arctic core samples” by someone who goes by the name of admiral bellybutton on SoundCloud with a digitally altered version of my brother Steve playing “Shady Grove” on clawhammer banjo. Usually finding the right music is the most time-consuming part of making a videopoem, but this time I found it immediately with “arctic” as my only search term on SoundCloud. “Arctic core samples” was made in response to a weekly prompt for the experimental music group Disquiet Junto. The instructions were simple: “Please record the sound of an ice cube rattling in a glass, and make something of it.” Admiral bellybutton says:
For some unknown reason, my brain thought of scientists taking core samples from glaciers and ice shelves. So, I sampled ice in four different glasses to create the bed. Then I took discrete samples from ice in a wine glass as it melted (a longitudinal study?).
The samples for the bed were processed through paul stretch. The longitudinal samples were put in chronological order (meltiest to most frozen) and then routed through Guitar Rig’s Ice reverb. All mixed in Reaper.
I then thought of making a time-lapse video of icicles melting on my roof. vimeo.com/admiralbellybutton/icelapse
*
In a comment on my last videopoem, British poet Dick Jones writes, “I have yet to venture into video poetry. Could you point me in the right direction?” My response: I guess my list of free online resources would be the best place to start. I’ve been doing these banjo videopoems exclusively with found footage, and also using the quite primitive video editing software on my machine, Windows Movie Maker, which I believe is slightly less advanced than iMovie if you have a Mac, or Quicktime. I use Audacity, which is free to download, for audio mixing. I have a somewhat pricey microphone, a Zoom H2, for recording my readings, though the first three were done just with the microphone on a Logitech webcam, and I thought they were adequate, if not terrific. (I’ll re-record them eventually.)
I don’t think these videos actually sell many books; that’s not the point, for me. The point is they represent a new form of creative endeavor involving poetry, and they’re a blast to make!