BOB DYLAN, BRIAN JONES, THE BEATLES’ AESTHETICS, THE STAPLE SINGERS, AND THE SOMEWHAT OVERRATED STONES

May 20, 2024 at 8:55 pm (Allen Klein, Andrew Loog Oldham, Bob Dylan, Brian Jones, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Scarriet Editors, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Staple Singers)

Mick and Keith. Still rocking in their 80s. Their lasting fame will be the Jagger/Richards songs.

There is no good Rolling Stones album.

From the beginning, the Rolling Stones were a touring outfit who were “sexier” than the Beatles, gaining an important niche as the anti-Beatles (even as they covered one of the Beatles songs).

The fake Stones-Beatles rivalry, engineered by Stones’ management, paid enormous dividends—mediocre Stones covers of 50s blues music climbed the charts simply due to the Stones’ image. Music is a funny thing. Most people cannot tell the difference whether a Beethoven piece is played by a different pianist or a different orchestra with a different conductor, or not. It’s just Beethoven. But in the visual performing world of rock and roll, even the simplest blues number, whether that song is performed by the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, presents a stark contrast.

In the new genre of rock and roll, performance is all. The song is nothing. Yet, paradoxically, songs, in popular music, are still the coin of the realm, and Lennon-McCartney songs, more than anything else, were the Beatles’ ticket to fame. The Stones, who made their first public splash as a cover band, lived for a while in a “beggar’s banquet.” They had to borrow songs, including one by the Beatles.

The group of ruffians called the “Rolling Stones” from a Muddy Waters tune, who were from the middle class London area, only became songwriters because Andrew Oldham, the band’s manager, felt songwriting royalties would be a valuable addition to their long-term portfolio—and, because of the Beatles “rivalry,” Lennon-McCartney meant there had to be Jagger-Richards. But who actually wrote the Stones songs has never been clear.

The untold story of the Stones song-writing is probably the most fascinating thing about the Stones.

Oldham ditched his sober, older and more experienced management partner in early 1965 for the rapacious businessman Allen Klein (who later managed the Beatles.) Bill Wyman objected. Mick Jagger was all for it.

Oldham knew Mick Jagger would be the perfect anti-Beatles front man.

Jagger certainly had a swaggering vibe which had more popular clout than the harmonious cuteness of the Beatles. Jagger and Richards had intelligence, ambition, and talent. The anti-Beatles thing was real.

Klein’s strategy, which Oldham was keen on, had two parts:

First, set up a company which took all the Stones money (which Klein invested, enriching himself).

Second, play hard ball with the Stones’ record company (Decca) and offer the Stones a great deal (but which, as written in the fine print, Klein himself controlled for 20 years.)

Klein’s plan was helped by the fact that if the Stones were paid all at once, most of it would have disappeared in taxes.

On paper, the Stones were rich—but it was Klein who was getting rich for real.

Oldham and Klein both knew what they were selling: the songwriting team of Jagger/Richards as personified by the band (for now) in person.

It was Mick and Keith who were convincing the other Stones to go along with Klein and Oldham’s swindle—mostly because the swindle involved Mick and Keith as “songwriters.”

It is probably no accident that Mick and Keith are the two surviving original Stones. Your songs are your immortality.

The band’s founder, Brian Jones quickly came to be seen as unreliable by Mick and Keith.

And more importantly, by Oldham, the manager.

Jones had more musical talent and slept with more women than Keith and Mick, but he wasn’t a businessman and had no common sense. He was a true troublemaker. His genius included impatience and laziness because everything came too easy to him. He got bored with the mother of all rock instruments, the guitar, and would play other things. He knew songwriting was essentially stealing and he couldn’t take it seriously, too hypercritical to admire anything he “wrote.” He had no filter. He had children out of wedlock. He was impulsive. He could be deeply inconsiderate and insulting, but on a whim. He didn’t hire protectors or enforcers, like Oldham did. That wasn’t Brian’s style. But unfortunately for him, he could be offensive, nonetheless. One can see it on live TV (the old Mike Douglas show) where Brian announces to the host only men like Mick. Who knows what joke Brian was trying to make—the point was, the audience back then must have been somewhat shocked and felt Mick was insulted. Brian didn’t care about things other people cared about (that was part of his genius)—and Keith and Mick not only hated him and were jealous of him, but were afraid he was going to do something in public to ruin their chance to make a fortune. Oldham felt the same way.

My making Jagger and Richards the “songwriters” (they were not the only songwriters by a long shot) Oldham could better control the two most ambitious members of the band (and the divided band to which they belonged, including Brian) and by controlling Mick and Keith, Oldham could force the Stones into deals such as the one he, as manager, made with his new partner, Allen Klein.

Oldham had a side gig, called the Andrew Oldham Orchestra—which recorded string-backed instrumentals of early 1965 Rolling Stones songs credited to Jagger/Richards. Why would Oldham, a bad boy himself and a busy manager of the baddest boys in rock, do such a thing? One can only assume he was trying to promote a source of wealth—the Jagger/Richards songwriting brand. Successful songwriters who write songs covered by others was the cash cow (following the lead of the Beatles) which Oldham imagined for his band. Songwriting prowess sealed the deal.

Did anyone think it was strange the way the Stones, a cover band, overnight, became a “Jagger/Richards” band?

The first A-side single written by the Stones (Jagger/Richards) was released in January of 1965—“Last Time,” a blatant rip-off of “This May Be The Last Time” by the gospel group The Staple Singers (1954). “Last Time” by “Jagger/Richards” went to number one just as Klein and Oldham were pushing their life-changing deal on the Stones in the spring of 1965. The Andrew Oldham Orchestra recorded “Last Time”—which was sampled by The Verve for their hit “Bittersweet Symphony.”

Allen Klein sued and won royalties for Jagger/Richards. The strings sample taken by Ashcroft of the Verve was from the Oldham Orchestra version, not the Jagger/Richards recording.

But that didn’t matter. Jagger/Richards was the brand. The shell company.

The Staple Singers version, the Andrew Oldham Orchestra version, and the Stones version all sound very different—although one can hear the chorus, words, and melody of the Jagger/Richards song in the earlier Staple Singers song.

It’s the performance, not the song.

And yet the song—no matter how sexy the band member is—is where fame and fortune lie.

Oldham was smart enough to know this. Mick and Keith learned this quickly.

Bill, the stone-faced bass player, (who helped write Stones songs) knew but didn’t really have a say in the Stones. He was older and was along for the ride. (He slept with more groupies than even Brian.)

Brian knew, resented the situation, and sunk into dionysian behavior.

The guitar riff which makes the Staple Singers rip-off and first Jagger/Richards A-side single, “Last Time,” distinctive—it’s the hook (not heard in the Staples Singers song) which gives it the “Stones sound” and makes it a hit—is played by none other than Brian Jones—the loose cannon of the band who was not given one songwriting credit. You can go on You Tube and see him playing it. It’s a 99% surety he wrote it.

The story gets more bizarre.

In May of 1965, Brian Jones was accused by a groupie of rape—which the Stones were able to make go away—and in the meantime they had Brian beaten up (in the hospital with broken ribs; the press was told he slipped by a swimming pool, an ominous precursor to Brian’s actual death 4 years later.) The very next day in that fateful month, Keith Richards (as the famous anecdote goes of him waking up and finding something on his tape recorder) came up with the crude riff to “Satisfaction,” the song hit which would propel “Jagger/Richards” to lasting fame.

The famous guitar riff of “Satisfaction” sounds eerily similar to the repeating riff played by Brian Jones in “Last Time.”

When touring became the Stones’ money-making staple starting in 1969 (the year Brian died mysteriously), song-writing, which had been important to the band for a few years, receded into the background. The Stones, or should we say, Jagger/Richards, had enough fame and enough songs to make them quite comfortable. Now all they had to do was tour—and become very rich. Brian Jones by then was certainly no longer necessary—which was probably the plan all along, once the Stones had their foot in the door.

The Stones rise to fame from 1964 to 1966 was phenomenal.

It took the Stones less than three years to go from their first recording (a Chuck Berry cover) in 1963 to issuing a greatest hits album in 1966 (with a lot of 1950s covers).

Interestingly, when the “Brian Jones Stones” flourished, the Stones (still) best and most original work (1965 to 1968) was outside the hard core blues they are—and initially were—known for.

Think of those all those great Stones songs that were soft, country, Dylan-esque or psychedelic—which sometimes didn’t fit Mick’s voice, didn’t need his dancing, or require Richards’ signature guitar work (learned from Jones). What they mainly featured was lovely parts played on obscure musical instruments by Brian Jones.

There was one, final, odd thing.

The death of the Stones’ songwriting, which coincided with the death of Brian Jones, was hailed by establishment music critics as a “triumphant return” by the Stones to their “blues roots.”

Their Satanic Majesties Request album, released in December of 1967 (the Stones somehow missed the Summer of Love) was panned for being a poor imitation of the Beatles Sgt Pepper—which it was, and yet it satisfied the function of every Stones album: one, two, maybe three worthy songs mixed in with the quickly forgotten.

Unlike the Beatles, the Stones couldn’t pull off an entire album of wonderful songs.

“2000 Light Years From Home” easily rivals anything the Stones ever wrote—the zeitgeist dragged them into psychedelia, which did not play to Mick or Keith’s strengths.

The band as a whole more than thrived when the Stones abandoned blues covers and came up with songs like “Paint It Black,” “Ruby Tuesday,” and “2000 Light Years From Home.” The failure of their 1967 album, however, was how miserably silly it sounded next to Sgt Pepper, which had been released in May of 1967. And at last it came into the open: Copycat losers of the Beatles!

But the Stones got their revenge.

Mick was a workaholic. He danced and sang and wrote lyrics, knowing he had to be better than Brian.

After Brian began to sink into drug abuse, Mick danced and sang and wrote lyrics, knowing he had to avenge the humiliation of 1967.

And Mick Jagger is still going strong.

It’s quite amazing.

Keith was known for loving the blues and hating the Stones’ psychedelic period (that period looked better on Brian) but whoever wrote the Stones songs (it is said Keith wrote almost all the music), even a lay person can peruse the sheet music of the Stones compositions and see the simple blues or folk chords, (similar to Dylan, actually) no matter the era—“2000 Light Years From Home” uses classic blues chords: E, A7, E, G, A, B, E. (!!) Was that Keith playing a sly, ironic, joke? (The blues can go anywhere baby! Even into space! Har har)

Great songwriting doesn’t require much complexity—it’s only the mystery of how a great and unique song finds it way onto a record which is what we might call complex.

The Beatles threw down a challenge with Sgt Pepper’s, their 1967 “concept album” but who met that challenge? The Who, with Tommy, Pink Floyd with Dark Side of the Moon. The album as truly coherent, an album more than an album—the Beatles initial triumph was the best of its kind. Tommy brought out good song writing in the Who, but the super-imposed story of a Helen-Keller-pinball-wizard-rock-star dragged down the concept a little. Pink Floyd’s record does not quite succeed as a whole—though parts of it are excellent. The dreamy template, without any forced “story,” but feeling like one piece, which the Beatles produced, has never been matched.

Paul McCartney had the idea to make a Beatles record in which the band would step outside of themselves as a band to self-consciously record an album without any “hits,” but an album understood as a whole, one with a beginning, a middle, and an end. The genius here is that it wasn’t about a story. It was a concept. Just having a concept is the concept—and that proved to be enough, given the superior songwriting.

Paul was a superior guy, funny, cute, a genius, and hard-driving—and worse, came across as a superior guy—and he did rub the other three Beatles the wrong way.

Paul and John both lost their mothers as teens—their success was probably due to the fact that they were forgetting personal tragedy—as they were crying out about what they had lost—in their songs.

“Yesterday” is Paul saying that despite being at the top of the world, he would trade it all just to spend one day with his mother, again. (She was a saint, and he loved her.)

The mother stuff is completely hidden, of course, by the song itself. One doesn’t have to hear “Yesterday” this way (it doesn’t mention his mother, etc)—but I’m betting this is what it’s about.

Great art is when the ‘real subject’ does not elude the author—even as the art work hides from it.

The early songwriting which made the Beatles famous was innocent.

“I Want To Hold Your Hand” starts with a guy sharing a secret with a girl—and he says, “I think you’ll understand.” And what is this secret? “I want to hold your hand.”

We live in a less innocent time now. (Not that the Beatles, then, were innocent. I’m talking about the public impression.) We tend to forget how profound and thrilling these innocent lyrics were. It was observed at the time, but doesn’t get mentioned much now.

This is why it was easy for the Stones to play their role as the sexier Beatles. (A sub-text of a lot of Stones songs was ‘nerd who couldn’t get a girl becomes long-haired rock star who now very much can.’)

The Beatles initial appeal was joyful (tinged with melancholy) innocence. “She loves you.’ Etc.

Paul, as a solo artist, finally achieved critical acclaim with the album, Band on the Run.

Paul was accused of being “silly,” and he wrote the song, “Silly Love Songs” in response. But Paul was silly. This was a legitimate criticism.

“Band on the Run,” the opening number and hit single of the album, is a good song, but compared to the work he did with the Beatles, it doesn’t quite make it.

One can see it in the lyrics.

The song fails as a work of art because Paul is not aware, as an artist, what he is writing about.

He’s not writing about “a band on the run.”

What the song is really about is Paul, the ex-Beatle, stuck in 1975, where he has lost his way, in silliness, without his band mates. He’s missing the 1960s.

It has a similar theme to “Yesterday,” but Paul must have told himself, “I will not reprise that song. I don’t want to be seen courting success by trying to write new versions of “Yesterday.” That song is sacred to me.” This perhaps inhibited Paul a little bit. “Yesterday,” feeling-wise, says a lot. It can’t be easy to say it, again.

“Band on the Run” is good, the concept OK, but the lyrics are trite and silly.

People don’t hate a person for being silly, so much as they hate a person who projects silliness—because it is felt this (superior) person secretly feels the whole world is silly compared to them.

After he left the Beatles, Paul became sillier and sillier.

“Never seeing no one… nice again,” Paul sings.

“Nice” is a trite word. What Paul really means at the beginning of “Band on the Run” is that he is trapped without seeing anyone who remembers him as he was—in the 1960s, when he was at the top of his game. It has nothing to do with “nice.” A silly word. The wrong word. And it hurts the lyric. It makes it less personal—it’s not honest; it’s Paul not acknowledging what this song is really about.

More trite lyrics: “the rain exploded with mighty crash.”

Mighty?

“Jailor man and sailor sam.”

Sailor Sam?

“I hope you’re having fun.”

Fun?

You get the idea. The general theme is fine. But John and George, if Paul brought this song to them when the Beatles were together, would have shamed him into making the song better.

The irony is that Paul, writing the song, “Band on the Run,” doesn’t realize what he is writing about is not a “band on the run” having “fun” as it escapes from its “four walls.”

The song is not as moving or poignant as it could be because Paul is not aware that the song is more personal—it is about himself stuck in 1975 and missing his fame with the Beatles—the real “band on the run.”

Or, more universally, the song, “Band on the Run,” could be about any band, including the Stones “on the run” from the band itself, from being trapped in business machinations and personal differences.

It’s not the Wings who are “on the run.”

Paul, the artist, is not aware, of what his song is truly about—which actually diminishes the quality of the song. Paul was playing out being “silly” in an unconscious act of passive-aggression (I can write silly no. 1 songs if I want).

The album Band on the Run is overrated.

Ram is better.

But of course, the Beatles are better than Wings. Multiple songwriters are always better than one.

Band on the Run is overrated and every high quality Stones album is overrated (because they all had two good songs and filler—they didn’t have what it takes to make a concept album).

Blood on the Tracks is overrated.

Bob Dylan’s New Morning is better, never mind the masterpiece, Blonde on Blonde.

“Blonde on blonde” references the famous relationship of Brian Jones and his blonde girl friend, Anita Pallenberg—(who ended up with Keith!)

Blood on the Tracks is like a diary.

New Morning is a poem, by comparison.

Dylan, too, never tried a concept album—he just wasn’t that kind of artist.

It’s not easy to say less of what you want in a song—and to make a number of them all cohere, without getting into another genre—the musical.

It’s probably impossible.

Scarriet Editors
Salem, MA

2 Comments

MARCH MADNESS 2024 THE WEST

March 21, 2024 at 2:28 pm (Aristotle, Brian Jones, John Crowe Ransom, John Keats, Keith Richards, March Madness, Michelangelo, Paul McCartney, William Shakespeare)

WEST BRACKET

  1. St. Augustine v. 16 Graham
  2. Pirandello v. 15 Ransom
  3. Richards v. 14 Blackmur
  4. McCartney v. 13 Michelangelo
  5. Allen v. 12 Shakespeare
  6. Peacock v. 11 Keats
  7. Klavan v. 10 Bryant
  8. Milton v. 9 Aristotle
  9. Aristotle
  10. Bryant
  11. Keats
  12. Shakespeare
  13. Michelangelo
  14. Blackmur
  15. Ransom
  16. Graham

    Sport goes about its ignorant business in the nether region between art and war; sport is closer to war—there is a “winner” in both. Art has no “winner” and wants nothing to do with “winning,” and therefore sports and art are oil and water. War is “winning at all costs”—and the question of what “all costs” entails brings philosophy to the table; is it inevitable that sports is “winning at all costs,” too? Many suspect that sports is a racket; that it’s fixed—but none could really enjoy sports if they really believed this, so most don’t believe this, even if they suspect it’s true. “Winning” is always true in war—but “winning” may not be truly “winning” in sports—if cheating and manipulation is at the bottom of it. Art stands apart from the “winning” business; but just as philosophy is reluctantly dragged in to settle the dispute—how much is sports a “winning at all costs” enterprise?—art is made a part of the equation; there is an “art” to winning; there is an “art” to cheating; what is art, if not the ability to idealize “winning” so that no one gets hurt and no one really “loses?” “Ruby Tuesday,” was written by “Mick Jagger.” But no, it was not. In the war of art, Mick Jagger won and Brian Jones lost. As T.S. Eliot has said, one can enjoy Dante without being a Catholic—the angels do not have to “win.” In art, the spoils can go to the devil.

St. Augustine 354-430 (De Civitate Dei contra Paganos The City of God against the Pagans)

Si mundus vult decipi, decipiatur
If the world will be deceived, let it be deceived.

Luigi Pirandello 1867-1936 (letter, 1913) Whoever has understood the game can no longer be deceived; but whoever can no longer be deceived can no longer enjoy the taste or pleasure of life. My art is full of bitter compassion for all those who deceive themselves; but this compassion cannot fail to be followed by the savage derision of the destiny which condemns man to deception.

Keith Richards 1943- Brian Jones 1942-1969 Bill Wyman 1936- officially Jagger-Richards (“Ruby Tuesday” B side single, Rolling Stones 1967)

She would never say where she came from.
Yesterday don’t matter if it’s gone.
While the sun is bright,
Or in the darkest night,
No one knows, she comes and goes.

Don’t question why she needs to be so free.
She’ll tell you it’s the only way to be.
She just can’t be chained
To a life where nothing’s gained
And nothing’s lost, at such a cost.

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday
Who could hang a name on you?
When you change with every new day
Still, I’m gonna miss you

“There’s no time to lose, ” I heard her say
Catch your dreams before they slip away.
Dying all the time,
Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind.
Ain’t life unkind?

Paul McCartney 1942- (“Eleanor Rigby” Track 2, Revolver 1966)

Eleanor Rigby,
Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream.
Waits at the window,
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door.
Who is it for?

All the lonely people.
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people.
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie,
Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear,
No one comes near.
Look at him working,
Darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there.
What does he care?

Eleanor Rigby,
Died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came.
Father McKenzie,
Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave;
No one was saved

All the lonely people (look at all the lonely people).
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people (look at all the lonely people).
Where do they all belong?

Gary Allen 1936-1986 (None Dare Call It Conspiracy p. 73, 1971)

In the Bolshevik Revolution we see many of the same old faces that were responsible for creating the Federal Reserve System, initiating the graduated income tax, setting up the tax-free foundations and pushing us into WW I. However, if you conclude that this is anything but coincidental, your name will be immediately expunged from the Social Register.

Trevor Peacock 1931-2021 (“Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” Herman’s Hermits single, 1965)

Mrs. Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter.
Girls as sharp as her are somethin’ rare.
But it’s sad, she doesn’t love me now.
She’s made it clear enough; it ain’t no good to pine

She wants to return those things I bought her,
Tell her she can keep them just the same.
Things have changed, she doesn’t love me now.
She’s made it clear enough; it ain’t no good to pine.

Walkin’ about, even in a crowd, well
You’ll pick her out, makes a bloke, feel so proud!

If she finds that I’ve been ’round to see you (’round to see you),
Tell her that I’m well and feelin’ fine (feelin’ fine).
Don’t let on, don’t say she’s broke my heart;
I’d go down on my knees, but it’s no good to pine.

Mrs. Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter (lovely daughter).
Mrs. Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter (lovely daughter).
Mrs. Brown, you’ve got a lovely daughter (lovely daughter).

Andrew Klavan 1954- (“Shakespeare vs. the Transhumanists,” City Journal 2024)

The stories of both Lear and The Tempest are not only stories of fathers and daughters; they are dramas of inner struggle. The exiled and doomed Cordelia and the cherished and elevated Miranda are at once themselves and the symbolic animas of their fathers. Miranda’s marriage, in bringing together man and woman, also represents making one flesh of the male and female self. Marriage is theater, a performance in which yang and yin, will and surrender, power and creation, justice and mercy, meld into all that is required for full spiritual humanity. The transgenderism that materialist modern man seeks to accomplish with the bloody scalpel and the toxic syringe, the imagination allows us to fulfill completely with a man, a woman, and a wedding.

John Milton 1608-1674 (Paradise Lost Book 1)

The infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,
Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived
The mother of mankind, what time his pride
Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring
To set himself in glory above his peers,
He trusted to have equalled the Most High,
If he opposed, and, with ambitious aim
Against the throne and monarchy of God,
Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquished, rowling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded, though immortal.

Aristotle 384-322 (“Exhortation to Philosophy,” lost work by Aristotle, quoted in preface to The American Evasion of Philosophy by Cornell West, 1989)

If one must philosophize, then one must philosophize; and if one must not philosophize, then one must philosophize; in any case, therefore, one must philosophize. For if one must, then, given that Philosophy exists, we are in every way obliged to philosophize. And if one must not, in this case too we are obliged to inquire how it is possible for there to be no philosophy; and in inquiring we philosophize, for inquiry is the cause of Philosophy.

William Cullen Bryant 1794-1878 (“To the Evening Wind” passage quoted by Edgar Poe in The Southern Literary Messenger, 1837 in Edgar Allan Poe How To Know Him by C. Alphonso Smith, 1921)

Go—but the circle of eternal change,
Which is the life of Nature, shall restore,
With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range,
Thee to thy birth-place of the deep once more;
Sweet odors in the sea air, sweet and strange,
Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore,
And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem
He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.

John Keats 1795-1821 (Letter, 10/9/1818, Selected Poetry and Letters, 1951)

The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation & watchfulness in itself. That which is creative must create itself—In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the Sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, & the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a silly pipe, and took tea & comfortable advice.

William Shakespeare 1554-1609 (Much Ado About Nothing Act 1 Scene 1 Benedick)

With anger, with sickness, or with hunger, not with love. Prove that I ever lose more blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s pen and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for the sign of a blind Cupid.

Michelangelo 1475-1564 (Com’esser, donna p.156 Life, Letters, and Poetry 1987)

Don’t you know, Vittoria, we must
at length, learn sweetness which endures
is but you, which the stone immures,
even as my own veins turns to dust?
Cause effects all, and everything adjusts
death to bright defeat. This my work ensures.
This is proven, lady, by my sculptures.
Art lives forever. Death forfeits its trust.
Eternity is, in colors or with stone,
in either form, spectacular for you and me,
as our resemblances devise.
A million years after we are gone,
art will find again my woe, your beauty
matched—and know my loving you was wise.

R.P. Blackmur 1904-1965 (The Double Agent p. 204 1935)

The poetry is the concrete—as concrete as the poet can make it—presentation of experience as emotion. If it is successful it is self-evident; it is subject neither to denial nor modification but only to the greater labour of recognition. To say again what we have been saying all along, that is why we can assent to matters in poetry the intellectual formulation of which would leave us cold or in opposition. Poetry can use all ideas; argument only the logically consistent. Mr. Eliot put it very well for readers of his own verse when he wrote for readers of Dante that you might distinguish understanding from belief. “I will not deny,” he says, “that it may be in practice easier for a Catholic to grasp the meaning, in many places, than for the ordinary agnostic; but that is not because the Catholic believes but because he has been instructed. It is a matter of knowledge and ignorance, not of belief or scepticism.”

John Crowe Ransom 1888-1974 (in The World’s Body p. 72 1938)

As for poetry, it seems to me a pity that its beauty should have to be cloistered and conventional, if it is “pure,” or teasing and evasive, if it is “obscure.” The union of beauty with goodness and truth has been common enough to be regarded as natural. It is the dissociation which is unnatural and painful.

George Graham 1813-1894 (Publisher quoted p. 118 in A Mystery of Mysteries: the Death and Life of Edgar Poe by Mark Dawidziak 2023)

Literature with him was religion; and he, its high priest, with a whip of scorpions scourged the money-changers from the temple. In all else, he had the docility and kind-heartedness of a child. No man was more quickly touched by kindness—none more prompt to return for an injury.


