A miscellany like Grandma’s attic in Taunton, MA or Mission Street's Thrift Town in San Francisco or a Council, ID yard sale in cloudy mid April or a celestial roadmap no one folded—you take your pick.
Question: why does a post about health care reform lead off with a picture of the late, great folksinger Utah Phillips? Answer: read on….
Robert Frost’s Banjo isn’t a political blog, tho as regular readers know I do sometimes write about political issues. Actually, a lot of our posts are about what I’d consider to be political issues—I’d certainly include pretty much all of Eberle’s & Audrey’s writings in that category for instance.
Yesterday I noticed an item on the excellent blog The Ya-Ya Tree; Jenean Corette Gilstrap, author of that blog (& other good blogs besides), professed her support for “Health Care for All Citizens” & directed readers to The Huffington Blog, where there was a piece about President Obama calling on bloggers to make their opinions on health care reform known.
So I began writing—the word “appalling” kept coming up. Now remember, I’ve been an Obama supporter all along, so yes, I support universal coverage & health care reform. The more I wrote, the more I thought about the opposition to this initiative; about how the U.S. (according to that notoriously liberal think tank, the Central Intelligence Agency) ranks 45th in life expectency, way below nations that are sometimes demonized by opponents of publicly-funded health care, like France & Sweden & Canada (they are 9th, 10th & 14th respectively); the more I thought about people optimistically believing in the power of corporations to act in the public benefit even when it runs contrary to the bottom line, & about my own direct experience of the corporate U.S., which has been very different than that; I thought about these things, & the angrier I got.
Now, I do believe in the concept of righteous indignation, but it just doesn’t work out too well for me. I inherited—either by nature or nurture—my father’s famous Irish temper, & I’ve done a good bit of work over the years so this isn’t a disruptive force in my life. Partisan politics is one area for me where righteous indigation easily can transmogrify into something else altogether….
I’m happy to say things didn’t actually get bad, (tho my “internal sensors” were on alert), but the upshot was I stopped writing my first post—if folks want facts & figures & strong opinions, there are plenty of blogs that’ll offer that, both from a perspective I’d tend to agree with & from one I truly oppose. Instead, I thought I’d give a Robert Frost’s Banjo twist on the question.
Both Eberle & I have long been fans of Utah Phillips (& we both were saddened by his passing last year); he was a great singer, a great storyteller, a great songwriter & someone who was pretty much right on a very high percentage of the time. As we think about the possible hit to corporate profits or to the pocketbooks of the wealthy that might take place with public funding of health care, & weigh that with the tragedy of regular folks who go into bankruptcy or worse because of health care expenses, as well as with the reality that some will take advantage of any system, we might also think about a concept Utah used to talk about: “shifting the blame pattern downward”—how we seem trained to always be on the lookout for someone who’s out to “get a little something for nothing,” & oblivious to the wealthy & the corporations who, in his words, “are out to get a whole lot of something for absolutely nothing at all.” He used to use the old Wobblie poem “Two Bums” to illustrate this.
The poem runs as follows:
The bum on the rods is hunted down as an enemy of mankind The other is driven around to his club, is feted, wined and dined
And they who curse the bum on the rods as the essence of all that's bad Will greet the other with a willing smile and extend a hand so glad
The bum on the rods is a social flea who gets an occassional bite The bum on the plush is a social leech, bloodsucking day and night
The bum on the rods is a load so light that his weight we scarcely feel But it takes the labour of dozens of folks to furnish the other a meal
As long as we sanction the bum on the plush, the other will always be there But rid ourselves of the bum on the plush, and the other will dissappear
Then make an intelligent, organised kick, get rid of the weights that crush Dont worry about the bum on the rods, get rid of the bum on the plush
Here’s a clip of Utah telling a story about Frying Pan Jack, then reciting the poem, then launching into “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum,” then getting sidetracked (as he often did mid-song) into a story about Idaho Blackie. A bit of a warning—don’t listen to the Idaho Blackie story while eating—especially not while eating oatmeal….
Time for another translation here on a fine warm Tuesday morning in the Idaho rangeland—or wherever this fine Tuesday morning finds you.
& this Tuesday, we have a poem by the godfather of surréalisme himself, André Breton. For those of you who don’t know, Breton was a founder of the Surrealist movement (picking up on the term coined by Apollinaire), & worked closely with other writers with similar visions, among them Philippe Soupault, Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, Benjamin Péret, & Robert Desnos (et al.) Breton is particularly known these days for his prose writings, both theoretical/polemical (e.g., the 1924 Surrealist Manifesto) & novelistic (e.g., Nadja). A leftist in politics, Breton collaborated with Trotsky on Pour un art révolutionnaire indépendent while Trotsky was in hiding in Mexico; Breton also was a member of the Communist Party in the mid 20s, but became disillusioned. At its best, his poetry can be a provocative swirl of images containing very memorable phrases.
Breton looked at poetry (& art in general) as the “dictation of thought”—i.e., as unmediated thought, as an unconscious welling up of imagery that was free to move between realms & beyond opposites. As you may know, the Surrealists practiced automatic writing, which is an attempt to divorce the writer from conscious intrusions on the creative process; this concept is central to the whole Surrealist project.
