Today I heard
spring's first cicadas,
singing like adrenalin,
celebrating last night's rain
that liberated bursts of sound,
burrowing from underground
through moistened earth
to glaze their wings
in lacquer sheen of photons
from munificent September sun.
Somewhere in the tender
russet foliage of Chinese elms
a trio of shrill stridulations
merge, embrace, and separate.
But if there were no trees, no plants,
would concrete stifle vibrant chant?
Cicadas, transubstantiate
spring's energy and radiance,
perform your steely sarabande
while yet you can…
Spring s first cicadas
© Copyright: Jena Woodhouse, 2005
Свидетельство о публикации №105091201089
Свидетельство о публикации №105091201089
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oh, dear! oops you did it again ;))))
Still magnificent but a little bit difficult to read and impossible to sing
Do you plant to fight with it? ;))))
Кертис Эйлес 12.09.2005 15:27 • Заявить о нарушении
Still magnificent but a little bit difficult to read and impossible to sing
Do you plant to fight with it? ;))))
Кертис Эйлес 12.09.2005 15:27 • Заявить о нарушении
Are you quite sure that I am the one who is tone-deaf? Perhaps you just hear in a different key...
Jena Woodhouse 13.09.2005 02:26 Заявить о нарушении
Jena Woodhouse 13.09.2005 02:26 Заявить о нарушении
Brodsky speaks of "the perspective of time supplied by prosody". According to his understanding, "what is called the music of a poem is essentially time restructured in such a way that it brings the poem's content into a linguistically inevitable, memorable focus.
"Sound, in other words, is the seat of time in the poem, a background against which its content acquires a stereoscopic quality."
These observations come from Brodsky's essay on Akhmatova, "The Keening Muse", and I find them very illuminating in relation to my own poetic practice.
Certainly my work usually falls short of the mark, i.e. the standard I would like to achieve, and this poem is no exception to that. Mea culpa. However, I do think there is a danger of oversimplifying what musicality is in poetic terms, and in trying to draw too literal an analogy between language and music.
Jena Woodhouse 13.09.2005 04:47 Заявить о нарушении
"Sound, in other words, is the seat of time in the poem, a background against which its content acquires a stereoscopic quality."
These observations come from Brodsky's essay on Akhmatova, "The Keening Muse", and I find them very illuminating in relation to my own poetic practice.
Certainly my work usually falls short of the mark, i.e. the standard I would like to achieve, and this poem is no exception to that. Mea culpa. However, I do think there is a danger of oversimplifying what musicality is in poetic terms, and in trying to draw too literal an analogy between language and music.
Jena Woodhouse 13.09.2005 04:47 Заявить о нарушении
What can I say about it? I have no comments as the way you write and lay your throughts on the line takes my breath away. Maybe the point is that i look at verses from the view of a songwriter and you look at it from the point of a poet. I have rather developed ear to music that is why sounds are very important for me but content as well. Sometimes I have to choose between them. Have to confess that you need to be published and desirably abroad. Anyway it is really worth reading. With best wishes, Curtis
Кертис Эйлес 13.09.2005 09:44 Заявить о нарушении
Кертис Эйлес 13.09.2005 09:44 Заявить о нарушении
Thank you, Curtis. I would love to be able to write songs - in fact I have done in the past, but as you say, it's a different approach from writing poems that cannot become songs. Thank you for reading me! :))
Jena Woodhouse 13.09.2005 10:21 Заявить о нарушении
Jena Woodhouse 13.09.2005 10:21 Заявить о нарушении
The album will be released in the beginning of 2006. Now I'm writing lyrics for a group playing music of main stream ;)))))))
Check it on Raw Tracks in music and Hot Line latest news (announcements), With best wishes, Curtis
Кертис Эйлес 13.09.2005 14:18 Заявить о нарушении
Check it on Raw Tracks in music and Hot Line latest news (announcements), With best wishes, Curtis
Кертис Эйлес 13.09.2005 14:18 Заявить о нарушении
I guess that it was a kind of destiny as I just found myself in the right place and in the right time ;))))))))))
By the way i planned to publish my early works but postponed this action for a while
Looking forward to receiving your new writings
With best wishes, Curtis
Кертис Эйлес 14.09.2005 09:26 Заявить о нарушении
By the way i planned to publish my early works but postponed this action for a while
Looking forward to receiving your new writings
With best wishes, Curtis
Кертис Эйлес 14.09.2005 09:26 Заявить о нарушении