2 Comments

TWO TYPES OF BAD POEMS GOOD POETS WRITE.

May 16, 2022 at 7:07 pm (Donald Justice, Edward Hirsch, Elizabeth Bishop, J.D. McClatchy, John Crowe Ransom, John Lennon, Jorie Graham, Lord Byron, Louise Gluck, Marilyn Hacker, Paul McCartney, Philip Nikolayev, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Pinsky, Steven Cramer, Tennyson, William Logan)

Anthologies are my favorite way of reading poetry.

Authorial vanity cries out “Read my book! Get to know me! Immerse yourself in my book’s theme!”

I reply, “Have you written Paradise Lost? If not, let me return to The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (I am only fluent in English and don’t have much faith in translation) where I can read not only many poems, but many poets, and immerse myself in an era.”

In 1990 J.D. McClatchy, editor of the Vintage anthology just mentioned, assembled the best of Elizabeth Bishop (b. 1911) thru Gjertrud Schnackenberg (b. 1953), 65 poets in a not-too-heavy paperback—over 500 pages, which I purchased in 1999, and still not falling apart.

When was an entire book of poems, by one poet, been worthy of praise for all the lines in it? We probably need to go back to a small quarto volume by Poe or Tennyson.

Beyond Tennyson floating in dust or Shakespeare staged in heaven, a poetry anthology, light enough to peruse while holding it aloft in one hand, is the only way to properly commune with the Muse.

As I read my McClatchy (actually a gift to my wife, but between her subscription to Poetry and several other journals; recent purchases of Nikolayev’s translation of Pushkin, Steven Cramer’s latest volume; and the ten million novels she’s currently reading, I don’t believe she’ll miss it) I discovered good poems from poets I never had any interest in, and poems so bad they made me laugh. My laughter produced not a smidgen of guilt, since the anthologist selected only poets covered in poetry prizes—my mockery could never in a million years break down their highly credentialed immunity.

I will be guilty, however, in the eyes of a few of my readers (I am thinking of one in particular, a highly educated, avant-collecting, condescending, fellow) should I make these private feelings known, that I now take the liberty to reveal, chuckling a bit, I won’t lie, at the very thought of it.

Why isn’t Marilyn Hacker (pg 489) more famous? She writes like Byron. I think the problem is, in order to write like Byron, you must be Byron. Also, Hacker was born around the same time as John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Had she been born in 1842, instead of 1942, Hacker would be better known. No one really talks about her anymore.

There was just too much competition for a poet publishing in the sex, drugs, and rock and roll 60s and 70s—the worst time to be a poet in the United States. Hacker’s work is impressive—as reproduced in the Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry. Is she still risqué? That shouldn’t be the question. Is she good? She is, and accessible, too, unlike poets who eclipsed her, such as Louise Glück and Jorie Graham—poets we occasionally pretend to understand, but don’t. (Glück and Graham were model-beautiful in the 80s. Hacker was not.) It was a quieter and cooler world in the 1980s when Graham and Glück became known, a window of time for high-brow poetry to carve out a dignified and contemplative space for itself; the 60s rock culture, which had sucked all the cool out of the room for so long, had come down to earth. John was dead, Paul had a mullet. Poets could now be called on to deliver “Eleanor Rigby” and “A Day In The Life” vibes—in a place both more rarefied and more practical—the MFA as a ticket to poetic respectability was still real and fresh. The college protest was now less cool than college itself—the poets could smoke pot in college; they could have their cake and eat it.

Donald Justice (p. 210 in the Vintage anthology, poorly represented by mid-life crisis poems) was a poet (40 years old in 1965) swallowed up by the youth culture; old, he mentored Jorie Graham at Iowa—the critic William Logan learned under Justice at the same time; Logan, whom Graham admired, reviewed her first book.

In 1980, the original Modernists were dead, the Rock culture was exhausted, the larger culture had become corporate, cheap, goofy, and trite; it was time for academia and poetry to shine. Helen Vendler and Jorie Graham, who would have been buried and ignored in the 1960s, were somehow actual (gulp) stars in the 1980s. William Logan became the sybil who reminded the poets of the 80s and 90s that they weren’t really stars—because, well, they weren’t. Somebody had to be funny (rude?) and tell them.

Poetry died in the poetic 60s and gave birth to comedy in the non-poetic 80s. William Logan was SNL for what was left of the poetry public that the Modernists had chased away with their unsentimental theory and sophistication.

The New Critics—only one of its core members is represented, p. 67, Robert Penn Warren (b. 1905)—made a great deal of giving the study of poetry largely over to the text. Yet I can describe most of the poets in the 1990 Vintage anthology with a single gesture-–I don’t need words, and my summation refers to no text whatsoever. Imagine I am making the universal sign of sucking on a joint—thumb and finger planted on pursed lips.

One could learnedly can go on for hours about form and its relationship to content, the theories of the French, and Pound’s “make it new,” but hey you try reading the late night confessions of C.K. Williams, Robert Pinsky, Mark Strand, Robert Hass, Charles Simic, Gary Snyder, Robert Creeley, Allen Ginsberg, Richard Hugo, and Frank O’Hara without smiling knowingly at my gesture. So much for the authority of text-centered New Criticism.

The Vintage anthology is 65% white men, 30% white women—who published largely in the 50s thru the 80s.

It’s a record of weed.

We just couldn’t see it for all the Brooks and R.P. Warren tweed.

New Criticism was the only real educated influence on poetry in the 20th century, mingling the text-obsession of Derrida with the sandy grains of Imagism, a crashing wave that reached from the early days of the 20th Century—John Ransom, the T.S. Eliot of the American South, was born, like Eliot, in the late 19th century, to Debussy and the turmoil of the French avant-garde—all the way to the 1990s and its small End of History window where the inscrutable poetry of a Jorie Graham could mesmerize and soothe us.

There are two types of bad poetry.

One. A poem describes some well-known event in which the poet feels he is heightening or adding meaning to the event—but isn’t.

Two. A poem attempts to be metaphysical—no event is described, except accidentally, so the poet hopes the reader will not be able to judge whether an event is described well—or even at all—since that was not the intention.

The first example can be found in the Vintage anthology on pg. 521, in a poem by Edward Hirsch. The poem is called “Fast Break” and attempts to describe a basketball game.

A rebound: “gathering the orange leather/from the air like a cherished possession.”

The prose-poem’s line breaks and stanzas are supposed to replicate the quickness of the play (they don’t).

The failure of the poem increases in its attempt to find a final straw of meaning in its empty enthusiasm (“our gangly starting center”) at the end:

with a wild, headlong motion
for the game he loved like a country
and swiveling back to see an orange blur
floating perfectly through the net.

Edward Hirsch is a distinguished poet (even if in a pot-smoking era) and yet this may be the worst poem ever written.

The second type of bad poem is demonstrated on page 525 by Jorie Graham’s “Over and over Stitch.” Unlike Hirsch’s poem—which attempts to describe what is already real (sadly, “orange leather” for “basketball”) Graham takes the opposite approach, describing nothing at all:

Late in the season the world digs in, the fat blossoms
hold still for a moment longer.
Nothing looks satisfied,
but there is no real reason to move on much further:
this isn’t a bad place;
why not pretend

we wished for it?

The poet is being intentionally vague (here in the first 7 lines) hoping the reader will mistake vacuousness for philosophy. The poet isn’t going to let herself err in the direction of describing a basketball as “orange leather,” and look! she triumphs.

We might blame Graham’s distinguished teacher, Donald Justice, more than Graham’s privileged and highly educated background. Just look at this existential nightmare of a poem written and published by Justice himself and unfortunately reprinted by McClatchy in the Vintage anthology (p 210):

The Evening of the Mind

Now comes the evening of the mind.
Here are the fireflies twitching in the blood;
Here is the shadow moving down the page
Where you sit reading by the garden wall.
Now the dwarf peach trees, nailed to their trellises,
Shudder and droop. You know their voices now,
Faintly the martyred peaches crying out
Your name, the name nobody knows but you.
It is the aura and the coming on.
It is the thing descending, circling, here.
And now it puts a claw out and you take it.
Thankfully in your lap you take it, so.

I won’t quote the whole poem. You get the idea. The poem is embarrassing. “Faintly the martyred peaches crying out your name” is beyond bad. It’s laughable.

Back to Graham’s poem:

The bushes have learned to live with their haunches.
The hydrangea is resigned
to its pale and inconclusive utterances.
Towards the end of the season
it is not bad

to have the body.

The poet isn’t following Ovid any more than John Muir. We never thought of her hydrangea as doing anything in the first place; so when she first mentions the plant as being “resigned,” we simply don’t know what to think and quickly don’t care.

The final assertion that “the dry stalks of daylilies” mark “a stillness we can’t keep” only shows us the poet is at least consistent in never letting up from the poem’s dry observation that there is nothing that matters, whatever the poet might do or say. Her single-minded pursuit of not committing herself to anything recalls a haiku being stretched; a paralysis of purpose becomes the purpose. They also write who only stand and wait.

“The bushes have learned to live with their haunches.” Bushes are described as being, or having, “haunches”—childish, though not as bad as using “orange leather” to describe a basketball; it is the addition of “learned to live with” which self-consciously recalls the vacant theme: Nature’s OK, I’m OK, we’re OK; this is what moves the poem from merely mediocre to pot-smoking horrendous.

These, then, are the two faults good poets make: either they fail to describe something or, they describe nothing, but since a poem demands we say something—the second type of bad poem often becomes like the first, only ten time worse, because the flaws of the first become magnified by the strategies used in the second—to avoid the flaws of the first. Describing something is all a poem finally does, or fails to do—this dilemma, then, is the primal one; its failures are legion.

The more common type of failure—triteness and lack of originality, afflict the bad poet.

These two types of bad poems I have described here are important—because good poets so often indulge in them.

3 Comments

FIRST ROUND RESULTS IN JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE BRACKET

March 21, 2022 at 8:16 pm (Jacqueline Francois, Lotte Lenya, March Madness, Paul McCartney, Pete Seeger, Pine Top Smith, Womb To Tomb (Boston))

Pete Seeger—early pop genius

The John Townsend Trowbridge bracket mixes up the music world like nothing else.

It has German: “Du hast kein Hertz Johhny, und ich liebe dich so.” (You have no heart, Johnny and I love you so.” German is easy.) Brecht, Weil and Lenya had a revolutionary punk elegance impossible to categorize. And this bracket has a French number by Jacqueline Francois, the unknown wine to Piaf’s popular beer.

The top seed in this bracket has sold millions of records internationally and their opponent never escaped Boston in the mid-90s.

The 12th seed is perhaps the first rock song—recorded in the 1920s!

Paul McCartney is represented by a crazy, little-known number, which may be one of his best.

Pete Seeger (11th seed) contributes a somber little song which is more than a folk treasure; it’s simply one of the greatest recordings ever. Hardly anyone knows it. A Woody Guthrie song, Seeger makes it his own—changing it from a folk song into poetry:

My pocketbook was empty, my heart was full of pain,
Ten thousand miles away from home, bumming a railroad train.

I was standing on the platform, smoking a cheap cigar,
Listening for that next freight train to carry an empty car.

Well I got off at Danville, got stuck on Danville girl,
You bet your life she was out of sight, she wore those Danville curls.

She took me in her kitchen, she treated me nice and kind.
She got me in the notion of bumming all the time.

She wore her hat on the back of her head like high tone people do,
But the very next train come down the line, I bid that girl adieu.

I pulled my cap down over my eyes, walked down for the track,
Then I caught a railroad car, never did look back.

Here are the songs:

Click the title to listen.

ABBA—SOS
Sinead O’Connor—Nothing Compares To You
Al Stewart—Year of the Cat
Nora Jones—Don’t Know Why
Pink Floyd—Arnold Layne
Dione Warwick—Walk On By
Culture Club—Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
Skeeter Davis—End of the World
Paul McCartney—Monkberry Moon Delight
Lobo—I’d Love You To Want Me
Pete Seeger—Danville Girl
Pine Top Smith—Pine Top Smith’s Boogie Woogie
Jacqueline Francois—April In Paris
Classics IV—Stormy
Lotte Lenya—Surabaya Johnny
Womb To Tomb—II

ABBA’s “SOS” has it all—melancholy verse, a spirited chorus, a bursting bridge, hooks galore. The Womb to Tomb number has disdain, with a meandering, strange, honest intensity. Pop music versus Drop music. If the arrangement—yes, it matters—were a little better, Womb To Tomb would have a better chance. ABBA wins. I’m terribly disappointed. I wanted an upset.

“Nothing Compares To You” gets better with time—it may be the best song which that particular era produced—what do you do when the pop peak is reached and the rebellion to that pop peak has reached its peak (’59 to ’89)? Well you try something like this in 1990—which is the second seed. Going for the upset is “Surabaya Johnny,” a song from 1929! Lotte Lenya’s performance is enough! She wins over Sinead O’Connor in double over time. Oh my God!

“Stormy” beats “Year of the Cat.” The 14th Seed advances!

Jacqueline Francois surpasses Nora Jones (better arrangement). The 13th seed is moving on! Cheers from the little French cafés.

Pine Top Smith upsets Pink Floyd! The 12th seed is moving on!

“Danville Girl” knocks off “Walk On By.” Another upset.

Lobo defeats Culture Club only because the lyrics are more coherent in telling its sentimental story—when all else is equal, this does matter.

And finally, “End of the World” edges out Paul McCartney’s romp, “Monkberry Moon Delight.” Paul and Linda’s performance is so much fun, but this Skeeter Davis song has real lyric power.

And that ends the First Round in the 2022 March Madness Tournament!

Next, we’ll see who makes the Sweet Sixteen!

#marchmadnesssongs

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MARCH MADNESS 2022 BATTLE OF THE SONGS

March 16, 2022 at 2:57 pm (Erik Darling, George Harrison, Hilken Mancini, March Madness, Marvin Gaye, Nina Simone, Paul McCartney, Pete Seeger, The Bee Gees, The Doors, Womb To Tomb (Boston))

Last year Scarriet moved away from poetry and had an exciting March Madness tournament of: Best pop artists and their two best songs.

Now we follow up with a simpler formula—one song trying to win it all.

While the judges chose new and rarer songs for the 2022 March Madness, it became quickly apparent that there are two ways to appreciate songs.

One: the buzz-inducing physical experience of listening to the song. Songs with modern studio power have an advantage here over older recordings. One can’t help but use this as the sole criterion for liking a song.

Two: the words, melody or sentiment of a song which invades your soul and finds you singing or humming the song to yourself after you have listened to it.

So how do we judge?

We do our best.

And your judgment is all that finally matters.

Fans: some songs in the brackets below—which you may not be familiar with—are linked to you tube. We doubt anyone knows “Womb To Tomb,” a band active in the mid-90s in Boston. And for you old farts, we’ve linked the Jonas Brothers song—a number which captures the basic spirit of today’s extremely popular (and somewhat shallow) music.

We feel all these songs are great—and are delighted you may discover a gem you don’t know.

—Scarriet Editors

DOROTHY KILGALLEN BRACKET

Led Zeppelin—Thank You
Herb Albert & the Tijuana Brass—This Guy’s in Love With You
Simon & Garfunkle—Fakin’ It
Fifth Dimension—Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In
Sugar Loaf—Green Eyed Lady
Doors—Shaman’s Blues
Beatles—Fixing A Hole
The Spinners—I’ll Be Around
Rolling Stones—Lady Jane
Vanity Fare—Hitchin A Ride
Zager & Evans—In the Year 2525
Jefferson Airplane—Comin’ Back To Me
The Who—Melancholia
Bee Gees—And the Sun Will Shine
Erik Darling—True Religion
Donovan—Teas

MINOR COOPER KEITH BRACKET

Jonas Brothers—Only Human
Chicago—Make Me Smile
Mary Hopkin—Those Were The Days My Friend
Jack Jones—A Day In The Life Of A Fool
Bread—It Don’t Matter To Me
Billy Paul—Me and Mrs. Jones
Leslie Gore—You Don’t Own Me
Buffy St. Marie—Universal Soldier
Tommy Edwards—It’s All In The Game
Judy Collins—I Think It’s Going To Rain Today
Nina Simone—Forbidden Fruit
Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem—Whistling Gypsy
America—A Horse With No Name
Dave Clark Five—Because
King Harvest—Dancing In the Moonlight
Syd Barrett—Opel

WINFIELD SCOTT BRACKET

Isley Brothers—Who’s That Lady
Blood Sweat & Tears—You’ve Made Me So Very Happy
Moody Blues—Tuesday Afternoon
Mamas & Papas—Dream A Little Dream Of Me
Brian Hyland—Sealed With A Kiss
Cornelius Brothers & Sister Rose—Too Late To Turn Back Now
Elliot Smith—Alameda
Love—You Set The Scene
Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes—If You Don’t Know Me By Now
10CC—I’m Not In Love
B.T.O.—Taking Care Of Business
Breeders—Invisible Man
O’Jays—For the Love of Money
Johnnie Ray—Cry
The Marmalade—Reflections Of My Life
Nancy Wilson—The Good Life

JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE BRACKET

ABBA—SOS
Sinead O’Connor—Nothing Compares To You
Al Stewart—Year of the Cat
Nora Jones—Come Away With Me
Pink Floyd—Arnold Layne
Dione Warwick—Walk On By
Culture Club—Do You Really Want To Hurt Me?
Skeeter Davis—End of the World
Paul McCartney—Monkberry Moon Delight
Lobo—I’d Love You To Want Me
Pete Seeger—Danville Girl
Pine Top Smith—Pine Top Smith’s Boogie Woogie
Jacqueline Francois—April In Paris
Classics IV—Stormy
Lotte Lenya—Surabaya Johnny
Womb To Tomb—II


6 Comments

SCARRIET POETRY BASEBALL ALL-STAR-BREAK STANDINGS AND STATS!

July 13, 2020 at 1:39 pm (Elizabeth Bishop, Emily Dickinson, Ezra Pound, Francois-Rene Chateaubriand, G.W.F. Hegel, Garcia Lorca, Garrison Keillor, George Bernard Shaw, George Harrison, George Washington, Goya, Hafiz, Hans Holbein, Heinrich Heine, Hilda Dolittle, Homer, J.S. Bach, James Joyce, James Tate, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jim Morrison, John Ashbery, John Crowe Ransom, John D Rockeller, John Dewey, John Donne, John Gould Fletcher, John Keats, John Ruskin, John Stuart Mill, John Updike, Jonathan Swift, JP Morgan, Kanye West, Karl Marx, Kolkata Cobras, Lao Tzu, Leonardo da Vinci, Li Po, Longfellow, Lord Byron, Lucien Freud, Ludovico Ariosto, Mao, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Twain, Martin Luther King, Mary Angela Douglas, Mick Jagger, Mozart, Muhammad Ali, Nahum Tate, Napoleon Bonaparte, Paul Celan, Paul McCartney, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Picasso, Plato, Queen Victoria, R. Jarrell, Rabindranath Tagore, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ravel, Richard Wagner, Robert Browning, Robert Frost, Robert Lowell, Rousseau, Rumi, Salvador Dali, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Shakespeare, Sharon Olds, Stephen Spielberg, T.S.Eliot, Theodore Roethke, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Nashe, Victor Hugo, Vikram Seth, Virginia Woolf, W Churchill, W.H.Auden, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, William James, William Wordsworth, Wittgenstein, Woody Allen, Woody Guthrie, Yone Noguchi)

An Essay on Modern Education-Jonathan Swift-1740 – Advocatetanmoy ...

Swift. The Dublin Laureates are only 2 games out of first in the Glorious Division—thanks to his 12-1 record.

MODERN DIVISION

NEW YORK BUYERS ROCKEFELLER  43 37 –
PHOENIX UNIVERSE SPIELBERG   42 38 (1)
MANHATTAN PRINTERS WARHOL 40 40 (3)
PHILADELPHIA CRASH BARNES 36 44 (7)
ARDEN DREAMERS HARRIMAN 36 44 (7)

WINS

Hans Holbein Printers 5-1
Marcel Duchamp Printers 6-2
Mark Twain Buyers 11-6
Paul Engle Buyers 10-7
Margaret Atwood Dreamers 9-6
John Crowe Ransom Crash 7-5

Relief

Pablo Picasso Crash 9-3
Jean Cocteau Universe 3-0
Czeslaw Milosz Universe 5-2
John Cage Printers 5-2

HOME RUNS

Elizabeth Bishop Buyers 22
Sharon Olds Dreamers 19
Aristophanes Printers 19
John Updike Printers 19
Dylan Thomas Buyers 18
Edna Millay Dreamers 17
Juvenal Universe 15
Bob Dylan Universe 14
Robert Lowell Buyers 14
Louis MacNeice Dreamers 14
Stephen Spender Crash 14
Paul Celan Universe 11
Garcia Lorca Printers 10

The closest race in the league is the dogfight in the Modern Division between Rockefeller’s Buyers (who once led by a wide margin) and Spielberg’s Universe—a game apart, and the Printers are only 2 games away from the Universe. Robert Lowell has been hot at the plate for the Buyers, Bob Dylan for the Universe. Pitching-wise, Mark Twain has been hot again for the Buyers (and leads the division in wins), and Raymond Carver (replacing Randall Jarrell in the rotation) has been hot for the Universe (4-2). MLK Jr is 3-2 in his 8 starts since joining the Universe, and Spielberg has added Jean Cocteau (3-0) to the bullpen, a move he feels will put the Universe over the top. But Andy Warhol’s Printers made moves, too. Hans Holbein the Younger joined the rotation, and is 5-1. Paul Klee is a new lefty starter (3-3). Toulouse Lautrec (3-2) filled in admirably for the injured Duchamp (a toilet fell on his toe). Aristophanes and John Updike have both slammed 19 homers for manager Brian Epstein and his Printers. John Ashbery, who has seven homers from the lead off spot, and is one of the best fielding third basemen in the league, predicted the Printers would win it all. “Why shouldn’t I say that?” he asked. The Crash and the Dreamers, tied for last, are not that far out (seven games) and so every team is truly in the hunt in this division. John Crowe Ransom of the Crash did not win his first game until the end of May, and now at 7-5 he’s among the pitching leaders. John Dewey is 3-0 in July, Wittgenstein and Pater are 2-1 in July. Has the moment arrived for the Crash? Picasso has won 9 games for the Crash in relief. Franz Werfel has replaced the injured John Gould Fletcher in left, and has already begun hitting homers. Stephen Spender leads the Crash in that category. Stevie Smith, playing for the hurt Louis MacNeice, clubbed four homers for the Dreamers, and the home run power of Edna Millay (17) and Sharon Olds (19) has been on display all year for Pamela Harriman’s club. MacNeice himself has 14. The Dreamers have been doing everything they can to fix their bullpen (Germaine Greer has been a huge disappointment) but relief pitching is a tricky affair. Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have joined the team, but all sorts of off-the-field issues have resulted in not much action—a blown save by Kahlo.  Jean Paul Sartre, however, has gone right to work—he’s 2-3 in relief in some very close games. As for the starting rotation, William Godwin pitched well but went 1-4 filling in for Simone de Beauvoir (2-7), losing to Ransom 4-3 on her first start back. Mary Wollstonecraft has joined the Dreamers and is 3-1 in 8 starts. Anais Nin is 8-8. Margaret Atwood has regained her early season form, and is 9-6. Don’t count out the Dreamers!

