Is Etta James the Heart and Soul of Poetry?: Etta James, Van Morrison, and the Art of the Repeated Line

I dreamt that the key to poetry is the music of Etta James.  As I really didn’t have a clue who Etta James was, I thought this is either ridiculous or quite significant.  (Note:  a couple of weeks earlier I dreamt I would be the father of a major school of poetics, Rammed-Earth Poetry, so clearly my id is searching for some sort of significance here.)  Still, could a dead relative of mine, or Etta herself, or perhaps even God Almighty be directing my artistic pursuit from the other side?  I don’t know.  Part of me always wants to write off the muse as pure crap, but some of my best poems have come to me in dreams.  So, then I think, well, it’s just the workings of the subconscious.  But, when I put on Etta this morning, I thought sweet damn that lady do sing the blues so sweetly redemption is hanging out on the street corner just waitin to smile up at me with great big, black eyes that contain all the love in the universe!

And I thought there might be something to this crazy dream after all.  Now, I’m not ready to toss William Carlos Williams in the trashcan yet, but maybe there is something other, something just as real, but different than the right-on images, perfect line breaks, and plain ol’ American dialect--something that’s missing not only from my own work, but also the work of my heroes.

I know repetition draws me, the chant, and going back mid-step, before your foot is fully forward, like Van Morrison does:

 

 

But how do you get that on the page independent of the blues band?  If, I say if, I say, if it’s the ramble and the row, the slow winding out, then pulling back in, then bellowing out heart and soul that drives poetry, the eye has to be able to pick that up, line by line, so the music forms in the reader’s mind.

Is it doable?  I don’t know.  Or is that even why Etta James is the heart and soul of poetry?

But, I do know this: although I woke up thinking I had a crazy dream, after listing to Etta, I do believe she is indeed the heart and soul of poetry and I’m more than willing to explore possibility that some of her spirit can be captured in the unaccompanied line. 

Besides, it’s kind of like deciding that Julia Roberts holds the secret to acting.  Even if you’re wrong, after seeing her smile, quite frankly, who gives a damn?  After hearing Etta, my life aint gonna never be the same nohow.  And I thank whatever dead relative cared enough about to let me in on that secret.

 

 

 

Dry Creek and a Sunday Song: "Sunday Morning" by Bobby Byrd and "Hymns to the Silence" by Van Morrison

It's July at Dry Creek.  The fields have gone from green to burnt sienna, to ochre.  Heat is heavy, the sun intense in the morning and early afternoon.  Then the thunder clouds build--bold, black and threatening.  Sometimes it sprinkles.  Once it poured.  But usually, it does nothing.

This afternoon I sat on the toilet and read,  "Sunday Morning" by Bobby Byrd. Though a poem, it seemed like the perfect song this week.  It could have easily stood alone.  But, as it called to mind Van Morrison's "Hymns to the Silence," I have also included that, even though the two works only relate the way lines in some poems relate, loosely--image rhymes, one image triggering another.  

Enjoy.

Sunday Morning

Two old guys walk single file
Slowly and wordlessly around a room.
A white curtain filters the sunshine.
Outside is the hot desert sun.

The two men are shoeless.  The smaller,
the guy in front, is limping because
40 years ago in Vietnam a kid in black pajamas
shot him in the head and almost killed him.

The other guy dodged that war,
lived in the mountains, lived in the city,
wife and three kids, drank a lot,
wrote some poems.  A candle flickers,

incense burns.  The floor is clean
because these two men cleaned it.
Three others were here but they left.
The man in front slaps two wooden

clappers together.  The sound startles
the man behind.  He takes a deep breath.
The men stop walking.  The first man
Lights a stick of incense and places it

in front of a statue of the Buddha.
They bow to their cushions on the floor.
They sit down cross-legged and stare
at the wall.  Their legs ache.  It's been

three days now.  Not much longer.
One of them is the teacher,
one of them the student.  It doesn't
make much difference which is which.

--Bobby Byrd

printed with permission from the author

Newly finished outdoor kitchen viewed from the garden.

Rabbit brush and grapevine along front walk.  Mount Catherine in the background.