PEOPLES DIVISION

KOLKATA COBRAS S. RAY 47 33 –
SANTA BARBARA LAWS DICK WOLF 41 39 (6)
BEIJING WAVES MAO 39 41 (8)
TOKYO MIST KUROSAWA 36 44 (11)
LA GAMERS MERV GRIFFIN 35 45 (12)

WINS

Jalal Rumi Cobras 11-3
Rabindranith Tagore Cobras 11-7
Mahatma Gandhi Cobras 10-6
Lao Tzu Waves 10-6
Yukio Mishima Mist 9-6
Yone Naguchi Mist 8-5
Oliver Wendell Holmes Laws 8-6

Relief

Confucius Waves 7-2
Mark Van Doren Laws 4-1
Menander Gamers 6-3

 

HOME RUNS

John Donne Laws 18
Vikram Seth Cobras 18
Li Po Waves 17
Jadoo Akhtar Cobras 16
John Lennon Mist 15
Billy Collins Gamers 15
Hilda Doolittle Mist 15
George Harrison Cobras 14
Eugene Ionesco Gamers 14
Thomas Hardy Laws 14
Karl Marx Waves 13
Tu Fu Waves 13
Sadakitchi Hartmann Mist 11

The Kolkata Cobras have 3 good hitters and 3 good pitchers, and a six game lead in the Peoples Division. Vikram Seth is tied with the division lead in homers with 18, Jadoo Akhtar has 16 round-trippers, and George Harrison, 14 (though Harrison strikes out way too much). We could also mention Allen Ginsberg of the Cobras, batting .301 with 7 homers. The three big starters for the Cobras are Rumi, Tagore, and Gandhi. Kabir Das has improved in the bullpen; the Cobras have been healthy, and don’t plan on any big moves. The Laws, in second place, are also healthy; they added Ferdinand Saussure to their relief corps, but otherwise are staying with the team they’ve had since the beginning, and has arrived at the all star break 2 games over .500: Martial, Donne, and Thomas Hardy with 40 homers in the middle of the lineup, Aristotle, their ace who was hot, but lost 4 straight as they hoped to close in on the Cobras, Bacon, 10-4 since going 0-5 to start the season, Horace 4-2 in the last 5 weeks, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, pitching well, but not getting run support lately, as is the case with Aristotle. Donne is the only one hot at the plate right now. The Waves are 8 back, and slipping a bit lately, as Lao Tzu has been their only consistent pitcher; Confucius made a big splash in the beginning of the year, winning all sorts of late inning games—he’s just 1-0 in the last 5 weeks; Voltaire and Rousseau continue to disappoint. Tu Fu and Karl Marx have cooled off at the plate somewhat. Brecht and Neruda are not hitting. “The whole team has dropped off,” Jack Dorsey, the Waves manager said, “and it’s time we get back in this. We have an amazing team.” The Tokyo Mist got a boost when Yukio Mishima (9-6) replaced Heraclitus, and Yone Naguchi has quietly compiled an 8-5 record, but the two top starters for the Mist, Basho and Issa, have been a study in frustration. Issa gets no run support; Basho’s ERA is too high. Haruki Murakami (2-1) may be the bullpen ace they need, but it’s too early to tell. The Mist would love to have some of relief pitcher Kobe Abe’s (2-7) losses back. The Mist are not really hitting right now. John Lennon and Hilda Doolittle lead the team with 15 homers apiece—but most of those were hit in May. The Mist are a game out of last place—occupied by the LA Gamers. Billy Collins is probably the hottest hitter for the Gamers right now, which isn’t saying much; he has 15 dingers (We can imagine Collins writing a poem on the word ‘dinger’) and Ionesco is right behind him on the team with 14. Collins, the left fielder, and Joe Green, the third baseman, came within an inch of a nasty collision chasing a pop foul down the left field line last week. “We almost lost 20 homers,” manager Bob Hope said. And maybe 20 errors. Collins has been a circus in the field. If a last place team is going to make a run, it will be the Gamers. Merv Griffin’s club has added the following to their pitching staff—Democritus (5-5) is now starting for E.E. Cummings. Charlie Chaplin (2-1) is now starting for Garrison Keillor (1-2), who replaced James Tate (5-5).  Woody Allen (2-2) has replaced Antoine de Saint Exupery (0-1), who replaced Derrida (1-6). Muhammad Ali (2-1) and MC Escher, a lefty relief specialist, have joined the Gamers bullpen, which has been mostly patrolled by Menander (3-2) and Morgenstern (2-2). Charles Bernstein is 0-4. Clive James joined recently, and is 1-1. Gamers fever is still high!

SOCIETY DIVISION

BOSTON SECRETS BEN FRANKLIN 51 29 —
NEW YORK WAR JP MORGAN 42 38 (9)
WESTPORT ACTORS WEINSTEIN 40 40 (11)
FAIRFIELD ANIMALS PT BARNUM 38 42 (13)
VIRGINIA STRANGERS DAVID LYNCH 31 49 (20)

WINS

Alexander Pushkin Secrets 10-1
Amy Lowell Animals 11-2
Plato Secrets 13-5
Walter Scott War 11-5
George Byron Actors 7-4
Moliere Secrets 8-5
Chaucer Actors 8-5
Erich Remarque War 10-7
Alexander Pope Strangers 8-7
Gaius Petronius Actors 8-7

Relief

Thomas Jefferson Secrets 4-1
HP Lovecraft Strangers 4-2
Sade Actors 6-4

Home Runs

Emily Dickinson Secrets 19
Thomas Nashe Actors 18
Theodore Roethke Strangers 18
Stephen Crane War 16
Hafiz Actors 14
Arthur Rimbaud Strangers 14
Robert Frost Secrets 14
Harry Crosby War 13
Francois Rabelais Strangers 11
Wallace Stevens Animals 11
Woody Guthrie Secrets 11
Seamus Heaney Animals 10
Amiri Baraka Actors 10

Ben Franklin’s Secrets own the best record in the league (51-29) and have the biggest division lead (9 games). Pushkin and Plato have nearly half the Secrets wins, while Moliere, their fourth starter, has a nifty 8-5 mark, as Poe, their ace continues to struggle (6-7)—but most of it is due to low run support. Poe threw his first shutout right before the all star break. The Secrets’ Emily Dickinson leads the Society Division with 19 homers; Frost has 14, Woody Guthrie 11, and Kanye West leads the team in homers over the last couple of weeks; he now has 7, as does Nathaniel Hawthorne, the Secrets lead off hitter (.299, 9 stolen bases, 6 triples). With a solid, Founding Father, bullpen, the Secrets have no real weaknesses, and Boston has got to feel happy about the way things are going—although manager George Washington never looks happy. The second place War are 4 games over .500, have been getting good starts from Walter Scott and Erich Remarque, and manager Machiavelli is hoping Shakespeare (7-7) will come back stronger after his rehab (newly signed Julius Caesar is 2-2 with a shutout in his absence). The War’s Stephen Crane leads JP Morgan’s club with 16 homers, and Harry Crosby has been a surprise with 13. Jack London is new in the Wars bullpen, which has been shaky. The two Connecticut teams, Harvey Weinstein’s Actors (Byron and Chaucer their best pitchers, Nashe and Hafiz their best hitters) and PT Barnum’s Animals (Amy Lowell 11-2 the only star so far; they’ve added AA Milne in the bullpen) have some catching up to do, eleven and thirteen games back, respectively. Norman Mailer (3-3) is a new pitcher for the Actors.  Finally, the Strangers. They are 20 games out. David Lynch and manager Bram Stoker made a big move and got Franz Kafka. He’s 0-2 in relief and 0-6 as a starter. Salvador Dali is new, and he’s 1-2, stepping in for Becket (3-8). The Strangers ace, Alexander Pope, is either brilliant or so-so; he has 4 shutouts, but he’s 8-7. Theodore Roethke has cracked 18 homers for the Strangers (Rimbaud has 14, Rabelais has 11) but the team strikes out too much and hits into too many double plays. Twenty games out in this division may be too big a climb for David Lynch’s Strangers. Manager Bram Stoker merely stared at us coldly when we mentioned this.

GLORIOUS DIVISION

FLORENCE BANNERS DE MEDICI 46 34 —
DUBLIN LAUREATES NAHUM TATE 44 36 (2)
LONDON CARRIAGES QUEEN VICTORIA 43 37 (3)
BERLIN PISTOLS EVA BRAUN 34 46 (12)
DEVON SUN JOHN RUSSELL 34 46 (12)

WINS

Jonathan Swift Laureates 12-1
John Ruskin Sun 6-1
Andrew Marvell Carriages 12-3
Virgil Banners 10-4
Percy Shelley Banners 11-5
William James Pistols 9-5
Leonardo da Vinci Banners 8-4
Virginia Woolf Carriages 9-8

Relief

Livy Laureates 9-3
Bertrand Russell Sun 6-3
Richard Wagner Pistols 5-3

HOME RUNS

William Yeats Pistols 25
Friedrich Schiller Banners 18
Charles Dickens Laureates 18
Henry Longfellow Carriages 17
William Wordsworth Sun 17
Aphra Behn Laureates 17
James Joyce Pistols 15
Ted Hughes Pistols 14
Alexandre Dumas Laureates 13
Robert Browning Carriages 13
Arthur Tennyson Carriages 11
DG Rossetti Banners 11
HG Wells Sun 10
Matthew Arnold Sun 10
GB Shaw Carriages 10

Right now the Glorious Division is a 3 team race—the Banners, led by the bat of Friedrich Schiller (Keats is finally starting to hit a little) and a great starting rotation, led by Virgil and Shelley, are in first. But right behind the Banners are the Laureates, who now have Pascal (3-1) and Robert Louis Stevenson (4-1) in their starting rotation to go with Jonathan Swift (12-1), and they’ve picked up JD Salinger and Hans Christian Anderson in relief, just in case they need them. Charles Dickens, Aphra Behn, and Alexandre Dumas are smashing homers for Nahum Tate’s Dublin club, who were playing quite well even before they made these changes. Watch out for the Laureates. Some see them as a populist joke. Especially since they’ve added Pascal, and with the way Swift is pitching, they are not. The Carriages are in third, and in the thick of it, too. Paul McCartney has smashed 9 homers from the lead off spot (and is batting .340), George Bernard Shaw has clubbed 10 off the bench, and then you have Tennyson, Browning, and Longfellow belting out 41 between them in the middle of the order. Andrew Marvell (12-3) is London’s towering ace, but after that, including the bullpen, the pitching is thin. To remedy a weak bullpen, they just added Descartes. In limited use, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Lamb haven’t been too bad in relief. Virginia Woolf (9-8) has tossed a lot of innings as their no. 2 starter. If the Carriages keep hitting (and they do win on the road) they can take this thing. The Devon Sun and Berlin Pistols, tied for last at 34 and 46, and 12 games out of first, have pretty good bullpens (Bertrand Russell anchors the Sun pen, Richard Wagner, the Pistol’s) they can hit the ball out of the park (Yeats, Joyce, and Ted Hughes for the Pistols, Wordsworth, HG Wells and Matthew Arnold for the Sun) but starting pitching is their doom. The Pistols’ T.S Eliot lost his first five starts and has battled back to 9-9. The Pistols’ Ezra Pound began the year at 1-3, including losses of 27-3, 24-7, and 22-14. Pound was replaced by Hemingway (0-2) and then Horace Greeley (3-6). Maybe they will try Pound, again. The moody William James is the Pistols best starter. He’s 9-5.  After Santayana won 3 in a row in May, he can’t win. The Sun’s woes are similar. Emerson is 6-10. John Stuart Mill (4-6)—spelled by Ruskin, the Sun’s best pitcher so far—Aldous Huxley (6-8), and Thomas Carlyle (5-10) have been no better than Emerson. Ruskin, who helps Thoreau and Russell in the bullpen, has 4 shutouts (his phenomenal run when he briefly replaced Mill); the rest of the staff has one (Emerson). Maybe it’s time to put Ruskin back in the starting rotation. “I will pitch where the manager [Winston Churchill] wants me to pitch,” said Ruskin. Churchill, and the Sun’s owner, John Russell, likes Emerson, Mill, Huxley, and Carlyle. So we’ll see.

 

EMPEROR DIVISION

Rome Ceilings Pope Julius II  44 36 —
Paris Goths Charles X  41 39 (3)
Corsica Codes Napoleon Bonaparte 41 39 (3)
Madrid Crusaders Philip II 40 40 (4)
Rimini Broadcasters Fellini 38 42 (6)

WINS

Francisco Goya Goths 7-2
Ludovico Ariosto Ceilings 9-4
George Orwell Broadcasters 7-3
Homer Codes 10-5
GWF Hegel Codes 9-5
George Friderik Handel Crusaders 8-4
Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand Goths 10-6
Samuel Taylor Coleridge Broadcasters 6-4
John Milton Ceilings 8-7
Oscar Wilde Goths 7-6
Wolfgang Goethe Goths 7-6

Relief

Maurice Ravel Broadcasters 4-0
JS Bach Ceilings 9-5

HOME RUNS

WH Auden Codes 20
Anne Bradstreet Crusaders 19
Sophocles Goths 19
Heinrich Heine Goths 18
Victor Hugo Codes 18
Aeschylus Crusaders 16
Euripides Ceilings 14
Mary Angela Douglas Crusaders 13
Rainer Maria Rilke Broadcasters 12
Robert Burns Broadcasters 12
Jean Rancine Codes 12
Edmund Spenser Ceilings 11
Torquato Tasso Goths 10
Anne Sexton Broadcasters 10

The Ceilings still lead the Emperor Division, with a 3 game lead over the recently surging Goths—tied for last not long ago. The Ceilings once invincible starting pitching has faltered, and they look human and beatable. Milton went 7 straight trips to the mound without a win; Dryden got hurt and has only won once since early June; Augustine is win-less in his last nine starts; Ariosto, however, continues to pitch well, Bach is still a miracle in the bullpen, and Euripides and Blake are hitting and scoring runs. Goya came out of the pen where he was 3-0 and has won 4 as a starter for the Goths, replacing Baudelaire (2-9) in the rotation.  Thomas de Quincey is a recent bullpen acquisition. Tasso, playing for the hurt Ronsard, has 10 homers, adding to the melancholy duo of Sophocles (19) and Heine (18) for the Goths. W.H. Auden has smashed a division-leading 20 for Napoleon’s Codes, 41-39—like the Goths, and Homer (10-5) and Hegel (9-5) have emerged as their lethal starting duo. In a tight division race, Madrid’s Crusaders (4 games out) and the Remini Broadcasters (6 games behind) are in striking distance. The Crusaders, a .500 team for a while now, are being lifted by music: Handel (8-4) leads the team in wins; Mozart (3-2) and Beethoven (4-1) who joined the team in June, hope to eventually push them over the top. Joan of Arc is the new lefty in the bullpen. The Crusaders have plenty of pop with Anne Bradstreet (19 homers), Aeschylus (16 homers) and Mary Angela Douglas (13 homers)—the contemporary poet who won a starting job off the bench—replacing an injured Saint Ephrem at shortstop—when she starting hitting homers. The Broadcasters are Fellini’s team, and this currently last-place team is difficult to define: Rilke and Burns lead them in homers, Mick Jagger leads them in stolen bases, Jim Morrison leads them in doubles, Anne Sexton leads them in batting average, George Orwell, who is both starter and reliever, leads them in wins, Samuel Taylor Coleridge is their best starting pitcher right now, and Maurice Ravel is slowly becoming a star in the bullpen. “The musicians are beginning to change Scarriet Poetry Baseball,” Ravel said. “A memorable phrase of music is just a good as an epigram.”

 

 

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IN THE GLORIOUS DIVISION, A TALE OF THREE TEAMS

June 30, 2020 at 10:01 pm (Ben Mazer, Ezra Pound, Keats, Leonardo da Vinci, London Carriages, Longfellow, Lord Russell, Paul McCartney, T.S.Eliot)

Percy Bysshe Shelley lost poem to go public at University of ...

Shelley (9-5) pitches for the Florence Banners—the team to beat in the Glorious Division.

The Florence Banners are the glory of the Glorious Division. Look at their pitching staff: Dante, who throws fastballs with such ferocity, hitters are afraid to stand in against him; Shelley, who throws curve after delicate curve, as memorizing as a snake; Virgil, whose hard slider apparently comes from the underworld; Leonardo da Vinci, the lefty, whose mixture of speeds defies belief; and Boccaccio, who comes out of the bullpen like a cloud, a large dark one, which puts an end to everything. And everywhere you look, there is a Rossetti: Christina, William, Dante Gabriel, and in the middle of the lineup, John Keats, almost more Italian than English. And two modern spots of light: Ben Mazer and Glyn Maxwell.

But Keats only has four home runs for de Medici’s Banners—who are 35 and 29 and share first place with two other teams.

The Carriages of London, owned by Queen Victoria, are 35-29, and not exactly filled with the greatest of all time: pitchers William Hazlitt, Virginia Woolf, and Charles Lamb.  Hitters Elizabeth Barrett, Sylvia Plath and Paul McCartney.

Neither do the Dublin Laureates seem that scary. The rather pedantic Edmund Burke is 0-6 in his last 7 starts for Dublin. Their no. 2 starter, Thomas Peacock, has been replaced by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Their lineup features JK Rowling, Boris Pasternak and Oliver Goldsmith. But they, too, are 35 and 29.

The Laureates have won a host of one-run games, especially in the late innings—they get better as the game goes on, and don’t make mistakes in the field or on the base paths. Jonathan Swift joined the Laureates on May 1st, and with his command of 4 pitches and quiet confidence, now owns the best record in the league: 10-1. And don’t forget Livy. He is 8-1 in relief.

Andrew Marvell, the ace of the Carriages, is 10-2.  Charlotte Bronte is 3-1 and Charles Lamb is 3-0, in relief.  On the back of Marvell, the Carriages are doing the little things to win.  Virginia Woolf out-pitched John Stewart Mill in a marvelous 1-0 outing, helped by a bases-loaded, game-saving catch by Philip Larkin in right field. Tennyson’s two out, opposite field, looping, single off an impossible-to-hit-pitch brought in Paul McCartney, who had walked, and then was bunted over to second by Larkin, for the game-winner.

As for the other first place team, those awesome Banners, Virgil, 7-4, has arm tenderness, and will miss 3-4 weeks, Dante is only 6-6, and Boccaccio has been out-dueled a number of times in relief. Shelley has been a monster, logging 9 wins.

Tied for last are the Berlin Pistols—featuring Ezra Pound (demoted to the bullpen), pitching ace T.S. Eliot, and Ted Hughes (13 homers)—and the Devon Sun at 28-36.  Ralph Emerson is 4-3 in his last 8 starts for the Sun, and Lord Russell’s team has been powered by Wordsworth’s 9 homers in the Sun’s last 20 games.

William James has been the best starter for the Pistols at 8-4. T.S. Eliot beat Dante and the Banners 1-0, this week, tossing a one-hitter. The Banners are no longer alone in first, but every team in the Glorious Division will be gunning for them.

We caught up with Paul McCartney, shortstop and lead off hitter for the Carriages, after Andrew Marvell shut out the Sun in Devon.

Scarriet: Welcome to my interview, Paul.

Paul: Oh that sounds…ominous.

Scarriet: This won’t hurt a bit. I promise. Your team’s playing well, you won by a shutout today.

Paul: Oh Andrew Marvell, luv watching him pitch, you know? I have to remember I’m in the field playing the game, because, you know, you get mesmerized, kind of, watching him, do his thing… He’s so good!

Scarriet: Do you see John and George much?

Paul: Not really. They’re both in the what’s it called…the Peoples Division, right? Yeah George is with the Cobras in India…and John, with Yoko, is with the uh….Mist. They’re together, that’s nice. I chat with George…and John… on the phone, sometimes, you know, just say hello…

Scarriet: I did want to touch on the two English teams, the comparisons people have made between the Sun and the Carriages. You’ve heard the talk?

Paul: Oh yeah, when they were first getting this thing together, John told me, “Don’t play for the Sun, man! You belong on the Carriages.”

Scarriet: The Sun have a reputation for being that part of England that wants to rule the world, the British Empire, oppressing everyone…people compare the Sun to the Pistols…while the Carriages..

Paul: —are more like tea and biscuits and…mum. Yeah.  I mean, look, someone said Wordsworth—and Waldo Emerson, you know, they’re nice, and they play for the Sun, but those guys are bastards! (laughing)

Scarriet: Wordsworth did take someone out at second with a nasty slide last week, did you see that?  And Emerson throws at hitters quite a lot.

Paul: Oh I could never write like them! They’re great.  But, there’s not a lot of comfortable, human stuff in their writings, really…look at “English Traits” by Emerson…the English race and how it rules the world!  John tipped me off on that one, Emerson, watch out for that cat…and I dunno, what can you say against Wordsworth?  Daffodils. I love that one. I never could read the long stuff, though…he’s not one I could have a pint with…too stuffy for my taste…

Scarriet: What’s the biggest difference between the Scarriet Poetry Baseball League and rock music?

Paul: Drugs. (laughing)  There’s no drugs in Scarriet Poetry Baseball. Queen Victoria would never… Seriously, you really have to be in top form all the time to compete with these great writers…everything is on the line all the time…big crowds…you can’t slip up….

Scarriet: Does that bother you?

Paul: (nervous laughter) Not really. No, I quite enjoy it, actually. I never depended on drugs to write my songs. It’s just a matter of freedom and relaxation sometimes, you know, I’m not advocating anything, except a little freedom, and I understand everything has a time and a place. It’s all good, really. I’m enjoying myself doing this.

Scarriet: You’ve played well—even hitting home runs from the lead off spot, and the Carriages are tied for first. Congratulations.

Paul: Thanks. Yes. Batting first is not easy. The first time up, especially. But I use it to judge how the pitcher is doing that day, and I’ll tell my teammates—“watch out guys, he’s throwing hard today, or…this is what his strategy seems to be…”

Scarriet: Communication.  Yes, and you steal bases… I don’t think anyone realized how athletic you are…

Paul: Music is very physical. People don’t realize that.  And poetry, or music…you don’t just write it with your mind… the body is the mind…it’s a lot of it, really…but uh…yeah…I enjoy it…the fresh air…the competition…the company is nice…

Scarriet: We’re so glad you could talk to us, Paul. And we’re happy to hear Scarriet Poetry Baseball agrees with you!

Paul: Thanks.

Scarriet: Good luck the rest of the year!

Paul: You, too.  Bye now.

 

 

 

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THE FIVE DIVISIONS IN THE SCARRIET POETRY BASEBALL LEAGUE SO FAR

June 22, 2020 at 12:52 pm (Anand Thakore, Ben Franklin, Devon Sun, Edna Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, Fellini, George Harrison, Jadoo Akhtar, James Tate, John Donne, John Lennon, John Milton, London Carriages, Mark Rothko, Merv Griffin, Napoleon Bonaparte, Paul Engle, Paul McCartney, Plato, Pushkin, Satyajit Ray, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Shakespeare, Sharon Olds, Shelley, Stephanie Burt, T.S.Eliot, Ted Hughes, V.S. Naipal, Victor Hugo, Vikram Seth, Virginia Woolf, W.H.Auden, Walt Whitman, William Wordsworth, Wolfgang Mozart, Woody Allen)

Gary McKeon on | The beatles, Beatles pictures, Paul mccartney

Paul McCartney, lead-off hitter for the London Carriages, has 6 home runs.

EMPEROR DIVISION

The Rome Ceilings have outscored their opponents 84-49 at home—holding them to 2 runs per game, as their spacious outfield, (as big as the Colosseum) and fleet center fielder Edmund Spenser, gobbles up would-be home runs; Milton, Dryden, Ariosto (7-2) and Augustine, with Bach in the bullpen, is all pitching coach Marco Polo, and manager Cardinal Richelieu need. If the Corsica Codes are going to catch the Ceilings, they’re going to have to pitch better, and play better on the road. In his last 5 starts, no. 3 starter Hesiod is 0-5.  Victor Hugo (2B) and W.H. Auden (SS) are hitting a ton, but Napoleon’s infield (Callimachus 1b, Derek Walcott 3b) leads the league in errors. The Madrid Crusaders have to be happy that Mary Angela Douglas played so well filling in for Saint Ephrem at shortstop—Douglas, Aeschylus, and Bradstreet were a murderer’s row from late May to early June. St. John of the Cross and Handel have pitched really well recently. But the big news: Cervantes, the Crusaders manager, has met with Mozart and Beethoven—if either one of these join the Crusaders pitching staff, all bets are off.  The Paris Goths (22-26) are out of contention because of one starter—Baudelaire is on a 9 game losing streak; the ‘cursed’ pitcher has had poor run support (10 runs in his last 7 starts). The Goths’ position players have been dogged by injuries; Tasso and Holderlin, tied with the 3rd most homers on the club, began the year on the bench. Manager Schopenhauer might put Baudelaire in the bullpen for a spell and use newly acquired Goya as a starter. The Rimini Broadcasters, at 22-26, in last place with the Goths, need to decide what to do with George Orwell, who pitched well for the damaged Samuel Coleridge—who is now healthy. The Broadcasters need pitching help (Ben Jonson, their no. 2 starter, has been lackluster) and are close to signing Lacan, Gurdjieff, Frida Kahlo, or Salvador Dali. Nero, the Broadcasters manager, has spoken to all of them.

Standings

Ceilings  Pope Julius II, 31-17  “They also serve who only stand and wait”
Codes Napoleon Bonaparte 25-23 “Let the more loving one be me”
Crusaders Phillip II of Spain 24-24 “If in my thought I have magnified the Father above the Son let Him have no mercy on me”
Broadcasters Federico Fellini 22-26 “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name”
Goths Charles X 22-26 “Every great enterprise takes its first step in faith”

WINS

Chateaubriand Goths 7-2
Ariosto Ceilings 7-2

Handel Crusaders 6-2
Milton Ceilings 6-4

Homer Codes 5-3
Hegel Codes 5-3
Nabokov Broadcasters 5-4
Aquinas Crusaders 5-5

Relief

Bach Ceilings 5-2

GLORIOUS DIVISION

The first place London Carriages swept the Laureates in Dublin—as Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Bronte combined to throw a 4-0, 11 inning shut out, and William Hazlitt beat Samuel Johnson in a 2-1 pitching duel. When the Laureates tried to repay the favor, and beat the Carriages 3 out of 4 in London; Virginia Woolf avoided the sweep, out-pitching Thomas Peacock 2-1.  The Carriages (27-21) swept the Florence Banners (25-23) when they first visited London, Andrew Marvell beating Dante 5-0. The second time the Carriages hosted the Banners, they lost 3 out of 4 to de Medici’s club, as Virginia Woolf prevailed over Shelley, 3-2.  That’s the difference between the first three teams.  The Devon Sun would be in last place, except John Ruskin won 5 straight replacing the injured J.S. Mill, Bertrand Russell is 5-1 in relief, and William Wordsworth hit some clutch homers. The Sun are tied with the Pistols, who they beat 23-18 and 27-3 in Berlin; however, the Pistols have beat the Sun 6 out of 8 since then. T.S. Eliot finally began winning (5 straight, 2 shutouts) a cursed Pound was sent to the bullpen, and the Pistols enjoyed a power surge from Ted Hughes, John Quinn, and Alistair Crowley.

Standings

Carriages Queen Victoria 27-21
Laureates Nahum Tate 25-23
Banners de Medici 25-23
Pistols Eva Braun 22-26
The Sun PM John Russell 22-26

WINS

Andrew Marvell, Carriages 7-2
Percy Shelley, Banners 7-4

Jonathan Swift, Laureates 6-1
William James, Pistols 6-2

John Ruskin, Sun 5-1
Leonardo da Vinci, Banners 5-2
Virgil, Banners 5-4
Virginia Woolf, Carriages 5-6
T.S. Eliot, Pistols 5-7

Santayana, Pistols 4-4
Samuel Johnson, Laureates 4-4
Dante, Banners 4-5
Emerson, Sun 4-6

Relief

Bertrand Russell, Sun 5-1
Livy, Laureates 5-1

SOCIETY DIVISION

The Boston Secrets have 10 wins in relief, while starters Plato and Pushkin have excelled; starters Poe and Moliere have been disappointing, and the Secrets haven’t exactly knocked the cover off the ball, but defense, and coming out on top in close contests, find Ben Franklin’s team solidly in first. No other team in the Society Division is playing over .500—the Connecticut Actors (24-24) are relying on Byron (6-0 in his last 8 starts) Chaucer (3 shutouts), and Thomas Nashe (12 home runs) and not much else. The Manhattan War need Shakespeare to pitch better, but he has won 5 games, and has been out-dueled a couple of times; he’ll be fine. Stephen Crane is the only one really hitting for the War. Philip Sidney (4 home runs) has been playing hurt (foot).  The Fairfield (Connecticut) Animals are tied with the War, and scoring runs is even more of a problem for them—Wallace Stevens, their clean-up hitter, has only 5 home runs. Seamus Heaney, their leader, has 8. P.T. Barnum’s club is scoring enough for Amy Lowell—she has one of the best records in the league. Herman Melville has been a study in futility, however. He’s 1-9. The Virginia Strangers are losing close games; Lovecraft is not scaring anyone in relief; Camus is 2-8; Pope, their ace, is 5-4. Rimbaud, Rabelais, and Roethke are providing pop. Manager Bram Stoker is talking to Luis Bunuel and Jean-Luc Godard about helping the Strangers bullpen.

Standings

The Secrets Ben Franklin 29-19
The Actors Harvey Weinstein 24-24
The War J.P. Morgan 23-25
The Animals P.T. Barnum 23-25
The Strangers David Lynch 21-27

WINS

Plato, Secrets 8-3

Amy Lowell, Animals 7-1

Walter Scott, War 6-2
Byron, Actors 6-3
Remarque, War 6-4
Verne, Animals 6-5

Pushkin, Secrets 5-1
Chaucer, Actors 5-3
Pope, Strangers 5-4
Nietzsche, Strangers 5-4
Shakespeare, War 5-4

Petronius, Actors 4-3
Hume, War 4-6

Relief

Lovecraft, Strangers 4-1
Shirley Jackson, Animals 4-1

PEOPLES DIVISION

The Kolkata Cobras were not happy when Tulsidas agreed to play right field with Lorenzo de Medici’s Ceilings, but the Cobras have done just fine without him, depending heavily on the 20th century and English. Ramavtar Sarma and Acharya Shivapujan Sahay were just added to the bullpen, to help Kabir Das, Nissim Ezekiel, Krishnamurti, Faiz A. Faiz, and Raja Rao, as manager Rupi Kaur and pitching coach V.S. Naipal struggle to find the right combination there. Herman Hesse is 3-5 as the fourth starter, but Rumi, Tagore, and Gandhi are a combined 21-7.  Javed Akhtar, Vikram Seth, George Harrison, and Anand Thakore have combined for 145 RBIs, while Samar Sen and Allen Ginsberg have scored 55 times at the top of the order. The Beijing Waves, in second place, are 17-7 at home, with Lao Tzu as a starter and Confucius in relief, their top hurlers. Khomeini in the bullpen, and Voltaire and Rousseau as starters, have been big disappointments. Ho Chi Minh, Lenin, Engles, and Lu Xun are in the mix in relief. Jack Dorsey, the Waves manager, is at his wit’s end trying to find pitching for Chairman Mao’s team. Li Po, Tu Fu, and Karl Marx are hitting well in the middle of the order, but they need more from Brecht, Li He, and Neruda. The Santa Barbara Laws are playing much better away from home than the Waves, and are tied with them for second place, as John Donne and Thomas Hardy lead the Laws in homers. The good news for the 25-23 Laws is the recent performance of 3 of their starters—Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and Oliver Wendell Holmes are all 4-1 in their last 6 starts. Quintilian has been added to help Mark Van Doren in relief. The Tokyo Mist and the LA Gamers are the current bottom feeders in the Peoples Division. Yukio Mishima (6-4, 2.10 ERA)  has been a pleasant surprise for the Mist, filling in for the injured Heraclitus as the no. 3 starter, and has certainly earned a spot on the team. Basho and Issa as starters, Kobe Abe and D.T. Suzuki in relief, have not been good. John Lennon, Hilda Doolittle, and Yoko Ono are not hitting in Tokyo, as the Mist have a terrible home record.  The Mist are 4-12 against the Waves, but are playing .500 against everyone else. The Gamers are 1-7 against the Cobras. James Tate has started to win, but Derrida is 0-4 in his last 4 starts, and Democritus replaced the injured E.E. Cummings only to go 1-4. Lewis Carroll, the Gamers ace, has contributed to the slide, not able to win in his last 4 starts. Ionesco leads the Gamers with 11 homers. Manager Bob Hope is talking to both Woody Allen and Muhammad Ali about joining the bullpen. Merv Griffin is also trying to woo W.H. Auden away from Napoleon’s Codes in the Emperor Division. Auden, critically esteemed, yet a champion of Light Verse, would be an ideal fit for the Gamers.  But Auden is leading his division in homers and seems to love playing in Corsica, so that move is doubtful.

Standings

The Cobras, Satyajit Ray 29-19
The Waves, Chairman Mao 25-23
The Laws, Dick Wolf 25-23
The Mist, Kurosawa 20-28
The Gamers, Merv Griffin 19-29

WINS

J. Rumi, Cobras 7-1
R. Tagore, Cobras 7-3
M. Gandhi, Cobras 7-3

Lao Tzu, Waves 6-2
Yukio Mishima, Mist 6-4
Lucretius, Waves 6-4

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr, Laws 5-2
Yone Noguchi, Mist 5-3
Lewis Carroll, Gamers 5-5
James Tate, Gamers 5-5
Francis Bacon, Laws 5-6

Relief wins

Confucius, Waves 6-2

MODERN DIVISION

The Chicago Buyers have the best record in the whole league, even as Freud has stopped winning and their bullpen has not been effective.  But Freud started out 5-0, and now the other 3 starters have taken over: in their last 6 starts, Whitman is 3-1,  Twain is 4-1, and Paul Engle is 4-1. Elizabeth Bishop has more home runs than anybody (20), plus Dylan Thomas has 14, and Robert Lowell has 10. The Arden Dreamers have cooled after a hot start and now they’re in second place—under .500 and 9 games behind the Buyers. Margaret Atwood and Anais Nin have each won 5 for the Dreamers, but Germaine Greer is 2-6 in relief. Manager Averell Harriman would love Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera to join their bullpen. Talks are underway. Run-scoring is not a problem for the Dreamers. Sharon Olds, Edna Millay, and Louis MacNeice have knocked in 129 runs between them. Bob Dylan (.311 batting average, 9 home runs) finally got hot for the Phoenix Universe, but manager Billy Beane knows they have to make a move, as they are 10 games out of first and not one of their pitchers has been outstanding. Steven Spielberg’s Universe is talking to everyone, including Jack London, Octavio Paz, and MLK Jr. The Manhattan Printers have been playing much better lately. John Updike is their home run leader with 14, and Duchamp and Marjorie Perloff have been on fire—Duchamp is 4-1 and Perloff is 5-0 in their last 7 starts; Stephanie Burt, and Mark Rothko, however, have been dismal; Burt is 0-4 in his last 6 trips to the hill, Rothko has not won in his last 5 outings. That leaves us with the Philadelphia Crash, 13 games out of first.  The only bright spot is Pablo Picasso in relief (7-2). Allen Tate leads them with 8 homers. Walter Pater hasn’t won in 6 starts, John Dewey is 0-1 in his last 4, and their ace, John Crowe Ransom, has yet to notch a win. Manager Giorgio de Chirico and Henri Matisse are doing what they can to keep Ransom’s confidence up. The Crash lost Ransom’s first four starts by one run, and he was tossed for throwing at hitters in one of those close games. Pitchers Clement Greenberg and Roger Fry are said to be close to signing for the last-place Crash.

Standings

The Buyers John D. Rockefeller 32-16
The Dreamers Pamela Harriman 23-25
The Universe Steven Spielberg 22-26
The Printers Andy Warhol 21-27
The Crash A.C. Barnes 19-29

WINS

Paul Engle, Buyers 8-2

Mark Twain, Buyers 7-2

Margaret Atwood, Dreamers 5-3
Anais Nin, Dreamers 5-4
Marjorie Perloff, Printers 5-4
Freud, Buyers 5-4

Walt Whitman, Buyers 4-2
Duchamp, Printers 4-3

Relief Wins

Picasso, Crash 7-2

HOME RUNS  —LEAGUE LEADERS

Elizabeth Bishop, Buyers 20 (Modern Div)

William Yeats, Pistols 16 (Glorious Div)
Charles Dickens, Laureates 16 (Glorious Div)

James Joyce, Pistols 15

WH Auden Codes 15 (Emperor Div)

Sharon Olds, Dreamers 14
John Updike, Printers 14
Dylan Thomas, Buyers 14

Edna Millay, Dreamers 13
Aristophanes, Printers 13
Louis MacNeice, Dreamers 13
Aphra Behn, Laureates 13
Aeschylus Crusaders 13
Sophocles Goths 13
Anne Bradstreet Crusaders 13
Stephen Crane, War 13 (Society Div)

Victor Hugo Codes 12
Friedrich Schiller, Banners 12
Thomas Nashe, Actors 12
Vikram Seth, Cobras 12 (Peoples Div)
Javed Akhtar, Cobras 12 (Peoples Div)

Heinrich Heine Goths 11
Arthur Rimbaud, Strangers 11
Ionesco, Gamers 11
Li Po, Waves 11

Lord Tennyson, Carriages 10
Ted Hughes, Pistols 10
Emily Dickinson, Secrets 10
George Harrison, Cobras 10
John Donne, Laws 10
Robert Lowell, Buyers 10

Edmund Spenser Ceilings 9
Rilke Broadcasters 9
Robert Burns Broadcasters 9
Robert Browning, Carriages 9
William Wordsworth, Sun 9
Alexandre Dumas, Laureates 9
Thomas Hardy, Laws 9
Karl Marx, Waves 9
Bob Dylan, Universe 9
Juvenal, Universe 9

Tu Fu, Waves 8
John Lennon, Mist 8
Seamus Heaney, Animals 8
Mary Angela Douglas Crusaders 8
Jean Racine Codes 8
Allen Tate, Crash 8
Stephen Spender, Crash 8
Muriel Rukeyser, Dreamers 8
Matthew Arnold Sun 8
Henry Longfellow Carriages 8
GB Shaw Carriages 8

Anne Sexton Broadcasters 7
Robert Frost, Secrets 7
Francois Rabelais, Strangers 7
Theodore Roethke, Strangers 7
Billy Collins, Gamers 7
Thomas Hood, Gamers 7
Anand Thakore, Cobras 7
Hilda Doolitte, Mist 7
Martial, Laws 7
Paul Celan, Universe 7
Kenneth Koch, Printers 7
John Quinn Pistols 7
HG Wells Sun 7
Basil Bunting Sun 7

Woody Guthrie, Secrets 6
Harry Crosby, War 6
Hafiz, Actors 6
Euripides Ceilings 6
Kenneth Rexroth, Buyers 6
Anthony Hecht, Universe 6
Hart Crane, Printers 6
Wole Soyinka Codes 6
JK Rowling Laureates 6
Sara Teasdale Laureates 6
Paul McCartney Carriages 6
Haruki Murakami Mist 6
Sadakichi Hartman Mist 6

Joe Green Gamers 5
Tasso Goths 5
John Paul II Crusaders 5
Holderlin Goths 5
Wallace Stevens Animals 5
Phillis Wheatley Crusaders 5
Jim Morrison Broadcasters 5
Knut Hamsun Strangers 5
Amiri Baraka Actors 5
Gwendolyn Brooks Actors 5
Lawrence Ferlinghetti Animals 5
Boris Pasternak Laureates 5
Christina Rossetti Banners 5
Ben Mazer Banners 5
Alistair Crowley Pistols 5
Sir John Davies Sun 5
Yoko Ono Mist 5
Donald  Davidson Crash 5
Federico Garcia Lorca Printers 5
Robert Penn Warren Buyers 5
John Gould Fletcher Crash 5
Stevie Smith Dreamers 5
Richard Lovelace Dreamers 5
Jack Gilbert Dreamers 5

Maya Angelou Universe 4
Edgar Lee Masters Buyers 4
Duke Ellington Buyers 4
John Crowe Ransom Crash 4
Andre Breton Printers 4
John Ashbery Printers 4
Kalidasa Cobras 4
Donald Hall Laws 4
Ghalib Laureates 4
DG Rossetti Banners 4
Dante Banners 4
Geoffrey Hill Carriages 4
Phillip Sidney War 4
Shakespeare War 4
Derek Walcott Codes 4
William Blake Ceilings 4
Thomas Chatterton Goths 4
de Stael Goths 4
John Milton Ceilings 4
Michelangelo Ceilings 4

Oliver Goldsmith, Laureates 3
John Townsend Trowbridge Laureates 3
Glyn Maxwell, Banners 3
Ford Maddox Ford, Pistols 3
D.H. Lawrence, Pistols 3
Olga Rudge Pistols 3
Filippo Marinetti Pistols 3
Alfred Orage Pistols 3
Margaret Fuller Sun 3
Rudyard Kipling Sun 3
Horace Walpole Sun 3
Carol Ann Duffy Carriages 3
Elizabeth Barrett Carriages 3
Carl Sandburg Secrets 3
Nathaniel Hawthorne Secrets 3
Paul Simon Secrets 3
Robert Graves War 3
Marianne Moore Animals 3
Ovid Animals 3
Jack Spicer Animals 3
Reinhold Neibuhr Crusaders 3
Robert Herrick Goths 3
Callimachus Codes 3
Jules Laforgue Codes 3
Mick Jagger Broadcasters 3
Francois Villon Codes 3
Gottfried Burger Laws 3
Reed Whitmore Laws 3
Jane Kenyon Laws 3
Antonio Machado Laws 3
Ernest Thayer Gamers 3
Noel Coward Gamers 3
Bertolt Brecht Waves 3
Gary Snyder Mist 3
Natsume Soseki Mist 3
Izumi Shikabu Mist 3
Li He Waves 3
Allen Ginsberg Cobras 3
Walt Whitman Buyers 3
Carolyn Forche Dreamers 3
Lou Reed Printers 3
Archilochus Crash 3
WC Williams Crash 3
Chuck Berry Universe 3
Delmore Schwartz Universe 3

Joyce Kilmer Crusaders 2
Saint Ephrem Crusaders 2
James Russell Lowell Ceilings 2
Mina Loy Codes 2
John Clare Codes 2
Vladimir Nabokov Broadcasters 2
Giacomo Leopardi Broadcasters 2
Gregory Corso Broadcasters 2
Edgar Poe Secrets 2
Cole Porter Secrets 2
Wilfred Owen War 2
Apollinaire War 2
Alan Seeger War 2
T.E. Hulme War 2
James Dickey War 2
Robinson Jeffers Animals 2
Mary Shelley Strangers 2
Marilyn Hacker Actors 2
David Bowie Actors 2
Lucille Clifton Actors 2
Rod McKuen Laureates 2
Van Morrison Laureates 2
Thomas Wyatt Banners 2
Stefan George Banners 2
Thomas Moore Banners 2
Guido Cavalcanti Banners 2
John Keats Banners 2
T.S. Eliot Pistols 2
Gertrude Stein Pistols 2
Carl Jung Pistols 2
Dorothy Shakespeare Pistols 2
Ralph Waldo Emerson Sun 2
Marilyn Chin Sun 2
Joy Harjo Sun 2
Joseph Addison Sun 2
Richard Steele Sun 2
Philip Larkin Carriages 2
Sylvia Plath Carriages 2
Simone de Beauvoir Dreamers 2
Jorie Graham Buyers 2
Marcel Duchamp  Printers 2
Larry Levis Universe 2
Christopher Isherwood Printers 2
Stanley Kunitz Crash 2
Franz Werfel Crash 2
Galway Kinnell Universe 2
James Baldwin Printers 2

Scarriet Poetry Baseball Reporting

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PISTOLS AT CARRIAGES

May 13, 2020 at 11:36 am (George Bernard Shaw, Paul McCartney, Poetry Baseball, Randolph Churchill, Richard Wagner, T.S.Eliot, Virginia Woolf, William Butler Yeats, William Hazlitt, William James, William Yeats)

Father and Son - The International Churchill Society

Randolph Churchill MBE. Manager of the Berlin Pistols in the Glorious Division.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to London, England where Queen Victoria’s Carriages host the Berlin Pistols.

The Carriages have taken the first two games of this four game series with Andrew Marvell and Virginia Woolf getting the wins.

Spring has arrived, and the vines and flowers which adorn Queen’s Ball Park—the most “comfy” stadium on earth—are colorful and fragrant.

Today it will be William Hazlitt making the start for London.

Marla Muse spoke briefly to the Carriages’ pitching coach, Joseph Priestly, who had this to say about his no. 3 starter:

“Hazlitt throws hard, and comes right at you. He has no delicacy on the mound. After all, he did say this, to quote him directly, if I might: ‘Love turns, with little indulgence, to indifference or disgust: hatred alone is immortal.’ If that doesn’t say something about him, I don’t know what does. I have a great amount of confidence with him on the mound. He challenges hitters, and never makes excuses.”

Eva Braun’s Pistols will counter with William James, the “Nitrous Oxide Philosopher,” Harvard professor, brother of the famous expat novelist, godfather to Ralph Waldo Emerson, and inventor of Stream of Consciousness writing, based on his absolutely brilliant, depressing, and self-observed psychological experiments.  Anyone who has ever taken a psychology course in college can thank William James, who made Psychology a respectable subject in college for the first time. James has a very slow delivery, a curve ball that dreams its way to the plate; he doesn’t throw hard, but he’s sneaky fast.

Here’s the defense behind William James.   In center field, the passionate DH Lawrence.  In right field, the austere Ted Hughes. In left field, the mysterious Aleister Crowley. James Joyce at third base, Ford Maddox Ford (German, British, and American) at first. At shortstop, William Butler Yeats, at second base, Gertrude Stein, and behind the plate, doing the catching, Carl Jung.

For the Carriages: Longfellow is in center, Philip Larkin holds down right field, and Sylvia Plath is over in left.  At third, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. At first base, Geoffrey Hill.  Up the middle, we have Paul McCartney at shortstop and Tennyson at second. Playing catcher, Robert Browning.

Andrew Marvell of the Carriages out-dueled T.S. Eliot of the Pistols (15 K) in game one, 2-0, with the Brownings each hitting a home run.

The Carriages won game two 6-3. Virginia Woolf went nine innings and allowed three runs; a 3 run homer in the bottom of the ninth by George Bernard Shaw off George Santayana, game 2 starter for the Pistols, was the difference. Paul McCartney singled twice and stole a base. Sylvia Plath tripled and scored on a two strike, two out single by Woolf. Longfellow knocked in two. Simon Armitage began the rally in the ninth with a bloop single.