Sunflowers in Marci's cutting-flower garden.

A bench my brother, Lloyd, built along the edge of Dry Creek Canyon.   He placed it here so our step-dad could still enjoy the canyon when he got too old to walk down in it.

Dry Creek Canyon

"Sunday Morning" is from Otherwise, My Life is Ordinary, published by Cinco Puntos Press.

In the Eternal Moment: A Poem About Teaching & Van Morrison's "Village Idiot"

In the Eternal Moment

Grading papers late into the afternoon

when the sun must surely shine dazzling

down upon tulips and daffodils

never viewed from this windowless classroom.

So much is read, so little drank in.

Where are the winds?  Where are the woods?

Where are the reeds?   Where is the water?

Where are the sails?   Where is the soul?

How do I sell the light

in the golden afternoon?

How do I convey walking

down these cobblestone words
through shipyards

and fish factories centuries

past, and out

over the seawall and into

the bay?

Walk on water, walk on water:

water, words, air, soil, soot,

earth, always the earth,

calling us back

to the moment

deep and lasting.

How do I convey

that the poem exists

in the space between

so much depends

and what

follows?

© Steve Brown, 2014

One Almost Perfect Moment: Grading Papers Listening to Van Morrison's "I'm Not Feeling It Anymore"

When Golden Saxophones Abound

Listening to Van Morrison

while grading papers

on a cold gray afternoon

is almost perfect—the slow, sure

unwinding--I swear, you could

almost reach heaven doing taxes

if you were playing

“I’m Not Feeling It Anymore,”  

the BBC Four Sessions.

Um.  Come On.

Red brick nights.

Cool blue moons.

Life shouldn't,

I say, life shouldn't be

staplers

and paper

thin

dreams

© Steve Brown, 2014

Dry Creek and a Sunday Song: Be Thou My Vision (performed by Van Morrison)

Dry Creek looking towards Mt. Catherine  © Steve Brown, 2014

It was nineteen-ninety-something and I was working graveyand at a copy shop on Mesa Street in El Paso. It was well after midnight and I was reading Losing Battles by Eudora Welty and listinening to some classic rock station when I was absolutely astounded.  I knew the voice well:  Van Morrison. But the song was unfamiliar:  "I'm Not Feeling It Anymore."  Well, I felt it.   After sleeping off my overnight shift, I hopped on a bus and headed to the mall to purchase Hymns to the Silence.

The album is a two CD-set and for the first year I listened primarily to disc one.  Then something wonderful happened.  It disappeared.  I lost it, or perhaps it was stolen.  Marci would say, ridiculing me, that "a bear at it."  Anyway, it vanished.  Although I still love the first disc, the heart and soul of the album is disc two, where Morrison focuses on his own poetry in the songs, "On Hyndford Street" and "Pagan Streams" and traditional hymns, like "Be Thou My Vision."

I thought it would be nice if I started posting hymns on Sunday along with scenes of the changing seasons at Dry Creek.  I intended to photograph, research and write on Saturday, so that I could post early Sunday morning.  As you can see, this week that didn't happen.  Anyway, I hope you enjoy your Sunday Morning, even if it is realy Monday or Tuesday night.

About the Song

Commonly attributed to Dallan Forgaill, "Be Thou My Vision" is a common hymn around the world.  The original text dates to the Sixth Century, but the song didn't evolve into it's present form until 1919. The poem was translated from old Irish to English in 1905 by Mary Elizabeth Byrne and versified in 1912 by Eleanor Hull.  In 1919 it was put with the Irish folk song, "Slane" and published in the Irish Church Hymnal (wikipedia)

Dry Creek, March 15, 2014

Looking up through the oak & maple at the bottom of Dry Creek Canyon.

© Steve Brown, 2014

Forest litter in a man-made pond at Camp Mitchell, a picnic area I made for my boys when they were little.

Slide at Camp Mitchell

Lady's Tree & the Cabin.  My stepfather built this cabin around 1978.
It still has the original roof.

Lady's Tree:  This blue spruce is the headstone for my stepfather's dog, Lady.
My dog, Muff, received a ponderosa pine, but the tree didn't make it.

© Steve Brown, 2014