The Pistols scoring was provided by a solo homer by Yeats, and a two-run double by Joyce.

~~~

Hazlitt’s first pitch. A ball.  And we’re underway!

The next delivery to Lawrence at the plate…he turns on it…wow, he got all of it…that ball…is out of here!  Gone!  A home run!  Pistols lead, 1-0.

Here we are in the fourth inning…still 1-0 Pistols, on the home run by DH Lawrence…Longfellow facing William James with two outs and nobody on…James has pitched well so far…and there’s a ball to right field…way back…way back…And Longfellow has tied up this game! All Ted Hughes, the right fielder for the Pistols, could do was look up.  It’s now 1-1.

In the sixth, still 1-1.  Both starters Hazlitt and James pitching brilliantly.  Wait. William James is motioning to the dugout. He wants the manager. Something’s wrong. Randolph Churchill, the Pistols manager is coming out of the dugout.  Let’s see… Well, I guess that’s it for James. He’s coming out. Not sure what’s wrong with him. Richard Wagner is up warming in the bullpen for the Pistols. And he’s going to get all the time he needs, because this is considered an injury. Not sure what it is, though. The umpires are discussing things with Churchill on the mound. It’s apparently…depression. William James is depressed, and has to come out. James has suffered bouts of depression all his life.  This is considered an “injury.”  He just can’t pitch any longer, even though up until now, he’s been terrific!

Wagner now pitching for the Pistols. And he strikes out Paul McCartney to end the inning!

William Hazlitt is cruising along, making it look easy. He’s busting his fastball inside, then freezing hitters with changes and curves away.

We’re in the bottom of the 8th, score still tied at one. The Carriages’ James Shirley pinch hitting…there’s a single up the middle!  Here’s George Bernard Shaw, who hit the big pinch hit home run yesterday. Shaw is batting for McCartney, who looked bad last at bat against Wagner. The catcher, Carl Jung, Yeats, the shortstop, Gertrude Stein the second baseman, Heidegger, the pitching coach, and Wagner, the pitcher, are talking things over on the mound. Wyndham Lewis and Hugh Kenner are throwing in the bullpen. They’re ready to come in.

Heidegger goes back to the dugout. Randolph Churchill (son of Winston) decides to stick with Wagner, their ace relief pitcher.

Shaw fouls off pitch after pitch…

Shirley has some speed at first…Ford Maddox Ford is on the bag, taking throws from Wagner, as they want to keep Shirley, the potential winning run, from taking a big lead…

Here’s the 3-2 from Wagner to Shaw…well-hit to center field…DH Lawrence goes back…back…back…gone! A home run for Shaw! George Bernard Shaw has done it again! Can you believe it?

The Carriages lead 3-1!

Hugh Kenner comes in and gets Tennyson on a fly to right.  Inning over. But the damage has been done.  For the second straight game, George Bernard Shaw has burned the Pistols off the bench.

Hazlitt will get the win, if Charles Lamb can take care of the Pistols in the ninth…

Gertrude Stein and Aleister Crowley go quietly, a pop fly and a ground out.

Pinch hitting for Kenner in the pitching spot is Filippo Marinetti, the founder of Futurism.

The Pistols are down to their last out.

Charles Lamb gets a called strike.  0-1.

Wasting no time, Lamb comes back with a fast ball, just off the plate. Ball one.  One and one, now…

Marinetti hits a shot towards third…

Caught by the third baseman Elizabeth Barrett Browning!

And the London Carriages have won their third straight against the Berlin Pistols!

William Hazlitt wins; he’s 1-0. Richard Wagner loses; he’s 0-1.

Ezra Pound will try to salvage a win in the four game series for the Pistols tomorrow.  He will face Henry James.

Good night, Marla!

 

 

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SCARRIET POETRY BASEBALL—HERE WE GO!

April 12, 2020 at 10:54 am (A.C. Barnes, A.E. Housman, Adil Jussawalla, Alan Seeger, Aldington, Aldous Huxley, Aleister Crowley, Alexander Pope, Alfred Tennyson, Alice Walker, Allen Ginsberg, Allen Tate, Amelia Welby, Amiri Baraka, Amy Lowell, anais nin, Anand Thakore, Andre Gide, Andrew Marvell, Andy Warhol, Anne Sexton, Anne Waldman, Aphra Behn, Aristotle, Arthur Rimbaud, Audre Lorde, Basil Bunting, Baudelaire, Ben Franklin, Ben Johnson, Ben Mazer, Bertolt Brecht, Billy Collins, Bob Dylan, Boccaccio, Byron, Camille Paglia, Carl Phillips, Carl Sandburg, Carolyn Forche, Catullus, Charles Bernstein, Charles Bukowski, Charles Dickens, Charles Simic, Christopher Isherwood, Christopher Marlowe, Chuck Berry, Claudia Rankine, Cole Porter, Czeslaw Milosz, D.H.Lawrence, da Vinci, Daipayan Nair, Dante, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Delmore Schwartz, Derek Walcott, Donald Hall, Donald Justice, Dorothy Parker, Dylan Thomas, E.E. Cummings, Edgar Allan Poe, Edmund Burke, Edmund Wilson, Edna Millay, Elizabeth Barrett, Elizabeth Bishop, Emerson, Emma Lazarus, Erich Remarque, Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, Francis Scott Key, Frank Bidart, Frank O'Hara, Fred Seidel, Friedrich Schiller, G.E. Lessing, Garcia Lorca, Gary Snyder, Geoffrey Hill, George Harrison, George Santayana, Gerald Stern, Gertrude Stein, Glyn Maxwell, Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Gregory Corso, H Bloom, Hafiz, Harold Bloom, Harriet Monroe, Harry Crosby, Hart Crane, Heinrich Heine, Helen Vendler, Henry David Thoreau, Heraclitus, Herman Melville, Hilda Dolittle, Homer, Horace, Howard Nemerov, HP Lovecraft, Jack Kerouac, Jack Spicer, James Joyce, James Merrill, James Tate, Jeet Thayil, Jim Morrison, Joe Green, John Ashbery, John Berryman, John Betjeman, John Crowe Ransom, John Dewey, John Dryden, John Gould Fletcher, John Kerry, John Lennon, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, Jorie Graham, Joy Harjo, JRR Tolkien, Jules Laforgue, Kanye West, Karl Marx, Kay Ryan, Kenneth Koch, Khomeini, Lao Tzu, Larry Levis, Longfellow, Louis Simpson, Louise Bogan, Madame De Stael, Mao, Marcel Duchamp, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Fuller, Marilyn Chin, Marilyn Hacker, Marjorie Perloff, Mark Rothko, Mark Twain, Marla Muse, Mary Angela Douglas, Mary Oliver, Mary Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Maya Angelou, Michelangelo, Mick Jagger, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Nietzsche, Noel Coward, Ogden Nash, Oscar Wilde, Ovid, Pablo Neruda, Paul Engle, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Pete Seeger, Petrarch, Philip Larkin, Philip Levine, Plato, Poetry Baseball, Pushkin, R.H. Horne, Randall Jarrell, Richard Howard, Richard Wagner, Rimbaud, Robert Bly, Robert Browning, Robert Burns, Robert Creeley, Robert Frost, Robert Graves, Robert Herrick, Robert Lowell, Robert Penn Warren, Robert Southey, Rod McKuen, Rousseau, Rudyard Kipling, Rumi, Rupert Brooke, Rupi Kaur, Samuel Beckett, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sappho, Sara Teasdale, Scarriet Baseball Poetry League, Seamus Heaney, Shakespeare, Sharon Olds, Sigmund Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, Stanley Kunitz, Stephen Burt, Stephen Cole, Stephen Crane, Stephen King, steven spielberg, Sylvia Plath, T.E. Hulme, T.S.Eliot, Ted Hughes, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Hood, Tishani Doshi, Tony Hoagland, Victor Hugo, Vikram Seth, Virgil, Virginia Woolf, Vladimir Nabokov, Voltaire, W.H.Auden, W.S. Merwin, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, Walter Pater, Wendell Berry, William Alexander Percy, William Blake, William Burroughs, William Butler Yeats, William Carlos Williams, William Cullen Bryant, William Logan, William Wordsworth, Wittgenstein, Woody Guthrie, Wyndham Lewis, X.J. Kennedy, Yoko Ono, Yvor Winters)

Lord Byron In Albanian Dress - 1813 Painting by War Is Hell Store

George Byron in a pensive mood, before taking part in the opening day Scarriet baseball ceremonies.

Happy Easter!

Scarriet has expanded and restructured its baseball league!!

Gone the 2 leagues of 20 teams led by 20 American poets—Eliot, Pound, Frost, Poe, Williams, Stevens, Moore, Dickinson, Millay, Jorie Graham, Ginsberg, Ransom, Cummings, Whittier, Whitman, Bryant, Longfellow, James Lowell, Ashbery, and Emerson.

Now poets like Emerson, Eliot and Poe can be player/managers—to contribute to their teams both at the plate and in the field.

The field is more international—Scarriet Poetry Baseball is now 25 historical teams from all over the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The gods and muses must be pleased with our ten years of Poetry March Madness and our first Poetry Baseball season, where poetry is worshiped through time and space in a manner which no one has ever seen.

Fortunately one of the Muses has always been here to help us, Marla Muse.

Marla Muse: They are indeed pleased, Tom!

You have spoken to the other muses who live in other realms, in those shadowy timeless realms where time is one and poetry lights up suns distantly—

Marla Muse: Yes, and they approve! The stars in the heavens love you more than you know… I would rather die than see poetry die.

This baseball season is different. Mysterious and wealthy owners throughout time and space are bidding, some in secret, for players to fill their rosters.

In the Great Emperor League, we have the Broadcasters. Their motto is “Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name” and they feature Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison, Gregory Corso, Anne Sexton, Bobby Burns, Omar Khayyam, Rilke, Coleridge, Leopardi, Anacreon, Sappho, and Ingrid Jonker.  They are rumored to be owned and funded by a business group led by Federico Fellini, and their ballpark is in Rimini, Italy.

These ballclubs are timeless, in every sense of the word (these teams compete, with actual statistics, where chance unfolds out of space, out of time) but real money, blood money, purchases these players.  We know JP Morgan, for instance, wanted Shakespeare and bid heavily to get him.

The Pistols, who play in Berlin, are said to be associated with Eva Braun, but this cannot be confirmed; one older muse claims to have overheard Eva say, “I take care of this. Adolf is too busy talking to bankers and architects. He doesn’t have time for poetry.” But honestly we cannot say who owns the Pistols.

Nahum Tate, owner of the Laureates, for those who do not know, re-wrote a popular King Lear with a happy ending (after Shakespeare’s death when, for a long period, the Bard was out of fashion,) and was chosen as Poet Laureate of England in 1692. 

Dick Wolf produces Law & Order on television, and appears to have a controlling interest in the Laws, playing out of Santa Barbara.  He’s got Aristotle, Lord Bacon, and Horace.

John Rockefeller opened his purse to get Walt Whitman, and he thinks that will be enough to win a championship.  We don’t know.  We do know baseball is all about pitching.  All you need is a few good arms which dominate, defense behind them, and some clubhouse chemistry, and not too many injuries. It’s a crap shoot, in many ways, and this is why Rockefeller grumbled he wasn’t going to waste money on superstars who hit home runs and have a high batting average. He’s probably right.  A team that wins 2-1 is better than a team that wins 7-4, by pure mathematics, even though the former score wins by 1 and the latter by 3 runs. It’s the ratio that counts.  2-1 = 2. 7-4 = 1.7  This simple reason is why defense wins in every sport. Rockefeller is using this formula, and the oil baron was also advised that you can’t buy a pennant—throwing money at sluggers doesn’t do any good; it’s 90% pitching and luck. Just put a a poet with critical depth on the hill and three good versifiers in the infield and sit back.

Some of the rosters might have some question marks, but that’s what happens in a free market.  It’s an historical fact that Longfellow did meet Queen Victoria in person. But no one expected him to play for her!

And W.H. Auden just “wanted to play for Napoleon, I don’t why.”

Marla Muse: I can’t wait for the season to begin!  Spring is in the air! Around Rome, and in those still fairer isles… Let’s forget about plagues and the starvation for awhile. Songs are going to sing.

Here then, are the Teams, their Mottoes, and the preliminary rosters—they are always changing (there’s a big minor leagues!)

~~~~~~

THE GREAT EMPEROR LEAGUE

Federico Fellini, Rimini  The Broadcasters [Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name]
-Mick Jagger, Sappho, Gregory Corso, Charles Bukowski, Paul Valery, Anne Sexton, Omar Khayyam, Robert Burns, Ben Jonson, Coleridge, Jim Morrison, Edmund Waller, Nabokov, Rilke, Giacomo Leopardi, Anacreon, Ingrid Jonker, Swinburne

Napoleon, Corsica The Codes [Let the more loving one be me]
-W.H. Auden, Homer, Hesiod, Racine, John Peale Bishop, Edmund Wilson, Mina Loy, William Logan, Irving Layton, Villon, Jean-Baptiste Tati-Loutard, Wole Soyinka, Jules Laforgue, Derek Walcott, Callimachus, Cicero, Marcus Aurelius

King Philip II, Madrid The Crusaders [If in my thought I have magnified the Father above the Son, let Him have no mercy on me]
-Saint Ephrem, G.K. Chesterton, Tolkien, Thomas Aquinas, Hilaire Beloc, John Paul II, Saint Theresa of Lisieux, Joyce Kilmer, Saint John of the Cross, Mary Angela Douglas, Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Countee Cullen, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Aeschulus

Charles X, Paris  The Goths [Every great enterprise takes its first step in faith]
-A.W. Schlegel, Baudelaire, Goethe, Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, Madame de Stael, Chateaubriand, Sophocles, George Herbert, Heinrich Heine, Robert Herrick, Clement Marot, Ronsard, Saint-Beuve, Catulus, Thomas Gray, John Clare, Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Theophile Gautier

Pope Julius II, Rome  The Ceilings [They also serve who only stand and wait]
-Milton, Michelangelo, William Blake, Robert Lowell, Petrarch, G.E. Lessing, John Dryden, Klopstock, GE Horne, Ferdowsi, Ariosto, Luis de Camoens, Swift, Tulsidas, Edmund Spenser, Kwesi Brew, Pindar, Euripides

~~~~~

THE GLORIOUS LEAGUE

Eva Braun, Berlin The Pistols [A life subdued to its instrument]
-Ted Hughes, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, W.B. Yeats, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Hugh Kenner, Wyndham Lewis, DH Lawrence, Alistair Crowley, George Santayana, F.T. Marinetti, Giacomo Balla, Richard Wagner, Jung

Queen Victoria, London The Carriages [Theirs but to do and die]
-Lord Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett, Robert Browning, Longfellow, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath, Hazlitt, Paul McCartney, Geoffrey Hill, Henry James, Andrew Marvel, John Suckling, Virginia Woolf, Theocritus

Lorenzo de’ Medici, Florence The Banners [The One remains, the many change and pass]
-Percy Shelley, Dante, William Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, DG Rossetti, John Keats, Marlowe, Guido Cavalcanti, Glyn Maxwell, Ben Mazer, Friedrich Schiller, Thomas Moore, Philodemus, Virgil, Stefan George, Boccaccio, Leonardo da Vinci

P.M. Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, Devon The Sun [A good indignation brings out all one’s powers]
-Emerson, Horace Walpole, Thomas Carlyle, Thoreau, Wordsworth, Rudyard Kipling, Aldous Huxley, Matthew Arnold, Sir John Davies, Margaret Fuller, Robert Southey, Marilyn Chin, Joy Harjo, Basil Bunting, Marjorie Oludhe Macgoye

Nahum Tate, Dublin  The Laureates [Luck is bestowed even on those who don’t have hands]
-Ghalib, Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Peacock, Leigh Hunt, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Sara Teasdale, Pasternak, Louis Simpson, Dana Gioia, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Aphra Behn, Rod McKuen, JK Rowling

~~~~~

THE SECRET SOCIETY LEAGUE

Harvey Weinstein, Westport CT The Actors [I am no hackney for your rod]
-John Skelton, Langston Hughes, Henry Ward Beecher, Chaucer, Amiri Baraka, Lord Byron, Hafiz, Thomas Nashe, Marilyn Hacker, Petronius, Gwendolyn Brooks, Jim Carroll, Lucille Clifton, Etheridge Knight, Audre Lorde, Jimmy Page, Andre Gide

David Lynch, Alexandria VA  The Strangers [So still is day, it seems like night profound]
-Jones Very, Alexander Pope, William Burroughs, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Robert Graves, Laura Riding, Weldon Kees, Berryman, Mary Shelley, Rabelais, Charles Simic, Eric Satie, Labid, Roethke, Camille Paglia, HP Lovecraft, Nietzsche, Samuel Beckett

P.T. Barnum, Fairfield CT  The Animals [Majesty and love are incompatible]
-Ovid, Gerald Stern, Robinson Jeffers, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Seamus Heaney, Jack Spicer, Kay Ryan, Leslie Scalapino, Mary Oliver, W S Merwin, Melville, Camille Saint Saens, Edward Lear, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Gerard de Nerval, Robert Bly

J.P. Morgan, Madison Avenue  The War [The fire-eyed maid of smoky war all hot and bleeding will we offer them]
-Shakespeare, Louis Untermeyer, Apollinaire, T.E. Hulme, Richard Aldington, Rupert Brooke, Sir Walter Scott, Philip Sidney, James Dickey, Harry Crosby, Keith Douglas, Wilfred Owen, Howard Nemerov, Stephen Crane, Erich Remarque, Alan Seeger

Ben Franklin  Philadelphia  The Secrets [We come in the age’s most uncertain hour and sing an American tune]
-Paul Simon, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Edgar Poe, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, F. Scott Key, Cole Porter, Plato, Hawthorne, Pushkin, Walter Raleigh, Moliere, William Cullen Bryant, Amy Lowell, Emma Lazarus, Carl Sandburg, Pete Seeger, Natasha Trethewey, Amelia Welby, Woody Guthrie, JD Salinger, John Prine, Kanye West, Stephen Cole, Bob Tonucci

~~~~~

THE PEOPLE’S LEAGUE

Sajyajit Ray, Calcutta The Cobras [Is it true that your love traveled alone through ages and worlds in search of me?]
-Tagore, Allen Ginsberg, Jeet Thayil, Rupi Kaur, Anand Thakore, Dhoomil, G.M. Muktibodh, Rumi, A.K. Ramanujan, Samar Sen, Daipayan Nair, R. Meenakshi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Hermann Hesse, Persius, George Harrison, Adil Jussawalla, Tishani Doshi, Sushmita Gupta, Vikram Seth

Kurosawa,  Tokyo  The Mist [In Kyoto, hearing the cuckoo, I long for Kyoto]
-Basho, Hilda Doolittle, Robert Duncan, Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, D.T. Suzuki, Yone Noguchi, Yoko Ono, John Lennon, Kobayashi Issa, Lady Izumi Shikibu, Cid Corman, Sadakichi Hartmann, Heraclitus, Richard Brautigan

Chairman Mao, Beijing  The Waves [Death gives separation repose. Without death, grief only sharpens]
-Tu Fu, Lucretius, Karl Marx, Voltaire, Rousseau, Guy Burgess, Amiri Baraka, Brecht, Neruda, Li Po, Li He, Bai Juyi, Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, Ho Chi-Fang, Yen Chen, Billie Holiday, Khomieni, Lu Ji , Wang Wei, Lao Tzu, Gary B. Fitzgerald, Wendell Berry

Dick Wolf, Santa Barbara  The Laws [In poetry everything is clear and definite]
-Ajip Rosidi, Aristotle, John Donne, Donald Hall, Jane Kenyon, Donald Justice, Anna Akhmatova, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Campion, Frederick Seidel, Antonio Machado, Mark Van Doren, David Lehman, Lord Bacon, Martial, ML Rosenthal, Horace, Gottfried Burger, Yvor Winters

Merv Griffin, Los Angeles  The Gamers  [He thought he saw an elephant that practiced on a fife]
-Lewis Carroll, James Tate, E.E. Cummings, Tony Hoagland, Ogden Nash, Billy Collins, Eugene Field, W.S. Gilbert, Thomas Hood, Noel Coward, X.J. Kennedy, John Betjeman, Wendy Cope, Tristan Tzara, Heather McHugh, Charles Bernstein, Jack Spicer, James Whitcomb Riley, Joe Green, Menander, Morgenstern

~~~~~

THE MODERN LEAGUE

Pamela Harriman, Arden NY The Dreamers [not the earth, the sea, none of it was enough for her, without me]
-Sharon Olds, Edna Millay, George Dillon, Floyd Dell, Dorothy Parker, Stanley Burnshaw, Richard Lovelace, Stevie Smith, Louis MacNeice, Louise Bogan, Louise Gluck, Jack Gilbert, Marge Piercy, Carolyn Forche, Muriel Rukeyser, Jean Valentine, May Swenson, Propertius, Anais Nin, Simone de Beauvoir

Andy Warhol, East 47th St The Printers [the eye, seeking to sink, is rebuffed by a much-worked dullness, the patina of a rag, that oily Vulcan uses, wiping up.]
-John Updike, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, James Schuyler, James Merrill, Hart Crane, Lorca, Thom Gunn, Stephen Burt, Frank Bidart, Mark Rothko, Marjorie Perloff, John Quinn, Duchamp, Aristophanes, Christopher Isherwood, Andre Breton, Lou Reed, John Cage

John D. Rockefeller, Chicago The Buyers [Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?]
-Walt Whitman, Alcaeus, Edgar Lee Masters, Kenneth Rexroth, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Helen Vendler, Jorie Graham, Franz Wright, Mark Twain, Robert Penn Warren, Paul Engle, William Alexander Percy, Richard Hugo, Carl Philips, Harriet Monroe, Duke Ellington, Dylan Thomas, Jack Kerouac, Sigmund Freud

A. C. Barnes, Philadelphia  The Crash [But for some futile things unsaid I should say all is done for us]
-Allen Tate, John Gould Fletcher, John Crowe Ransom, John Dewey, Cleanth Brooks, Donald Davidson, Merrill Moore, Walter Pater, Wittgenstein, Andrew Nelson Lytle, Archilochus, Anne Waldman, Stanley Kunitz, Jackson Pollock, WC Williams, Luigi Russolo, Stephen Spender, Richard Howard

Steven Spielberg, Phoenix AZ  The Universe [I know why the caged bird sings]
-Maya Angelou, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Bob Dylan, Margaret Atwood, Paul Celan, Czeslaw Milosz, Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, Anthony Hecht, Galway Kinnell, Philip Levine, Larry Levis, Claudia Rankine, Harold Bloom, Alice Walker, James Wright, Juvenal, Chuck Berry, Stephen King

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ballpark Road Trips in Review: 2018 - Ben's Biz Blog

 

 

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THE POST-MODERN BRACKET BEGINS PLAY IN THE SUBLIME MARCH MADNESS

March 25, 2020 at 12:55 pm (Carolyn Forche, John Lennon, March Madness, Meera Nair, Paul McCartney, Sean Harvey)

Image result for large arena at night

This is always exciting, Marla. We now have play between living poets, as we’ve reached the so-called post-modern age (for a lack of a better word for it).

Marla Muse: All poets are living to me.

The Classical, Romantic and Modern first round action is complete. The mobs from the Modern Bracket play have been cleared off (the Dylan Thomas fans went crazy, for some reason), and the island and the arena are somewhat calm again.

Here’s what we’ve got coming up:

The first Sublime offering in the Post-Modern Bracket is the Beatles, their psychedelic number from 1967, “A Day In The Life:”

I read the news today, oh boy.
About a lucky man who made the grade.
And though the news was rather sad,
I just had to laugh.
I saw the photograph.
He blew his mind out in a car.
He didn’t noticed that the lights had changed.
A crowd of people stood and stared.
They’d seen his face before.
Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords.

I saw a film today, oh boy.
The English army had just won the war.
A crowd of people turned away.
But I just had to look
Having read the book.

I’d love to turn you on.

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head.
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat,
Made the bus in seconds flat.
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I read the news today, oh boy.
4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire,
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all.
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

I’d love to turn you on.

Paul McCartney said he would have taught literature if he hadn’t made it in rock music.  John Lennon, who had been an art school student, published Edward Lear-like writings in the early 60s.  If you are famous, and if you know everyone is going to listen to what you say, this alone will make you a better artist. It can destroy you, as well, especially when you begin to resent the public, but if you’re confident, and not misanthropic, having a large audience inspires you.  Paul and John, like other rock groups from time to time, had a window of time where they produced great work, which only got better as they experienced the ‘high’ of positive feedback. When the audience begins to drift away, you get depressed, and the magic is gone. You realize it wasn’t you. It was the moment. It was the muse.

The 16th seed opponent of “Day in the Life” is a short memoir found by the Scarriet March Madness committee on Facebook.  The author is Sean Harvey. If you’ve never heard of him, it’s okay.

Is “Day In the Life” more sublime?

Or this?

My Eleanor Rigby. It was 1974, and I was about 11 years old and a student at Charles Peck Elementary. Before the administration figured out that I really wasn’t all that bright, I was briefly in what was then referred to as “the gifted” program for smart kids. I hated it because the special sessions only occurred Tuesdays and Thursdays during physical education, which to me was the best part of the day. I’d be immersed in dodge ball, and I’d see some kid in the distance coming to fetch me to take me away to the creepy portable building; a windowless classroom-like trailer on wheels located at the far end of campus.

The Tuesday and Thursday buzzkill went on for a year, until one day I noticed that there was a new girl in the class. She was a Hollywood version of a shy child, with simple short brown hair and thick-framed glasses, and she sat all the way in the back of the room and she never said a single word. Three weeks passed and I paid absolutely no attention to her, EXCEPT that I noticed she wore the same brown and red dress every single day. One afternoon, our teacher happened to mention how much she herself liked The Beatles, and, in particular, the song “Eleanor Rigby.”

Up shot the hand of the quiet little girl.

I remember that even our teacher was surprised.

“I can sing it for you,” said the girl.

Baffled, the teacher asked: “Sing what?”

I wondered, what is wrong with this kid? I started to feel uncomfortable.

She repeated: “I can sing it. I can sing “Eleanor Rigby” for you.”

I don’t remember how she got permission, or if she just took it upon herself, but up she popped, standing aside her desk, porcelain skin and coke-bottle glasses, and she began to sing:

“Ah …look at all the lonely people …
Ah … look at all the lonely people …
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door…
Who is it for?”

Do you know how sudden, raw beauty has a way of transcending age or even previous exposure? I am in NO way gifted musically, but the ability to appreciate what’s miraculous is innate. I can remember maybe 10 minutes of fifth grade, and that scene comprises most of it. Listening to her, I immediately understood two things: that her voice was great, angelic, and that an important part of the reason it was great was because she was lonely and afraid. I was deeply and permanently smitten. This quiet little person had sung so bravely and so beautifully, we were all astounded and our teacher actually choked up and began to cry.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

After, the class sat silently for what seemed like a minute, and as I sat there, I actually felt that something had changed. I knew, perhaps for the very first time in my life, that I would remember a moment, maybe forever.

Leading up to the next class session, no one had to come and fetch me because as fast as I could I ran out to the portables and got there early so I could sit in the seat right next to where the little girl had been. But when the bell rang, she wasn’t there. She had, apparently, moved away from our school just as suddenly as she had arrived. And I never saw her again.

To this day, thinking of that moment makes me sad. But more than that, it makes me yearn for answers to things that no one can answer. Things like where did that little Eleanor Rigby come from? And, in all the years since, did she ever find the place that she belonged?

!!!!!!!!!

Marla Muse: Beautiful.

So many famous people have turned out for this contest. Sean Harvey seems a bit dazzled by it all.

Marla Muse: Who wouldn’t be a bit dazzled?

Sean Harvey wins in a stunning upset!

~~~~~~~

Carolyn Forche is the second seed and she brings this:

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried
a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went
out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the
cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over
the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English.
Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his hands to lace. On
the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had
dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of
bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot
said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed
himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries
home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like
dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one
of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water
glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As
for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them-
selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last
of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some
of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the
ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

Meera Nair, the 15th seed, has this to offer:

What wouldn’t one do
To appease a Goddess?

The city is a bitch in heat
A lighted furnace
Waiting to go up in smoke

Bricks have lined up on pavements
Boundaries drawn
And territories captured
The women arrive in hordes
Laying claim to this fragile city

Goddess, I have no offering to make
No pot of grain
No boiling water
No lit fire
But here is a prayer
From within the walls of my agnostic house

Goddess, make it rain
Torrents and torrents of water
Wash out this hysteria on the streets
Cleanse this litter

Goddess, restore sanity to my city
She burns

This poem by Nair, “Yet Another Pongala,” was written a short time before the virus struck, and refers to riots taking place in India stemming from recent Hindu/Muslim strife. Crisis follows crisis, and the mass of modernizing humanity looks on, bewildered. What’s happening on their street? What’s happening somewhere else in the world?  The virus, the latest crisis, is uniting everyone, like almost nothing before, and it has so many layers, some controversial and divisive—the poets are just starting to react.

But here, in March Madness, everything is fine. The riots are pretend riots.  Only the poetry is real.

Carolyn Forche advances.

~~~~~~~~

 

 

3 Comments

THE POST-MODERN BRACKET IN THE SUBLIME MARCH MADNESS!!

March 13, 2020 at 2:19 pm (Ben Mazer, Brian Rihlmann, Camille Rankine, Carolyn Creedon, Carolyn Forche, Dan Sociu, Derek Walcott, Jeff Calloway, John Lennon, Marilyn Chin, Mary Angela Douglas, Paul McCartney, Philip Nikolayev, Rutger Hauer, Sean Harvey, Sharon Olds, Stephen Cole)

Image result for eleanor rigby in painting

Here is the Post-Modern Bracket, 16 heart-breaks which belong to now—our era, beginning with a boomer anthem, “Day in the Life,” and ending with a memory very recently seen on Facebook. This completes the 4 brackets and the 64 “teams” competing in the Scarriet 2020 Sublime March Madness.

How will future readers read us?  With silence and tears?  With pity?  With gratitude, in digital anthologies tucked inside the heart?  With long essays? With ridicule? With puzzlement?  With sighs?

Anyway, here they are:

1) John Lennon & Paul McCartney (day in the life)

I read the news today, oh boy.
About a lucky man who made the grade.
And though the news was rather sad,
I just had to laugh.
I saw the photograph.
He blew his mind out in a car.
He didn’t noticed that the lights had changed.
A crowd of people stood and stared.
They’d seen his face before.
Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords.

I saw a film today, oh boy.
The English army had just won the war.
A crowd of people turned away.
But I just had to look
Having read the book.

I’d love to turn you on.

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged a comb across my head.
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late.
Found my coat and grabbed my hat,
Made the bus in seconds flat.
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream:
I read the news today, oh boy.
4,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire,
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all.
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.

I’d love to turn you on.

 

2) Carolyn Forche (the colonel)

WHAT YOU HAVE HEARD is true. I was in his house. His wife carried
a tray of coffee and sugar. His daughter filed her nails, his son went
out for the night. There were daily papers, pet dogs, a pistol on the
cushion beside him. The moon swung bare on its black cord over
the house. On the television was a cop show. It was in English.
Broken bottles were embedded in the walls around the house to
scoop the kneecaps from a man’s legs or cut his hands to lace. On
the windows there were gratings like those in liquor stores. We had
dinner, rack of lamb, good wine, a gold bell was on the table for
calling the maid. The maid brought green mangoes, salt, a type of
bread. I was asked how I enjoyed the country. There was a brief
commercial in Spanish. His wife took everything away. There was
some talk then of how difficult it had become to govern. The parrot
said hello on the terrace. The colonel told it to shut up, and pushed
himself from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say
nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries
home. He spilled many human ears on the table. They were like
dried peach halves. There is no other way to say this. He took one
of them in his hands, shook it in our faces, dropped it into a water
glass. It came alive there. I am tired of fooling around he said. As
for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go fuck them-
selves. He swept the ears to the floor with his arm and held the last
of his wine in the air. Something for your poetry, no? he said. Some
of the ears on the floor caught this scrap of his voice. Some of the
ears on the floor were pressed to the ground.

3) Rutger Hauer (blade runner dying speech)

I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark
Near the Tannhauser Gate.
All those moments
Will be lost in time, like tears
In the rain. Time to die.

4) Marilyn Chin (how i got that name)

I am Marilyn Mei Ling Chin.
Oh, how I love the resoluteness
of that first person singular
followed by that stalwart indicative
of “be,” without the uncertain i-n-g
of “becoming.”  Of course,
the name had been changed
somewhere between Angel Island and the sea,
when my father the paper son
in the late 1950s
obsessed with a bombshell blond
transliterated “Mei Ling” to “Marilyn.”
And nobody dared question
his initial impulse—for we all know
lust drove men to greatness,
not goodness, not decency.
And there I was, a wayward pink baby,
named after some tragic white woman
swollen with gin and Nembutal.
My mother couldn’t pronounce the “r.”
She dubbed me “Numba one female offshoot”
for brevity: henceforth, she will live and die
in sublime ignorance, flanked
by loving children and the “kitchen deity.”
While my father dithers,
a tomcat in Hong Kong trash—
a gambler, a petty thug,
who bought a chain of chopsuey joints
in Piss River, Oregon,
with bootlegged Gucci cash.
Nobody dared question his integrity given
his nice, devout daughters
and his bright, industrious sons
as if filial piety were the standard
by which all earthly men are measured.

*

Oh, how trustworthy our daughters,
how thrifty our sons!
How we’ve managed to fool the experts
in education, statistic and demography—
We’re not very creative but not adverse to rote-learning.
Indeed, they can use us.
But the “Model Minority” is a tease.
We know you are watching now,
so we refuse to give you any!
Oh, bamboo shoots, bamboo shoots!
The further west we go, we’ll hit east;
the deeper down we dig, we’ll find China.
History has turned its stomach
on a black polluted beach—
where life doesn’t hinge
on that red, red wheelbarrow,
but whether or not our new lover
in the final episode of “Santa Barbara”
will lean over a scented candle
and call us a “bitch.”
Oh God, where have we gone wrong?
We have no inner resources!

*

Then, one redolent spring morning
the Great Patriarch Chin
peered down from his kiosk in heaven
and saw that his descendants were ugly.
One had a squarish head and a nose without a bridge
Another’s profile—long and knobbed as a gourd.
A third, the sad, brutish one may never, never marry.
And I, his least favorite—
“not quite boiled, not quite cooked,”
a plump pomfret simmering in my juices—
too listless to fight for my people’s destiny.
“To kill without resistance is not slaughter”
says the proverb.  So, I wait for imminent death.
The fact that this death is also metaphorical
is testament to my lethargy.

*

So here lies Marilyn Mei Ling Chin,
married once, twice to so-and-so, a Lee and a Wong,
granddaughter of Jack “the patriarch”
and the brooding Suilin Fong,
daughter of the virtuous Yuet Kuen Wong
and G.G. Chin the infamous,
sister of a dozen, cousin of a million,
survived by everbody and forgotten by all.
She was neither black nor white,
neither cherished nor vanquished,
just another squatter in her own bamboo grove
minding her poetry—
when one day heaven was unmerciful,
and a chasm opened where she stood.
Like the jowls of a mighty white whale,
or the jaws of a metaphysical Godzilla,
it swallowed her whole.
She did not flinch nor writhe,
nor fret about the afterlife,
but stayed!  Solid as wood, happily
a little gnawed, tattered, mesmerized
by all that was lavished upon her
and all that was taken away!

 

5) Derek Walcott (this page)

This page is a cloud between whose fraying edges
a headland with mountains appears brokenly
then is hidden again until what emerges
from the now cloudless blue is the grooved sea
and the whole self-naming island, its ochre verges,
its shadow-plunged valleys and a coiled road
threading the fishing villages, the white, silent surges
of combers along the coast, where a line of gulls has arrowed
into the widening harbour of a town with no noise,
its streets growing closer like print you can now read,
two cruise ships, schooners, a tug, ancestral canoes,
as a cloud slowly covers the page and it goes
white again and the book comes to a close.

6) Philip Nikolayev (litmus test)

Didn’t want to go to the damn party in the first place,
needed to “catch a lecture” the next morning
on Renaissance Florence, one of those stupid 9-a.m.-on-Saturday
events, but my buddy insisted sangria, perfect chance to chat
up Jessica and Jake, so we went
at midnight. Sangria my ass. I mean it tasted extra nice,
bootilicious, but they’d run out of ice
and Jessica and Jake had already left. Half an hour later
three spluttering purple volcanoes
of indeterminate size, but perfectly harmless and hospitable,
spun winking out of the texture of the tabletop,
pouring forth an interminable wordlist full of words
into pulsating Buddha-faced saucers. My armchair
floated in the breeze over the seaweed-infested carpet
dead to rights. I was chary of wading through its Dead Sea
waters, though I needed to pee. My buddy goes man,
I think we just drank some acid, should’ve
poured the stuff that’s on the table but I wanted it cold
from the fridge cuz they’ve no ice
so anyway we can always and later too you know
all that, now best stay where you are, best to just to hang in look
I know you have to pee “like ouch” but listen
I’ve been thinking this week all week every day
for three years now, it’s driving me nuts I’ve always
wanted to talk you up about how you know sometimes
that feeling that we call sublime or subliminal whichever
you can also feel it right that wholesome feeling
a bird tipping from branch to branch to branch in luminous light
a bee crawling from bract to bract a strange kind of lyric feeling
the inexpressible what we felt in childhood
is really what we’re all about like they’re cluing you in on it now
gluing suing slewing you in on it. Spack,
a strange music turned itself on and wouldn’t quit,
that bizarre non-quitter music. Anyway when they sang
happy birthday dear Humphrey
at 2 a.m. I needed to pee especially badly
and trudged off through the interminable apartment
though my buddy hadn’t yet finalized his discourse.
I’d never been in a non-finite apartment before,
after 27 rooms I stopped counting
because I almost wet my pants before finding the bathroom
plus had to wait another ten minutes
while someone was getting sick in there.
And finally when I felt I was going back to normal
and washing my hands, I saw in the mirror,
which was in the key of E flat minor,
myself as a winged demon with golden horns on top
and colored rotating spirals for my pupils, my stare
expressive of the universal doom.
Then there was a descent down the three-mile jade
staircase and gigantic escalades of diamond snow.
My buddy and I sat to our heart’s content on steaming grilles
in the pavement by the Store 24 warming ourselves
(though in fact it was hot) with other nocturnal characters,
who thankfully seemed to know no English, and in the end
I realized that we are chemical through and through,
so determinate and so chemical, while sliding in crystal insects up
the conic mountain of spacetime, with its mass but no weight,
pure composition. Soon by the creaking of refreshed pedestrians
I opened up to the idea that there was one hour left until the lecture.
Is supermarket coffee inherently such a palette of taste,
or was it the radically contingent chemistry of my palate
that temporarily made it so? My buddy had left to sleep it off
(wish I had his worries), but I tried to recompose alone
the ordinary coherency of life. All I heard were the dubious
reverberations of a mid-90s train passing underground.
Savonarola’s sermon, to which I had eventually made it
across the Alps, focused on the ideals of asceticism, poverty
and visionary piety. His project of a bohemian republic
appealed to me deeply as I took faithful notes
diagonally across my notebook (which was unliftable).
Fellow aspirants peeked at me inquisitorially,
but I waved them off, staring at the preacher’s
skinny jowl, enormous nose, dark cowl in profile. Then
I had nothing left or planned for the rest of Saturday
except to get home to my two-bit moth-devoured
studio with its many topological holes
and zip up my brain. I stepped across some literature
to my solitary bed, dedicated exclusively to the twin purposes
of study and sleep, and elongated myself as best I could.
Sleep was out of the question, issues of the irreducible
multiplicity pressing harshly upon my overburdened lobes.
I yearned to be one, complete, so I arched and reached
for the telephone. Yes, dropped some acid last night
first time ever, haven’t slept. Please come save me,
I hate acid. You hadn’t slept much since New York either,
but you arrived instantly, as if wading through atrocious snow
came as naturally to you as levitation to a saint.
I laughed suddenly, for the first time in a month,
shocked to discover your red hair had its usual color.
You had American Spirit cigarettes (I was out),
and in minutes we stood at the foot of Lee Bo’s Cantonese Kitchen,
whose second floor seemed unreachable on foot.
I sighed with relief in the pentatonic elevator.
In the bathroom things went well this time,
no dragons in the mirror. You fed me with a spoon,
then with chopsticks. The hot and sour soup
was indeed hot and sour, it counteracted my internal chill,
and the salt jumbo shrimp were verily salty and jumbo.
The green tea you poured into me sip by tiny sip
made me realize for the first time
how perfect we were for each other. I wept like a whale.
You had changed my chemical composition forever.

 

7) Carolyn Creedon (litany)

Tom, will you let me love you in your restaurant?
I will let you make me a sandwich of your invention and I will eat it and call
it a carolyn sandwich. Then you will kiss my lips and taste the mayon­naise and
that is how you shall love me in my restaurant
.
Tom, will you come to my empty beige apartment and help me set up my daybed?
Yes, and I will put the screws in loosely so that when we move on it, later,
it will rock like a cradle and then you will know you are my baby
.
Tom, I am sitting on my dirt bike on the deck. Will you come out from the kitchen
and watch the people with me?
Yes, and then we will race to your bedroom. I will win and we will tangle up
on your comforter while the sweat rains from our stomachs and fore­heads
.
Tom, the stars are sitting in tonight like gumball gems in a little girl’s
jewelry box. Later can we walk to the duck pond?
Yes, and we can even go the long way past the jungle gym. I will push you on
the swing, but promise me you’ll hold tight. If you fall I might disappear
.
Tom, can we make a baby together? I want to be a big pregnant woman with a
loved face and give you a squalling red daughter.
No, but I will come inside you and you will be my daughter
.
Tom, will you stay the night with me and sleep so close that we are one person?
No, but I will lie down on your sheets and taste you. There will be feathers
of you on my tongue and then I will never forget you
.
Tom, when we are in line at the convenience store can I put my hands in your
back pockets and my lips and nose in your baseball shirt and feel the crook
of your shoulder blade?
No, but later you can lie against me and almost touch me and when I go I will
leave my shirt for you to sleep in so that always at night you will be pressed
up against the thought of me
.
Tom, if I weep and want to wait until you need me will you promise that someday
you will need me?
No, but I will sit in silence while you rage, you can knock the chairs down
any mountain. I will always be the same and you will always wait
.
Tom, will you climb on top of the dumpster and steal the sun for me? It’s just
hanging there and I want it.
No, it will burn my fingers. No one can have the sun: it’s on loan from God.
But I will draw a picture of it and send it to you from Richmond and then you
can smooth out the paper and you will have a piece of me as well as the sun
.
Tom, it’s so hot here, and I think I’m being born. Will you come back from
Richmond and baptize me with sex and cool water?
I will come back from Richmond. I will smooth the damp spiky hairs from the
back of your neck and then I will lick the salt off it. Then I will leave
.
Tom, Richmond is so far away. How will I know how you love me?
I have left you. That is how you will know
.

8) Dan Sociu (nimic nu mai e posibil)

Nothing is possible anymore between me

And a nineteen year old girl, just as nothing

was possible when I was nineteen

years old. I listened to them carefully, they ruffled my hair,

they’d gently reject my touches, no, Dan,

you are not like this, you are a poet. They came

to me for therapy, they’d come with their eyes in tears

to the poet. I was a poet and everyone was in love

around the poet and none with him.

The poet would go out every evening

quaking like a tectonic wave and

in the morning he’d come back humiliated

in his heart—the quakes moving

for nothing, under uninhabited regions.

9) Ben Mazer (cirque d’etoiles)

And after all is made a frozen waste
of snow and ice, of boards and rags. . .
if I should see one spark of permanent,
… one chink of blue among the wind-blown slags
approaching thus, and mirroring my surmise,
one liquid frozen permanence, your eyes. . .
should meet you at the end of time
and never end. . .
for always, even past death, you are my friend. . . .
and when at last it comes, inevitable,
that you shall sit in furs at high table
(for what other fate can one expect?)
dispensing honours, correlating plans
for every cause, for education, science. . .
what will I miss? how can I not be there?
who see you sputtering wordless in despair. . .
as I do now “miss nothing, nothing”
and to know you are some other man’s
(the stupid jerk), who once had your compliance. . .
and do these things ever end? (and if so, where?)
I ask myself, and should I feel despair?
to know, to love, to know, and still not care?
in winter, spring, and summer, and in fall,
on land or sea, at any time at all,
to know that half the stars on each night shine,
the other half are in your eyes, and mine. . .
and what is there? And what, I ask, is there?
Only these hurt and wounded orbs I see
nestled against a frozen stark brick wall. . .
and there are you, and there is me,
and that is all, that is all. . .
How from this torment can I wrestle free?
I can’t. . . . for thus is my soliloquy.
And you shall sit there serving backers tea.
And running ladies circles. Think of me. . .
Think of me, when like a mountainous waste
the night’s long dreaming stretches to a farther coast
where nothing is familiar. . . two paths that may have crossed
discover what had long been past recall. . .
that nothing’s really changed at all,
that we are here!
Here among flowering lanterns of the sea,
finite, marking each vestige of the city
with trailing steps, with wonder, and with pity!
And laugh, and never say that you feel shitty,
are one whose heart is broken, like this ditty.
And think that there is nothing there to miss.
Think “I must not miss a thing. I must not miss
the wraps, the furs, the teaspoon, or the kiss.”
And end in wishes. And leave not this abyss.
For all is one, beginning as it’s done.
Never forgetting this, till I am no one.
There is no formula that can forget. . .
these eyes pierce though ten thousand suns have set,
and will keep setting. . . now tuck in your head,
the blankets folded, and lay down in your bed.
And stir the stars, long after we are dead.

10) Mary Angela Douglas

the voice you hear
from long ago
could be the voice
of all the snows
could be the light of all the stars
of all the feelings near or far
you felt just when
the world was new
until the sorrows
ransacked you

11) Camille Rankine (emergency management)
The sun eats away at the earth, or the earth eats away
at itself and burning up,
.
I sip at punch.
So well practiced at this
living. I have a way of seeing
.
things as they are: it’s history
that’s done this to me.
It’s the year I’m told
.
my body will turn rotten,
my money talks but not enough,
I feel my body turn
against me.
.
Some days I want to spit
me out, the whole mess of me,
but mostly I am good
.
and quiet.
How much silence buys me
.
mercy, how much
silence covers all the lives it takes to make me.
.
In the event of every day and its newness
of disaster, find me sunning on the rooftop, please
don’t ask anything of me.
.
If I could be anything
I would be the wind,
.
if I could be nothing
I would be.
.

 

12) Stephen Cole (unreal city philosophy breakdown)

Keep the knives in the decider box
Where you make your choices.
Rattle the caustic chambers pots
At eye level
In the high mystical arch
Where the pigeons blur.
Reality is the paragon of confusion.

The surface cave is painted
In primary colors
On a mountain wall
But the snow is real.

It bares repeating
The fake cementing
On fracas light goes on
Piecing itself together
Over the top of a barren dream scape.
How reliable after all
Are dreams in dreams?

It goes just that far
And no further.
At this point
the universe turns back on itself.
The content is thrown back into eye
For the regulated comfort.
If some nefarious spirit
Changes the channel:
You’re gone.

 

13) Jeff Callaway (the greatest poems of all)

The greatest poems are never written down,
But lonely and forgotten before pen can be found,
The greatest poems never find the ink,
In the time it takes you to think;
Slowly with time they fade,
And face the guilliotine of jilted poems
And unrequited lovers,
Or glued to my own vague memory
Of what could have been
If only I’d had a pen,
And the recollection
To keep repeating what it was
I was trying to say.

The greatest poems are girls
Who poured Dewars on the rocks
Down their breasts with a splash of water
As I drink it off.

The greatest poems lick the ink
From the tip of my idea.
The greatest poems of all get drunk
From the bottle, straight, no chaser,
No requiem for a dream,
No teen queen Chinese angels on a silver screen,
No Hollywood homecoming queens,
Leaping side to side in ecstasy,
Or just beautiful girls who once
Gave me their phone numbers,
Or girls back in high school
Who kissed me, and later became strippers,
Midnight sirens to madness, mad, drunkard,
Barroom brawls, bras, panties, imported beers.

The greatest poems of all, who put my drinks
On my tab, and heavenly broads
Who brought me elixers which I did drink
Down into my self the likes of abinsthe,
Sugar, laudunum, or I read
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,
Mad at midnight, typing poems furiously
Toward glory, or mayhem, or maybe for
Nothing at all, or maybe just
For the greatest poems of all.

So here, here! to the greatest poems of all!
To bikini contests, to Bikini Kill, to Bukowski,
To Rimbaud and other roughnecks,
To the wet T-shirts at Cedar Isle,
And to the Cedar Creek Lake rememberers
Who still remember all of the greatest poems of all.

To Siberian huskies named Molly who lived in Dallas Texas
With dirty filth, and to dirty filth,
To pain and pills and poems,
To words that slide into lyrical oblivion;
Sometimes these can be
The better rhymes of all times,
Dare I say the greater poems that can rhyme
From poets here today, like drunken
Ramblings, drunken one nighters,
Far beyond driven, drunk drivers,
In Dracula, no more drama before hot actress,
Sexy angel poetess,
Prostitutes, politics, and to the Texas outlaw press,
And to all of the greatest poems of all.

To Polly, to Pam, to the paranormal,
To the ghosts of the greatest poems of all,
To the ghouls, to the grim reaper,
To death, and its poetic casting call for us all;
I’d like to give a shout out to the gangsters,
Of the ghettos of Grand Prairie,
To the hypodermic hipsters of Plano
Who never made it, never got to hear
The greatest poems of all.

To poems that got kicked out of Magnolia
For drinking salt shakers, fat jokes, plastic chairs,
Who never swept the petty shit,
But always pet the sweaty shit,
From shinola to shangri-la,
From 26th and San Gabriel to the angel Gabriel,
From trumpets to cherubim,
To these crazy, insane, hot American chicks
Who love poets, poems, and Palm Pilots,
To an Austin poetry renaissance, or to purgatory.

How ’bout another round of drinks
To the greatest poets and poems of all.

14) Brian Rihlmann (untitled)

we used to joke about it
on days when you could—
his possible ethnicity
his identity…
the “who?” of this man
she kept from you
for 45 years—
even in her final breaths

and the crackle of the crematory flames
told you nothing
nor the rising smoke
nor the box of her ashes
you carried up the flank of Mt. Rose
and scattered in sight of that pond

once, when I hiked up there
alone….after we had died, also
I spoke to her—
“you know you fucked her up….
don’t you?” who were you protecting?”

“mother—your shield was nothing
but a sword…
and she is still falling on it.”

15) Meera Nair (yet another pongala)

What wouldn’t one do
To appease a Goddess?

The city is a bitch in heat
A lighted furnace
Waiting to go up in smoke

Bricks have lined up on pavements
Boundaries drawn
And territories captured
The women arrive in hordes
Laying claim to this fragile city

Goddess, I have no offering to make
No pot of grain
No boiling water
No lit fire
But here is a prayer
From within the walls of my agnostic house

Goddess, make it rain
Torrents and torrents of water
Wash out this hysteria on the streets
Cleanse this litter

Goddess, restore sanity to my city
She burns

 

16) Sean Harvey (reminiscence on facebook)

My Eleanor Rigby. It was 1974, and I was about 11 years old and a student at Charles Peck Elementary. Before the administration figured out that I really wasn’t all that bright, I was briefly in what was then referred to as “the gifted” program for smart kids. I hated it because the special sessions only occurred Tuesdays and Thursdays during physical education, which to me was the best part of the day. I’d be immersed in dodge ball, and I’d see some kid in the distance coming to fetch me to take me away to the creepy portable building; a windowless classroom-like trailer on wheels located at the far end of campus.

The Tuesday and Thursday buzzkill went on for a year, until one day I noticed that there was a new girl in the class. She was a Hollywood version of a shy child, with simple short brown hair and thick-framed glasses, and she sat all the way in the back of the room and she never said a single word. Three weeks passed and I paid absolutely no attention to her, EXCEPT that I noticed she wore the same brown and red dress every single day. One afternoon, our teacher happened to mention how much she herself liked The Beatles, and, in particular, the song “Eleanor Rigby.”

Up shot the hand of the quiet little girl.

I remember that even our teacher was surprised.

“I can sing it for you,” said the girl.

Baffled, the teacher asked: “Sing what?”

I wondered, what is wrong with this kid? I started to feel uncomfortable.

She repeated: “I can sing it. I can sing “Eleanor Rigby” for you.”

I don’t remember how she got permission, or if she just took it upon herself, but up she popped, standing aside her desk, porcelain skin and coke-bottle glasses, and she began to sing:

“Ah …look at all the lonely people …
Ah … look at all the lonely people …
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door…
Who is it for?”

Do you know how sudden, raw beauty has a way of transcending age or even previous exposure? I am in NO way gifted musically, but the ability to appreciate what’s miraculous is innate. I can remember maybe 10 minutes of fifth grade, and that scene comprises most of it. Listening to her, I immediately understood two things: that her voice was great, angelic, and that an important part of the reason it was great was because she was lonely and afraid. I was deeply and permanently smitten. This quiet little person had sung so bravely and so beautifully, we were all astounded and our teacher actually choked up and began to cry.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

After, the class sat silently for what seemed like a minute, and as I sat there, I actually felt that something had changed. I knew, perhaps for the very first time in my life, that I would remember a moment, maybe forever.

Leading up to the next class session, no one had to come and fetch me because as fast as I could I ran out to the portables and got there early so I could sit in the seat right next to where the little girl had been. But when the bell rang, she wasn’t there. She had, apparently, moved away from our school just as suddenly as she had arrived. And I never saw her again.

To this day, thinking of that moment makes me sad. But more than that, it makes me yearn for answers to things that no one can answer. Things like where did that little Eleanor Rigby come from? And, in all the years since, did she ever find the place that she belonged?

 

 

 

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DID GEORGE BREAK UP THE BEATLES?

March 9, 2019 at 3:38 pm (George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, The Beatles)

 
 
“To love that well which thou must leave ere long” —Shakespeare

It was Yoko. It was John. It was Paul. George, the “quiet Beatle,” cared about the music, and sat on the sidelines.

No, it was George.

George Harrison broke up the Beatles.

George, who grew up working class with John and Paul, was only 20 when the Beatles became world famous on February 7th, 1964.

For George, and the Beatles—though Ringo was more laid back about it—we need to understand the following: 1. How fast everything was happening. 2. How easily the lads thought it could end. 3. How much they obsessed on keeping the miracle afloat.

To understand how fast it was happening:

The Beatles made it big with their trip to America in early 1964—because they were cute, tuneful white boys with new, trendy haircuts, playing American black music. Their first albums featured many 1950s style rock n’ roll covers.

By the end of 1965, George—a mere 22 years old—had received the Order of the British Empire, starred in a major motion picture, witnessed Paul (with his solo hit “Yesterday”) and John moving apart, experienced Paul’s bossiness, and introduced the sitar on Rubber Soul—the acclaimed sophisticated album released at the end of 1965, in which the Beatles “grew up.”

In 1966, John effectively ended the innocence of the Beatles by bragging in public that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus; the story went nowhere in Britain, but when America discovered the news, Beatle records were burned. The Beatles barely escaped the Philippines after riots erupted, when the Beatles turned down a meeting with Imelda Marcos. The Beatles’ 32 year old manager, vital to their success, died in August 1967, while the Beatles were in Wales meeting George’s Indian guru—a video shows 26 year old John Lennon in shock after receiving the news, with 23 year old George by his side, looking far more relaxed, as George chats to the interviewer about the wisdom of the maharishi.

By the end of 1966, George is more interested in Indian music and Indian religion, than the Beatles.  Revolver (with three George songs) is released in the middle of 1966, and the recording of Sgt Peppers is under way—George’s track on Pepper features George, not with the Beatles, but with Indian musicians, and profoundly inward-looking lyrics.

In September, 1967, George and John appear on the David Frost show with some western experts on meditation and other assorted intellectuals in the audience, one who accuses George and John of mystical selfishness. John, rather abashed and listless, weakly defends himself (“you only meditate for 20 minutes in the morning…”) George, on the other hand, comes across as a religious zealot, and hints that he’s convinced there’s a yogi who has been alive since Christ, by mastering the secret laws of the universe. In a few months, George will record an entire record with respected Indian musicians in Bombay.

As one watches the 1967 Frost program, several things are apparent:

George, not John, comes across as the intellectual leader of the two, passionate, articulate—albeit fanatical and headstrong bordering on lunacy. That’s the first thing.

Secondly, where is the famous humor of the Beatles? It’s gone. George comes across as caustic and defensive, as does John, though a little less so. John wavers, politely holding back his usual sarcasm for the sake of his mate, who in terms of mystical religion, has gone all in. George is almost snarling as he rebuts a gentleman for calling him “mystical.”

And thirdly, not once, even though Sgt Peppers and “All You Need Is Love” have been released, do John or George point to their music, point to a Beatles composition, as an example of their mission or their meaning—are they afraid of being laughed at?

The Beatles are on top of the world, music-wise, money-wise, and yet John and George are telling the world “money is not the answer and now they want meaning,” and instead of discussing their music, they are brow-beaten by older British intellectuals—at one point a gentleman says “let me finish!” when George tries to interrupt him—on the subject of Eastern Mysticism.

The death, in 1967, of the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein—ending the early, performance-oriented career of the Beatles, coincided with the Beatles meeting the maharishi—at the behest of George. Thanks to George, mystical sounds by 1966 defined the Beatles, though few fans noticed—due to Paul’s songwriting skills. Sir Paul, the Pop Chairman, worked overtime to save the “Pop Chart Beatles” against George’s foreign “invasion.”

By 1965, with “Yesterday,” Paul emerged as the band’s leader, too good for Ringo, too good for George, and almost (but not nearly) too good for John. George and John both mocked Paul (on stage!) when Paul performed “Yesterday.” The dynamic, one year into the Beatles’ great success, was Paul on one side, John and George on the other (with Ringo, neutral, on drums—even as the other three Beatles begin to write songs which didn’t need drums.)

Paul was committed to the Beatles, and just happened to like all kinds of music, and could write—and perform—all kinds of music; Paul had that kind of talent and background; he filled out the Beatles’ choice of sounds.  John, married with a kid, living in the suburbs, but who went to art school as a lost juvenile delinquent type, delivered to the Beatles their frantic, melancholy edge; John and Paul both expanded the quality of the lyrics moving forward. George had input even on songs he didn’t write, and though he was songwriter no. 3 in the band, by using the Indian influence, and just by being a good musician with a critical ear, as the lead guitarist, he added a great deal to the Beatles’ sound from the very beginning.

George also had the most to prove. By 1969, with “Something” and “Here Comes the Sun,” he would finally equal Paul and John as the no. 1 songwriter, but in 1965, with Paul contributing “Yesterday,” and John, “Hard Day’s Night” and “Help” (though co-written with Paul) George is hungrier.  He’s 3 years younger than John, 2 years younger than Paul.

Paul picked on George, treating him badly in the studio; when the rift opened up between Paul and John, George sided with John.

But George also began to reach out to other musicians, much more than Paul or John. George released the first solo album when the Beatles were still together, in 1968. George befriended musicians like Dylan and Clapton. George brought in the Indian influence.  It was George who visited Haight Ashbury and checked out the West Coast rock scene in America in 1967. By comparison, Paul and John were almost stay-at-homes. For all of John’s “leadership” qualities, he was basically a person who liked to laze about drawing, creating, and doodling, with Aunt Mimi making him soup.

Paul, as everyone knows, wanted to keep the Beatles together. Paul thought the Beatles were the grownup thing to do. In Paul’s mind, the Beatles were a lifetime ticket to glory, fame, and security; he thought John and George were too easily distracted by ego-driven projects. Paul did write songs for other artists; he had his projects, too, but his main priority was always The Beatles.

Look at what Paul is doing today as an old man: still happily touring and playing Beatles songs.  He probably admires that the Rolling Stones are still together. (And is sure the Beatles are the better band, thanks to him).

John and George, however, felt the Beatles were a kid’s a thing, a childhood fantasy which needed to be left behind.

So John and George stood in stark contrast to Paul.

But John and George were very different, too. George befriended Dylan. John ridiculed Dylan. In this sense, John was closer to Paul—the Beatles were closed off, and in John and Paul’s heart, the best.

But this is clear: before the arrival of Yoko, the uneasy division between Paul and George/John threatened to break up the band.

George, however, had found two things to escape the Beatles—playing with other famous musicians, and defining himself with Indian music and religion.  Even many John songs in the Beatles had an Indian sound.

Paul was the driving force behind Sgt. Peppers, and by 1967, he’s the clear leader of the Beatles. George had found Indian religion, and we see from the David Frost show in September, 1967, that John is in the shadows, lacking direction; Lennon wants to leave the Beatles, but he doesn’t know how. He’s with George on the show, defending meditation, but you can tell this is George’s thing; the humorous, acerbic John is kept in check—he wants to bond with George (against Paul) so he bites his tongue; otherwise he would be mocking George’s religion–and of course this is what the future will shortly reveal. John’s most famous composition post-1967 is “Imagine”—“Imagine no religion.”

Yoko was John’s ticket out of the Beatles; at first she was a “project,” just as Paul had his Beatles and Apple records projects, and George had his projects—the first Apple Record in 1968 was a soundtrack album by George.  John mentions Yoko as a “project” explicitly on a 1969 David Frost show; he says before he and Yoko were a couple, he agreed to produce a record of hers. Only after they sleep together, does John join her on the record, Two Virgins.

John was following George’s lead.

John did not want to be outdone by George, who, in breaking away from Paul’s Beatles, was using his worldly and sophisticated Indian vibe to do so.

John, realizing how artistically ambitious and crazy Yoko was, in 1969 was finally ready to strike out on his own.

In January of 1969, George did quit the Beatles briefly—and the recent Get Back documentary makes this structurally important. John, holding fast to Yoko, would follow George to the exits.

Paul had made a grave miscalculation by treating George shabbily in the early days.

George, like Paul, was getting tired of Yoko, and just as George and John could not agree over religion, George and Paul could not repair the damage Paul had made pushing around George, starting in 1965.

Paul made it official, leaving the Beatles in April of 1970, when he realized both John and George were making fun of him behind his back.  George, as much as John, was the mocking, caustic Beatle. And George had much more reason to lash out at Paul, because Paul had insulted him as a man and a musician, just by being Paul; Paul and John had a deep, respectful bond that went way back—their songwriting together made the Beatles.  But John was in George’s orbit; John knew George had what it took to leave the Beatles, and John didn’t want to be left out. It’s hard to say what John would have done had Yoko not come along.  He probably would have begged George to stay with the Beatles on behalf of Paul.
*
 
George’s personality was based on male friendship.
*
 
Patti Boyd, George’s first wife, says she once carefully cooked George an Indian meal—and his response was to hire a chef from India: George, the sexist perfectionist. His male bond with Clapton was such that he let Clapton have his wife. “Something” and “Layla” were written for the same woman. For all of his spirituality, earthly George was headstrong and common. Male friendship was George’s guiding star, and George’s ability to bond with males certainly must have contributed to the chemistry and success of the Beatles—but the seed of creation is often the seed of destruction. Paul violated George’s sacred bond and treated George like a junior, and this is what ultimately broke up the Beatles. We often lose sight of the personal in mystical abstraction.  George’s Indian mysticism was an unconscious manifestation of his hatred of Paul.  When George sings on “Within You, Without You,” to Indian music backing, “Try to realize you’re very small and life flows on within you and without you,” he is singing to Paul: ‘You may think you’re a great success, big shot, but you’re nothing.’ Wise philosophy is used to soothe and speak for the wounded. George is repressed, and all the more beautiful and civilized for it; our most abstract dreams and missions finally come from the small and personal.
*
 
John’s identity was based on being pampered by women.
*
 
John and George both had children by non-Anglo-American women.
*
 
George, the priest, and John, the political activist, advertised idealism, but were deeply flawed, earthy, sarcastic and vengeful, and finally defined themselves in opposition to Paul, the insufferably successful and happy businessman.
*
 
Paul’s identity was fidelity to the family unit; loyalty to the Beatles and the family defined Paul, whose practicality contrasted with John and George’s self-destructiveness, and George, embittered by Paul, led the way: John and Yoko, on a very profound level, were created by George, the rebel angel, who sought to punish Paul—the workaholic Pop Machine.
*
 
There you go, Beatles fans.
*
It was George.
 
 
 

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WHERE IS THE MADNESS OF YESTERDAY?

March 12, 2017 at 1:07 pm (March Madness, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon)

Image result for paul simon and paul mccartney

Another first round battle in the Song Bracket features a fated match.

Paul versus Paul.

“Yesterday” versus “Where have you gone, Joe Dimaggio?”

As the poet Shelley said, “our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.”

Paul McCartney and Paul Simon wrote some of the sweetest, most unforgettable tunes ever—and they both know that in song, sadness catches the sweet.

What’s sadder than a bright, but fading yesterday? Death isn’t sad. Getting old is sad.  Yesterday is sad.

Sweetness surrounds the dying to ease the pain.

With Paul and Paul into the pain we go, and ripen, and feel the sweetness flow.

So who wins this contest?   It comes down to “I’m sad now because I was happy” versus “We (a nation) are sad now, because we were happy.”

Paul McCartney wins—because he took a word—Yesterday—and made it a song almost by itself.

By comparison, the Paul Simon song is a history lesson of some kind.

The song, “Yesterday,” is quicker poison.

Yesterday advances, it’s giant shadow covering Joe DiMaggio.

 

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THE ONE HUNDRED GREATEST JAZZ VOCAL STANDARDS THAT WORK AS POEMS

October 14, 2014 at 3:34 pm (Alan Jay Lerner, Arthur Hamilton, Cole Porter, E.Y. Harburg, Frank Sinatra, George Harrison, Gus Kahn, Hoagy Carmichael, Irving Kahal, Johnny Burke, Johnny Mercer, Judy Garland, Lorenz Hart, Nancy Hamilton, Ned Washington, Oscar Hammerstein II, Paul McCartney)

When poetry was killed off in the first half of the 20th century by the tendentious artlessness of Modernism, did it go somewhere?

Yes. It went into popular music.

It went here:

Somewhere there’s music.
How faint the tune.
Somewhere there’s heaven.
How high the moon.

Somewhere there’s music.
It’s where you are.
Somewhere there’s heaven.
How near, how far.

The darkest night will shine,
If you come to me soon.
Until you will, how still my heart—
How high the moon.

Lyrics by Nancy Hamilton

The sultry romance of poetry, sentimental as it might be, just happens to be a significant template for poetry, the art.

Let us admit, at once, that this kind of poetry is perhaps the worst kind of poetry possible, whenever it fails, and it fails often.

This is perhaps why many conclude—in error—that poetry of romance is of a lesser quality than other kinds of poetry, an error which has been perpetuated by a certain tribe of academics.

The error comes from not examining the reason for this kind of poetry’s rather vast failure, which is twofold:

First, since sentimental love poetry is by far the most well-known and practiced of the templates, there will inevitably be a great number of failures, providing countless wretched examples for those looking to dismiss this kind of poetry as poetry.

Second, it is easy to fail in rather spectacular and embarrassing fashion when writing love poetry precisely because of the significance of the template itself.  The template lives in a place where all poetry lives—skill at meter, versification, sentiment, irony, universality, unity, richness, and originality will naturally aid the poet attempting love poetry, and, it also lives where we all live; because it lives close to the heart, to the social embarrassment, and drama, and ubiquitous nature of love and romance, writing this kind of poetry will have a greater risk of failure, since readers are passionately familiar with the tropes involved.

This does not mean, however, that this kind of poetry is inferior in any way to other types of poetry, and it may be superior, in fact, no matter what academics may say, and which is why, perhaps, it tends to be more popular—which should never be a strike against anything good.

Take a song like “Autumn Leaves.” One could almost say it’s inevitable that a song like this exist in the ‘jazz standard’ category, given the mood, subject and sentiment of the ‘jazz standard’ love song. Now the critic must ask: should such inevitability be held against “Autumn Leaves?” Or should we honor it for the very reason that its existence seems destined? We must know the category intimately to appreciate the example. The category is a simple one (not inferior for that reason) and consists of six sub-categories.

1. The Beloved Receives Heavenly Praise —All The Things You Are

2. Praise Without Quality (ironic, indirect) —My Funny Valentine

3. Love Gone Wrong (Revenge) —Cry Me A River

4. Love Gone Wrong (Resigned) —Autumn Leaves

5. Introspective (Narrator talks with their heart) —My Foolish Heart

6. Love Against the World (Time, Fortune, Necessity) —When Sunny Gets Blue

The whole category of the jazz standard is simple, but already we see some complexity. “Autumn Leaves” invokes, with its natural fact, the fourth sub-category—sad resignation of lost love—as we might expect; the leaves of “red and gold” falling past the window of the bereaved lover join other things in the mind: “summer kisses, the sunburnt hands I used to hold” and the dying leaves are then used with the idea of time, already invoked by “summer” (before the leaves fell) with: “but I miss you most of all, my darling, when autumn leaves start to fall.” This is rather brilliant. It is one thing to come up with autumn leaves as an image for the sad resignation of lost love, another to use the image economically and in a way that feels inevitable. The drawback to these songs working as poetry: extreme brevity within a simple and well understood context—is precisely that which allows us to see the challenge overcome if we are alive to both the challenge and the traditional actuality of the love lyric itself, so that instead of dismissing it for that reason, we instead appreciate what is, in fact, a poetic challenge, an extremely difficult one, to be poetically met and overcome.

The brevity of the effect in these songs is such that the title practically writes the song. The immediate is almost everything.

The jazz song usually has a lot of minor keys and notes (brilliantly used to multiple effects of course) with the general tendency to heaviness, intricate mellowness, and melancholy, so we would expect a lot of ‘love gone wrong’ and sad songs, and that’s what we do indeed have. This musical fact will of course impact the lyric. This general sadness is probably why jazz is not nearly as popular as other genres—but its poetry, as we attempt to isolate it, has its own, and under-appreciated, excellence, and the sad also happens to be a richer field for poetic loveliness.

As for jazz’s “sophisticated” reputation; the term is empty; there is nothing smarter about jazz; the ‘maudlin refined into beauty’ perhaps best sums it up; it cannot substitute long for the best of classical music, and the worst of it is horribly chained and pretentious.

Its reputation for being “sophisticated” may be due to the fact that jazz contains very little story-telling, and here is where jazz distinguishes itself from Folk and Country, its hayseed cousins. Frank Sinatra self-consciously introduced the slight exception, “It Was A Very Good Year,” which almost tells a story, as a “pretty folk song.” One can’t imagine Sinatra singing one of those endless folk ballads like “Frankie and  Johnny”—even though this song is on some ‘jazz standard’ lists. ‘True art’ has a certain reticence; the jazz femme fatale doesn’t say very much; as “Yesterday” puts it: “Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say.” The best heartaches are beyond analysis.

In fact, anyone who makes a list like this one has probably had their heart broken, has it associated with a song, which, for that reason, will not be on the list, the ultimate reticence of heart-broken cool. So if you notice a song you think should be on the list below and it is not, be comforted. The song is playing somewhere—and breaking a heart.

 

1. SOMEWHERE OVER THE RAINBOW “That’s where you’ll find me.” Poignantly ideal.

2. YESTERDAY Formally perfect.

3. SMILE Best and saddest advice.

4. AUTUMN LEAVES  “I see your lips, the summer kisses, but I miss you most of all when…”

5. STORMY MONDAY “Tuesday’s just as bad.”

6. MOON RIVER “waiting round the bend”

7. ALL THE THINGS YOU ARE “when all the things you are, are mine.”

8. THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU “Your eyes in stars above…my love.”

9. MY FUNNY VALENTINE “Your looks are laughable, unphotographable”

10. DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME “stars fading but I linger on”

11. DON’T GET AROUND MUCH ANYMORE “couldn’t bear it without you…”

12. MOONGLOW “way up in the blue…”

13. IT HAD TO BE YOU “even be glad, just to be sad, thinking of you.”

14. ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL “half a love never appealed to me”

15. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MADE “and the difference is you.”

16. SPEAK LOW “speak love to me and soon”

17. PENNIES FROM HEAVEN ” be sure your umbrella is upside down”

18. AS TIME GOES BY “hearts full of passion, jealousy and hate”

19. SUMMERTIME  beautiful impressionism.

20. I’LL NEVER SMILE AGAIN “until I smile at you.”

21. STARS FELL ON ALABAMA “we lived our little drama, we kissed in a field of white…”

22. I’M A FOOL TO WANT YOU “to want a love that can’t be true…”

23. HOW HIGH THE MOON “somewhere there’s music…”

24. CONQUEST “the hunter became the huntress”

25. SINGING IN THE RAIN “I’m laughing at clouds”

26. I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO “little trolley cars climb halfway to the stars”

27. PRELUDE TO A KISS “that was my heart trying to compose a prelude…”

28. STRANGER IN PARADISE “if I stand starry-eyed…”

29. ALL OF ME “you took the part that once was my heart so why not take all of me?”

30. AINT MISBEHAVING “I’m home about eight, just me and my radio”

31. THE NEARNESS OF YOU “it’s not the moon that excites me…it’s just the nearness of you…”

32. UNFORGETTABLE “That’s why, darling, it’s incredible…”

33. THE MAN I LOVE “One day he’ll come along”

34. IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR “soft summer nights, we’d hide from the lights on the village green…”

35. QUIET NIGHTS AND QUIET STARS  “quiet thoughts and quiet dreams, quiet walks by quiet streams…”

36. WHO’S SORRY NOW? “Who’s heart is aching for breaking each vow”

37. I DON’T STAND A GHOST OF A CHANCE WITH YOU Well of course not if that’s your attitude!

38. THE LADY IS A TRAMP A unique way to admire.

39. THE GIRL FROM IPANEMA “she looks straight ahead not at me”

40. WHAT KIND OF FOOL AM I? “Who never fell in love” Sammy Davis Jr. nailed this.

41. WHEN YOU WISH UPON A STAR “makes no difference who you are…”

42. SEPTEMBER IN THE RAIN “The leaves of brown came tumbling down, remember…”

43. ALFIE “what’s it all about?”

44. MONA LISA “they just lie there and they die there…”

45. HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS “a shining star upon the highest bow…”

46. A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A FOOL “a sad and a long lonely day…”

47. STARDUST “You wander down the lane and far away…”

48. WHEN I FALL IN LOVE “the moment I can feel that you feel that way, too…”

49. SEPTEMBER SONG “When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame…”

50. FOOLS RUSH IN “but wise men never fall in love, so how are they to know?”

51. YOU’D BETTER GO NOW “I like you much, too much…”

52. JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS “a trip to the moon on gossamer wings…”

53. BLUE MOON “I saw you standing alone…”

54. YOU BELONG TO ME “Fly the ocean in a silver plane, see the jungle when it’s wet with rain…”

55. I GOT IT BAD “and that ain’t good.”

56. IF I HAD YOU “I could start my life anew”

57. A KISS TO BUILD A DREAM ON “my imagination will thrive upon that kiss…”

58. WALK ON BY “and I start to cry…”

59. I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU “every stop that we made…And when I pulled down the shade…”

60. WHEN SUNNY GETS BLUE “Hurry new love, hurry here…”

61. THE GOOD LIFE “kiss the good life goodbye.”

62. IS THAT ALL THERE IS? “I remember when I was a little girl…”

63. STORMY WEATHER “Don’t know why there’s no sun up in the sky…”

64. TWILIGHT TIME “heavenly shades of night are falling…”

65. I’VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN “I have tried so not to give in…”

66. EMBRACEABLE YOU  “you irreplaceable you…”

67. NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT “won’t you tell me how?”

68. HERE’S THAT RAINY DAY “Where is that worn out wish that I threw aside…”

69. GEORGIA ON MY MIND “No peace I find, just an old sweet song…”

70. FOR ALL WE KNOW “Tomorrow may never come…”

71. MACK THE KNIFE “and he keeps it out of sight…”

72. I’VE GOT THE WORLD ON A STRING “I can make the rain go…”

73. CRY ME A RIVER “I cried a river over you.”

74. IF YOU GO AWAY  If you go away on this summer day…”

75. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THE REST OF YOUR LIFE? “East and west of your life…”

76. MY FOOLISH HEART “it’s love this time, it’s love, my foolish heart.”

77. ALMOST LIKE BEING IN LOVE “What a day this has been, what a rare mood I’m in, why it’s almost…”

78. LET’S DO IT  “even educated fleas do it…”

79. AINT SHE SWEET  “now I ask you very confidentially…”

80. LET’S CALL THE WHOLE THING OFF  “potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto…”

81. FLY ME TO THE MOON “let me find out what love is like on Jupiter and Mars…”

82. TILL THERE WAS YOU “There were bells on a hill, but I never heard them ringing…”

83. A STRANGER ON EARTH “The day’s gonna come when I prove my worth and I won’t be a stranger…”

84. I’LL BE SEEING YOU “I’ll be looking at the moon but I’ll be seeing you”

85. TROUBLE IN MIND “the sun’s going to shine through my back door one day”

86. ROMANCE IN THE DARK “we’ll find romance in the dark…”

87. SOMETHING Sinatra said this Beatle (Harrison) song was the best.

88. ON A CLEAR DAY “rise and look around you…”

89. THE MAN THAT GOT AWAY Made for Judy Garland.

90. IT’S ALL IN THE GAME “Many a tear has to fall…”

91. WHY SHOULD I CARE  “Will she wake up knowing you’re still there? And why should I care?”

92. LOVE IS HERE TO STAY “the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble, they’re only made of clay…”

93. IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU “Don’t count stars or you might stumble…”

94. I SURRENDER DEAR “We played the game of stay away…”

95. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT LOVE IS “Until you’ve faced each dawn with sleepless eyes…”

96. COME RAIN OR COME SHINE “I’m gonna love you like nobody’s loved you”

97. LAURA “The laugh that floats on a summer night…”

98. I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TIME IT WAS “And I know what time it is now”

99. DO NOTHING TILL YOU HEAR FROM ME “if you should take the word of others you’ve heard”

100. THEY CAN’T TAKE THAT AWAY FROM ME “the way we danced till 3”

 

 

 

10 Comments

THE TOP ONE HUNDRED POPULAR SONG LYRICS THAT WORK AS POETRY

November 8, 2013 at 9:11 pm (Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Pete Seeger, Rolling Stones)

Image result for music in renaissance painting

The phatic is common to both song lyrics and poetry; music aids the lyric, condemning it to be not quite poetry forever, while poetry is its own music, condemning it to be naked without music forever.

The two are never reconciled—the standard of poetry is never–-never—reached by song lyrics, which breaks the poet’s heart, a heart which travels into music’s realm, shunning its help.  Madness and torture!  Why do the two exist–-never to meet!  Poetry and music!  Divided heart!  Divided mind!  Poor, divided mankind!

As a healing device, we list the top 100 Song Lyrics As Poetry of All Time, with the single criterion: when we hear the song, do the lyrics intoxicate us as much as the music?

Note we do not ask the song to be judged as poetry—as words on the page.   And yet—and yet—words are being judged.

The list below is not based on reading the lyrics alone on the page as if it were a poem, for this is to take the creature out of the water: we judge the lyrics with its music as poetry.

If an especially beautiful music accompanies the words of a particular song, making the words even more beautiful, we have to assume the words are responsible; the songwriter will sometimes experience this phenomenon: words inspire the music, as if the words and music were born together.  It is as if the music were an aura around the words—words which nonetheless are not strong enough to be poetry, since they need the music.  We celebrate this paradox—in our list—of poems which are not poems.

If one were to boil down the two essential criteria they would be: 1. originality and interest and 2. strongly realized feeling or idea, but we’ll briefly comment on why for each song.

1 Perfect Day  (Lou Reed)  performed by Lou Reed   —Why: The haunting ambiguity: drug fix or romance? “I thought I was someone else, someone good”
2. Day In the Life  (Lennon/McCartney)  performed by The Beatles   –“Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall”
3. The Good Life  (Distel/Broussolle/Reardon)  performed by Nancy Wilson  –A love song with a tantalizingly puzzling message
4. Coming Back To Me  (Marty Balin)  performed by Jefferson Airplane  –“Through a window where no curtain hung I saw you…coming back to me…”
5. Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan)  performed by Bob Dylan –“You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you”
6. America (Paul Simon) performed by Simon & Garfunkle –“Toss me a cigarette I think there’s one in my raincoat…”
7. Over the Rainbow  (Arlen/Harburg) performed by Judy Garland  –“That’s where you’ll find me”
8. Is That All There Is?  (Lieber/Stoller) performed by Peggy Lee  –A life-flashing-before-your-eyes song
9. Ruby Tuesday (Jagger/Richards) performed by Rolling Stones  –“She comes and goes, no one knows…”
10. Both Sides Now  (Joni Mitchell) performed by Judy Collins  –“I don’t know clouds at all…”
11. I Want You (Bob Dylan) performed by Bob Dylan  –“The cracked bells and washed out horns blow into my face with scorn…”
12. Forbidden Fruit (Oscar Brown Jr) performed by Nina Simone –“Eve and Adam had a garden, everything was great…”
13. American Pie (Don McLean) performed by Don McLean  –A perhaps overly sentimental tribute to Buddy Holly…”the day the music died…”
14. Lather (Grace Slick) performed by Jefferson Airplane  –A haunting lyric about growing up…”Lather was thirty years old today…”
15. She Loves You (Lennon/McCartney) performed by The Beatles  –“She” instead of “I” makes it a song about three people instead of two…
16. Me and Bobby McGee (Kris Kristofferson) performed by Janis Joplin  Best going-down-the-road song ever.
17. If You Go Away (Jacque Brel)  performed by Shirley Bassey  –One of those crushingly crushed-up love songs
18. Horse With No Name (Dewey Bunnell)   performed by America  –“The heat was hot…”  You can walk into this song…
19. Yellow Submarine (Lennon/McCartney) performed by The Beatles  –Intimates the ‘we’re-all-together’ spirit so nicely…
20. Jennifer Juniper (Donovan Leitch)  performed by Donovan  –“I am thinking of what it would be like if she loved me…”
21. Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite (Lennon/McCartney) performed by The Beatles –Phantasmagoria at its best.  “And of course, Henry the horse…”
22. Maggie Mae (Stewart/Quittinton) performed by Rod Stewart  –“I suppose I could collect my books and get on back to school”
23. Play With Fire (Phelge) performed by The Rolling Stones  –“Well you’ve got your diamonds and you’ve got your pretty clothes…”
24. Mrs. Brown You Have A Lovely Daughter (T. Peacock) –The boy complains to the mother…different.
25. You’re Lost Little Girl (The Doors) performed by The Doors –The “little girl” is really the one in control; one can hear William Blake in it…
26. Sunny Afternoon (Ray Davies) performed by The Kinks  –“telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty…”
27. Yesterday (Lennon/McCartney) performed by The Beatles  –A simple, but perfect lyric: “yesterday came suddenly…”
28. Fakin’ It  (Paul Simon) performed by Simon and Garfunkle  –a  masterpiece of introspective nostalgia
29. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer (Lennon/McCartney) performed by The Beatles  –“Rose and Valerie screaming from the gallery…”
30. Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (Bob Dylan) performed by Bob Dylan  “When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez and it’s Eastertime too, and your gravity fails…”
31. Fire and Rain (James Taylor) performed by James Taylor  — a wreck of a song, in the best possible way…  “I always thought I’d see you one more time again…”
32. Irreplaceable (Beyonce, Ne-Yo, Eriksen, Hermansen, Lind, Bjorklund) performed by Beyonce  “You must not know ’bout me…”
33. Mona Lisa (Evans/Livingston) Nat King Cole –“They just lie there and they die there…Are you real, Mona Lisa?”
34. Cry Baby Cry (Lennon/McCartney) The Beatles  –“The duchess of Kircaldy always smiling and arriving late for tea…”  one of John’s best…
35. Night And Day (Cole Porter) Fred Astaire  –“in the roaring traffic’s boom, in the silence of my lonely room I think of you, night and day…”
36. As Time Goes By (Hupfeld)  Dooley Wilson  –“hearts full of passion, jealousy and hate…”
37. Ferry Cross The Mersey (Marsden) Gerry and the Pacemakers  –“we’ll never turn you away…”
38. Georgia On My Mind (Carmichael, Gorrell) Ray Charles  –“Georgia, Georgia, the whole day through…”
39. Ring Of Fire (Gilgore/Carter) Johnny Cash  –“the flames gettin’ higher…”
40. The End (Jim Morrison) The Doors  –“this is the end, beautiful friend, no safety or surprise, the end…”
41. The Times They Are A Changin’ (Bob Dylan)  Bob Dylan  –the ultimate protest/wake-up-to-reality song…
42. Everyday (White, Crisler)   Buddy Holly  –“Everyday, it’s a gettin’ closer, goin’ faster than a roller coaster…”
43. All You Need Is Love (Lennon/McCartney) The Beatles  –“There’s nothin’ you can’t do that can’t be done…”
44. This Land Is Your Land (Woody Guthrie) Woody Guthrie  –“This land was made for you and me…”
45. My Generation (Pete Townsend) The Who  –the slinging, self-righteous, celebratory anger of the 60s in 3 minutes…
46. Let It Be (Lennon/McCartney) The Beatles  –“Mother Mary comes to me…”
47. What’d I Say (Byrne/Robinson) Ray Charles  –“Tell me… What did I say?”
48. Sympathy For the Devil (Jagger/Richard) Rolling Stones  –Jagger wrote a Bob Dylan-type ballad and the Stones added mayhem..
49. Crazy (Willie Nelson) Patsy Cline  –“Crazy for cryin’ and crazy for tryin’…”
50. A Whiter Shade Of Pale (Brooker, Reid, Fisher) Procol Harum  –“and the waiter brought a tray…”
51. I Say A Little Prayer For You (Bacharach/David) Dionne Warwick –“The moment I wake up, before I put on my makeup…”
52. Dream A Little Dream Of Me (Gus Kahn) Mamas and Papas  –“Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper I love you…”
53. California Dreamin’ (Phillips) Mamas and Papas  –“Well I got down on my knees and I began to pray…”
54. Hotel California (Felder, Henley, Frey) The Eagles  –“But they can never leave…”
55. Walk On By (Bacharach/David) Dionne Warwick  –“make believe that you don’t see the tears…”
56. Guess Who I Saw Today? (Grand/Boyd) Eartha Kitt  –what a beautifully constructed little urban story…
57. Lovely Rita (Lennon/McCartney) The Beatles  –“sitting on a sofa with a sister or two…”
58. White Rabbit (Grace Slick) Jefferson Airplane  –“and the white knight is talking backwards and the red queen is ‘off with her head!'”
59. My Favorite Things (Rodgers/Hammerstein) Julie Andrews  –“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…”  Keatsian.
60. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Kern/Harbach) The Platters  –“Now laughing friends deride…”
61. Stranger In Paradise (Borodin, Wright, Forrest) Tony Bennett  –“If I stand starry-eyed, that’s a danger in paradise…”
62. Misty (Garner/Burke) Johnny Mathis –“When I wander through the wonderland alone…”
63. (They Long To Be) Close To You (Bacharach/David) The Carpenters –“Just like me, they long to be close to you…”
64. Ain’t Misbehavin’  (Waller,Brooks, Razaff) Fats Waller –“I’m home about eight, just me and my radio…”
65. Don’t Get Around Much Anymore (Ellington/Russell) The Ink Spots –“They’d have asked me about you…”
66. I’ll Be Seeing You (Fain/Kahal) Billie Holiday –“In all the old familiar places that this heart of mine embraces…”
67. Mack The Knife (Brecht/Weil, Blitzstein) Bobby Darin  –“Oh the shark has pretty teeth, dear…”
68. Pirate Jenny (Brecht/Weil) Lotte Lenya  –“Asking me, kill them now, or later?”
69. Tiptoe Through The Tulips (Burke/Dubin) Tiny Tim –“tiptoe from the garden, by the garden of the willow tree…”
70. What Is And What Should Never Be (Led Zeppelin)  Led Zeppelin –“and if you say to me tomorrow oh what fun it all would be…”
71. Golden Vanity (anonymous) Pete Seeger –a tearful adventure novel packed into song…”and down sunk he…farewell, farewell to the Golden Vanity…”
72. Star Spangled Banner (Key) Various Artists  –“O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light?”
73. Tiny Dancer (John/Taupin) Elton John  –“Jesus freaks out on the street, handing out free tickets for God…”
74. White Christmas (Irving Berlin) Bing Crosy     Best-selling single of all-time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records
75. Barbara Allen (anonymous) Pete Seeger  –the most popular of the old ballads…”oh mother, mother go make my bed…”
76. Tenderly (Lawrence/Lawrence) Sarah Vaughan –“the evening breeze caressed the trees tenderly…”  this is not corny; this is poetry
77. Lady of Carlyle (anonymous) Pete Seeger  –another beautiful old ballad…”and for a space of half an hour, this young lady lay speechless on the ground.”
78. Take Me Home, Country Roads (Denver, Nivert, Danoff) John Denver  –a big, outdoors song, one the best…”Almost heaven, West Virginia…”
79. Winter Wonderland (Bernard/Smith) Various Artists –so many great Christmas songs, but this one is especially charming…
80. If I Had A Hammer (Seeger/Hayes) The Weavers –Pete Seeger, who cut Dylan’s cords at Newport, was Dylan before Dylan…
81. Wayfaring Stranger (anonymous) Burl Ives  –“I’m going there to see my father, I’m going there no more to roam…”
82. Silent Night (Gruber/Mohr) Various  –the Ur-Christmas carol…
83. Paint It Black (Jagger/Richard) Rolling Stones  –“I see a red door and I want to paint it black…”
84. Every Breath You Take (Sting) The Police –“I’ll be watching you…”
85. It’s All In The Game (Dawes/Sigman) Tommy Edwards  –“And your hearts will fly away…”
86. You’re So Vain (Carly Simon) Carly Simon –“And your horse naturally won…”
87. Killing Me Softly With His Song (Fox/Gimbel) Roberta Flack –“I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud…”
88. It’s My Party (Gluck, Gold, Weiner) Lesley Gore –“I’ll cry if I want to…”
89. The End Of The World (Shave, Smith, Pebworth, Astasio) Skeeter Davis  –“Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?”
90. Under the Boardwalk (Young/Resnick) The Drifters  –“People walking above…”
91. It’s Now Or Never (Schroeder, Gold) Elvis Presley –“Tomorrow will be too late…”
92. I Will Survive (Perren/Fekaris) Gloria Gaynor –“At first I was afraid, I was petrified…”
93. Moon River (Mancini/Mercer) Andy Williams –“we’re all after the same rainbow’s end…”
94. Paper Moon (Arlen,Harburg, Rose) Nat King Cole –“it’s only a paper moon over a cardboard sea, but I’ll believe in make-believe if…”
95. Bennie And The Jets (John/Taupin) Elton John  –“she’s got electric boots, a mohair suit, you know I read it in a magazine…”
96. Freed From The Gallows/Gallows Pole (anonymous) Ledbelly  “I think I see my mother coming, riding many a mile…”
97. She’ll Be Comin’ Round The Mountain (anonymous) Pete Seeger  –“she’ll be riding six white horses when she comes…”
98. Jam On Jerry’s Rocks (anonymous) Pete Seeger –“crushed and bleeding on the beach lay the form of young Monroe”
99. Come All Ye Fair And Tender Maidens (anonymous) Pete Seeger  –I wish I were a little sparrow and I had wings and I could fly…”
100. Groundhog (anonymous) Pete Seeger –“We’re all going out to hunt groundhog…”
101. September In The Rain (Warren/Dubin) James Melton –“The leaves of red and brown came tumbling down, remember?”
102. Pretty Polly (anonymous) Pete Seeger   –“Leaving nothing but the wild birds to moan.”   We had to include one murder song…
103. Danville Girl (anonymous)  Pete Seeger  –“She took me to her kitchen, she treated me nice and kind…”   And one hobo song…

245 Comments

VALENTINE’S WEEK CONTINUES

February 13, 2012 at 3:01 pm (Paul McCartney, Thomas Graves)

What the gods love most is their own face.

Greetings Votaries!

Tomorrow is the Day.

Today we’ll not quote from Lord Byron’s Don Juan or Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, or the writings of Shelley against marriage.

The best way to enjoy love the longest is in our thoughts—and what are thoughts made of, but words?  (No, not those kinds of words! Nice words, beautiful words, words that light our way to the sun.)  Poetry enables love to unfold beautifully in our minds all the time. This is why poetry and love will always be sisters, and why love is poetry’s highest calling.

One of the best ways to express love is in song.

Ashbery’s art might make us giggle, but Adele’s art will always have more followers, because she can make us cry.

Didn’t Sir Paul sing a brand new song at the Grammy’s last night, called “Valentine?”

The lyrics were simple but luv-ley.

Here is my attempt to write a famous, iconic love song.  The song has never been recorded, so the music exists in notes on paper sitting on my piano at home.

But the words to the love song follow.

FINALLY

Finally, your heart decides.
Finally, you try all the rides.
Finally, you love in the spring.
Finally.

Finally, it all makes sense.
Finally, there’s no coincidence.

Finally, you jump right in.
Finally, you play to win.
Finally, you love in the spring.
Finally.

Finally, it all makes sense.
Finally, there’s no coincidence.

Finally, you catch her eye.
Finally, your lips say “hi.”
Finally, you love in the spring.
Finally.

11 Comments

“HERE TODAY,” THE BEATLES ARE BACK TOGETHER

January 11, 2012 at 4:06 am (Beatles, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr)

It will always be the great Boomer dream that never came true.

The Beatles getting back together.

The 1940s: Ringo, John, Paul, and George born during the Blitz.

The 1950s: Rock n’ roll

The 1960s: the Beatles.

The 1970s: hoping the Beatles will get back together.

The 1980s: grieving that the Beatles will never get back together.

The 1990s: angry that the Beatles will never get back together.

The 2000s: relieved that the Beatles will never get back together.

The 2010’s: Paul and Ringo still producing solo albums

What would it be like to experience a Beatles reunion?

By now everyone must realize how anti-climactic it would have been, as the Beatles themselves surely understood back in the 1970s, when the world was waiting for it to happen—while listening to Elton John, the Bee Gees, John Denver, Queen, David Bowie, Led Zepplin, Stevie Wonder, and the Rolling Stones.

The Beatles were so BIG to so many people in a splendid window of time of unprecedented material and social change that the idea of the group took on extra dimensions, supplemented by the magic of widespread musical recordings, as well as the varied interests and personalities of the four men themselves.

One could blather on like this forever, as so many journalists and rock critics have done, but words can’t do justice to the Beatles phenomenon, nor can the banality of it finally be grasped, either.  The Beatles now occupy a little space on the shelf of history, and that’s about it.  All that’s left is for the Yoko and Paul estates to gain what they can in publicity squabbles as the sun sets on all the living participants.  A few songs, like “Imagine” and “Yesterday,” remain iconic, but it’s hard to judge what a hundred years from now will look like.

The Beatles made records from 1962 to 1970, and the original albums and greatest hits still sell moderately well.

The solo Beatles released their first original recordings starting in 1968, Paul wrote for other bands even earlier, and Paul and Ringo are still putting out records as of this day in 2012.  (Ringo’s latest will be released this month. http://kool.radio.com/2012/01/03/ringo-starr-earns-his-wings/)

The Beatles, 1962-1970

The ‘solo’ Beatles, 1968-present.

8 years v. 44 years.

Three of the four Beatles probably produced work outside of the Beatles as interesting, if not more interesting, than what they produced as Beatles; only Paul is more interesting for the work he did as a Beatle than for the work he did afterwards—though Paul might disagree, and insist it’s true for all four.

In terms of musical output and interest, then, it’s safe to say post-Beatles music is at least as important as Beatles music, and yet the former remains scattered, suffers from the indignity of not being Beatles music, and has never been anthologized into anything resembling a Beatles (Solo) 1968–present album or albums.

The Beatles have produced records for 50 years, but production-wise, only 8 of those 50 years really exist.

Ringo has been releasing songs on his albums, recently, which musically quote solo Paul songs.  The Beatles used to do this (‘She Loves You” is quoted at the end of “All You Need Is Love”).  Why can’t Ringo?   Paul and Ringo have released songs for John and George, and both Paul and Ringo, even as old guys, have produced songs on their solo albums that sound more Beatle-esque than the Beatles did.  The two remaining Beatles are still behaving like Beatles.

Recently I experienced a Beatles reunion, where one should really experience it—in my own ears.

I put together a CD mix many months ago, and forgetting what songs were on it, I gave it a listen.

The CD player was on random shuffle, so the experience of the ‘concert’ felt entirely ‘new.’

It began with Paul saying to an appreciative crowd, “Fancy a bit of rock n’ roll?” and then “Hi Hi Hi” from a live Paul album, and, in no certain order (I’ve already forgotten exactly what order the songs were in) I heard a live, up-tempo recording of “Give Peace A Chance,” a wailing Indian music instrumental composed by George from the soundtrack album he made without the Beatles in 1968, called “Crying,” a live version of John’s agonized “Mother,” Paul’s 1980 “Dress Me Up As A Robber,” a live version of Paul doing his tribute to John, “Here Today,” with the words, “you were in my song,” and Paul’s live version of “Something” with only a banjo, the spicy “When We Was Fab” by George, the up-tempo numbers “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night” and “Oh Yoko!” by John, “See Yourself” (musically sweet, lyrically preachy, just like we love him) from mid-70s George, classics “Imagine” by John and”My Sweet Lord” by George (that glorious, ground-breaking song ripped from a 50s melody) and, of course, one Ringo song, recorded not that many years ago, called “Elizabeth Reigns,” a song that almost sounds like it could have been written by late 60s Paul or John, sweet, over-produced, and campy.  If the Beatles were finally an homage-driven, semi-meaningful lark, “Elizabeth Reigns,” fits the bill nicely, with its loving, yet cheeky, lyrics:

Elizabeth reigns
Over and under
Elizabeth reigns
Lightning and thunder
Elizabeth reigns
Since I Was younger
She’s head of the family
Elizabeth reigns over me

When the album finished playing, and I took my ear phones off and stretched, alone in my house, half-shrugging, I thought to myself: that may not have been the best 50 minutes of my life, but you know what?  That’s probably the closest anyone will ever get to the Beatles getting back together.

Welcome back, boys.

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LOSER NOWHERE MAN: HELP

October 15, 2010 at 12:57 pm (Beatles, Bob Dylan, John Keats, John Lennon, Paul McCartney)

He proved John Keats’ thesis: like Keats’ poet, the most unpoetical creature on earth, John Lennon was, in many ways, without star qualities, without confidence, without talent, without poetry; but he was a star’s star.  

Look at the video of the Beatles’ first American tour: confident Paul McCartney takes charge, while John looks uneasy, even scared to death; terrified, grinning, just trying to get through it.   On that first Ed Sullivan show, Paul’s singing is much stronger than John’s.  John is clearly scared.

Yesterday: Following Paul’s solo-in-the-spotlight performance in 1965, during the height of Beatlemania, of his song, that almost, by itself, transcended Beatlemania, and is still doing so, and perhaps, 100 years from now, may eclipse it entirely, John caustically said to the audience, “Thank you, Ringo, that was woon-da-ful!”   Here was John’s genius in a nutshell: insulting Ringo, Paul, “Yesterday,” rock music, and the whole idea of the Beatles in a few, off-the-cuff, words.   John’s wit demolished the expert, towering, sentiment of Paul’s two-minute pop genius in two seconds.

The quickness displayed by John’s mind is a mind easily bored, lazy and arrogant, too fully aware of its own power, and, of course, jealous.  John was a prolific songwriter when an-album-in-a-week composing deadlines made laziness impossible; as soon as the Beatles became cultural gods so that songwriting was no longer entirely necessary (Paul and George were talented and ambitious enough by 1968 that they could easily carry the Beatles themselves), John’s songwriting fell off tremendously; in the early 60s, John wrote hit after hit; from 1969 until his death, he wrote almost none, and many released after 1968 were actually written by John in 1967 and earlier.  “Imagine” sounds like it was written to order for Yoko Ono; “Imagine” sounds like a Yoko lyric, not a Beatle one.    When John was motivated to write, he was the best, but he was not a self-motivated genius.   

His competitive, love-hate relationship with Paul surely had a lot to do with his early 60s output, as well.   He soured on Paul for many reasons, but one  important result was that John became less and less a songwriter, and more and more a shrill egomaniac.

John the genius had no identity; he was absorbed by his environment; thrown in with Paul, he became a great songwriter, married to English Cynthia, he was a “fat,” meat-eating, English suburbanite, married to sophisticated, worldly Yoko, he was a skinny, tea-drinking, Big Apple-dweller.  As a rock star, he couldn’t resist women and drugs; as a cultural spokesman, he couldn’t resist shallow culture-speak.   The fat, 1965 married-to-Cynthia John scolded Allen Ginsberg for getting naked in public.  The skinny, 1969 married-to-Yoko John got naked in public.

By his own admission, John made fun of the weak—as a bullying kid, neglected his first child, and was cruel to his first wife.   Yoko was the perfect wife for the reformed John because she was picked on, and he got to defend her in front of the world.  This may be a crass way of putting it, but this is the sort of life John led, and he knew it.

There’s something cruel and jealous about a mimic, and perhaps Plato’s wariness of art has something to do with this, but John could cruelly mimic like no one else.  In recording out-takes, one can hear Lennon doing Bob Dylan, and John gets Zimmerman right—in a spot-on, cruel manner.

In the mid-60s, John struck out on a literary route, but as with everything else, he got bored of that, too.    John wrote his best lyrics in the 1966/1967 period, a brilliant, but small window of time.  “Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe,” John wrote in “I Am The Walrus.”   It takes a special kind of insight to see that Edgar Poe was picked on, and John, the ex-bully, who was reading a lot at that time, saw it.

Even during the height of Beatlemania, in photographs, John could look ugly, even though, in many photographs, he looks very handsome.  Knowing John, he certainly must have noticed this.   Even John-the-Beatle’s good looks, just like Keats’ unpoetic quality of the poet, was uncertain; doubtful at its core.

Jealous, ugly, shy, depressed, cruel, self-conscious, and in need of help. 

A star.

Happy Birthday, Johnny.

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POETRY FOUND DEAD, SURVIVED BY PROSE, POPULAR SONG

April 1, 2010 at 1:06 pm (Maria Grever, Paul McCartney, Uncategorized, Yesterday (Lennon/McCartney))

“I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, ‘That’s great. I wonder what that is?'” He got up that morning in May 1965, went to the piano, and began playing the melody that would become “Yesterday.” At first, lacking lyrics, he improvised with ” Scrambled eggs, oh my baby, how I love your legs.”

I’m a sucker for the golden mean.

I love the idea of music that appeals to all.  When I have ideas about music, my thinking tends to go in the direction of popular song.  Is this why I’m a poet? 

I enjoy pure music without any ideas.  Popular music, on the other hand, fills me with ideas.

I wonder, for instance, if John Ashbery could write ‘Yesterday?’  I know Ashbery could write ‘Scrambled Eggs,’ but could he write the lyrics to a song classic, like “What A Difference A Day Makes?” 

Who would win a popular ballad writing contest—Silliman or Collins?  Armantrout or Leithauser?  WC Williams or Edna Millay?

To get the attention of Mr. Grumpy businessman gulping his morning coffee and reading his newspaper with a song (let us write off poem as hopeless) would be quite a task, something akin to moving a very large boulder.  It would require great force, and in order to find such a force, invention and ideas would need to follow.

If, on the other hand, I wanted to interest Mr. Wry, an MFA Poetry professor, in a poem (something so mundane as a song not being a possibility) I would merely have to produce a little speech on how nothing resembling an idea should ever be trusted, that ideas are for businessmen and for people who want to do violence to large rocks, and finish it off with a description of some random thing, and voila!, Mr. Wry would be mine, my task done, no boulder would need be moved at all.

The first task, involving Mr. Grumpy, though not intellectual in itself, requires ideas to effect.

The second task, involving Mr. Wry, bristles with intellectuality, but requires nothing resembling an idea—in fact, rejects the very idea of an idea as something hopelessly violent and oppressive and obvious.

As much as a scientist is a genius, the more universal are his concepts, the more universal is the practical application.

In the old days, the author wrote for everyone and was more the genius the more he appealed to everyone.

The formulas and gadgets of the scientist may be obscure and difficult to comprehend, but the end of these complex formulas is always universal application.

The poet is not a scientist just because the poet produces formulas and gadgets that are not easily understood; to be understood in his ‘gadgets and his formulas’ is precisely why he writes fiction, and not science.  To be understood is the writer’s calling.   The scientist impacts the material world, the writer impacts people through words, and as much as those words are understood the writer is a writer; otherwise he would be a scientist.  

An obscure writer may be a scientist, but while he is being obscure, he is a scientist only, and perhaps a very great one, but not a writer.  The obscurity may eventually blossom into real-life material impact, and that material impact would be proof of the science involved; but obscurity is never the writer’s domain—unless he be a scientist and not a writer, and then we expect some material and practical impact from his obscurity.   The scientist, too, may be understood by the many, but only if formulas and gadgets lead to practical results is there ever a reason to celebrate obscurity in what the scientist does.

The composer is writing songs, then, while the scientist is developing new instruments.  A songwriter may use an instrument, a songwriter may even write a song so interesting that it demands a new instrument, and in that sense art can inspire science, but a song is a song, a poem is a poem, always comprehended as such on the surface as far as they are so, and those who would call them science do a grave injustice to songwriter Sam and scientist Sally.  The two may end up in bed.  But they are not the same.

I am really not sure why song-writing is not a part of every poet’s arsenal.  Bob Dylan is known as a poet because he wrote songs; music did not come looking for Dylan’s words, as Schubert’s music came looking for the poems of Goethe, and thus poems were converted into songs.  The talents used to be more separate, the gifted lyric-writer and song-writer often lived in separate worlds, and the singer in still another one.  Then Robert Zimmerman turned into Bob Dylan and millons have followed in Zimmerman’s footsteps.  Now poets are like half-persons with no music.  Have the poets spurned the singer, or have the singers rejected the poets?   The poetry certainly makes songs better.  “Yesterday” would have died unknown had it remained “Scrambled eggs.”  And did Shakespeare write opera without music?  Was Shakespeare not a half-person at all, but more whole than we realize, completed by a high-speech music?  Is this all elevated speech is?  Speech as a kind of music?

Does poetry not really exist?

Is there only prose?

And music?

Is poetry only the ingredient common to both, but invisible, causing them to rise, like yeast, but never tasted in the bread, never perceived in the product itself?

Is poetry written as poetry a great mistake, the isolation of what cannot live in isolation?  And, when we succeed in writing it, are we not really writing it at all—but only a prose or a music that devoured it when we were not looking?

Maria Grever, the prolific Mexican songwriter, composer of “Cuando Vuelva a Tu Lado” (What A Difference A Day Makes).

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