I’ll let Breton’s poem speak for itself, only commenting that one question I’ve always asked myself about the poem concerns the title. The title in French, Facteur Cheval, translates literally as Postman Horse. I’ve followed the tradition of other English language translators by retaining “Cheval” & not translating it. These little puzzles are both a great pleasure & a great bewilderment whenever one attempts to bring poetry from one language to another.
Hope you enjoy it.
Postman Cheval
We the birds you always charm from atop these belvederes And who each night form no more than one blossoming branch from your shoulders to the arms of your beloved wheel-barrow Which we uproot from your wrists more sharply than sparks We are the sighs of the glass statue that rises itself up on its elbow when man sleeps So shining breaches may open in his bed Breaches through which can be glimpsed stags with coral antlers inside a glade Or naked women at the very bottom of a mine You remember then you got up you got off the train Without a glance toward the locomotive preyed upon by immense barometric roots That moans in the virgin forest for all its murdered boilers Its smokestacks smoking hyacinths and stirred by blue serpents We would then go before you we the plants subject to metamorphoses Who each night send signals man can intercept While his house tumbles down and he’s astounded by the odd couplings His bed seeks with the corridor and staircase The staircase branches out indefinitely It leads to a millstone door it opens suddenly onto a public square It’s made of swans’ backs an outstretched wing as the rail It turns upon itself as if it’s going to bite itself But no it’s content at the sound of our footsteps to open all its steps like drawers Bread drawers wine drawers soap drawers ice drawers staircase drawers Flesh drawers with handfuls of hair At the hour when the ducks of Vaucanson preen their feathers Without turning around you seized the trowel used for making breasts We smiled at you you held us by the waist And we assumed the positions of your pleasure Motionless under our eyelids forever as woman loves to see man After making love
I was very flattered a while back when Citizen K asked me to contribute to his relatively new music blog, Just a Song. Besides Citizen K himself, who writes so well about the music he clearly loves, there are some other fine contributors: Clifton of Cliff’s Crib; Joan of Driving Lessons; Roy of Roy’s World; & Stupid & Contagious.
K’s idea behind Just a Song is simple—each post explores a particular song, its music & lyrics (the lyrics are always provided in the post) as well as giving information about at least one recorded performance, & at least one video rendition. I’ve certainly learned things about a number of songs by following this blog, & I’d like to encourage folks to consider becoming a member of or subscribing to Just a Song—you’ll be glad you did.
My turn on Just a Song today is a discussion of the old spiritual “There is a Balm in Gilead,” specifically the versions by Paul Robeson, Mahalia Jackson & Rahsaan Roland Kirk. You can read it here.
& please stay tuned to Robert Frost’s Banjo, because there’ll be a translated poem up here within the next hour or two!
One thing that has always bound Eberle & me together is a shared love of music. It’s true that how that love manifests itself is a bit different for each of us: Eberle is much more of a composer, despite her proficiency on any number of instruments, & I’m more of a performer. Eberle tends to be happiest with music in the midst of a modal improvisation with intricate rhythms & a melody line riding atop an unusual harmonic structure; I tend to be happiest playing traditional music. Still, tho I’ve had the chance to play with some fine musicians, there’s no one I’d rather play music with than her. Yesterday we had a lot of fun playing various modal improvisations with our friends Sister Mary Ellen & Sister Rebecca Mary—an enjoyable morning of switching instruments & experimenting & listening—the key to improvising in a group. This, along with the enthusiastic response y’all have given to posts containing our music, put me in mind that folks might like to take some trips on the Wayback Machine to see a bit of Eberle & my musical journey together. Here are some pix from our first couple of years together:
Top Pic: I believe the first two instruments Eberle & I played together were the lap steel guitar & the electric bass (we also played guitar/flute & guitar/dulcimer early on). Fact is, I really had no idea how to play the lap steel, but I bumbled along & Eberle was very patient. The lap steel we had at that time was an old Regal; a pretty nice instrument, but it kept developing electronic problems. We’ve since replaced it with a Gretsch, which is a nice instrument. Eberle’s bass is an Ibanez 5-string. Check out that great old Bassman tube amp!& the amazing (for lack of a better word) fake wood panelling.
Eberle with the 5-string bass in what was a sort of office in our old house. The room later became our bedroom—reasonably cozy except when the full moon would come streaming in the large south facing windows. The lap steel & bass pic also was taken in that room.
Yours truly in the Idanha Hotel in Boise (fall 1997)—a wonderful old establishment, since turned into condos (no comment). I’d just bought this Takamine guitar at Old Boise Guitar Shop & couldn’t wait to play it. Our friend Joshua Housh has said this is a sort of archetypal “guy with guitar” pic.
Eberle on our old front porch with our beloved Windsor 5-string banjo, sometime in the early spring of 98. I was living in Indian Valley by then, & the banjo is the first instrument we bought together—sight-unseen from a shop in Salt Lake City. We were lucky! It’s a wonderful instrument. The tiger cat off to the left is one of my many favorite cats, Romeo by name, since sadly gone where the good cats go. He was a big & rather fierce tomcat, but liked humans a lot. Romeo used to visit me quite frequently in my dreams after his disappearance.
Yours truly with same banjo in our old living room.
The original Alice in Wonder Band—Lois Fry, violin; Eberle, bass; me, keyboard(!?!) We did the background music for the McCall-Donnelly Drama Troupe’s Spring 98 production of Alice in Wonderland. Although I’m very far from being the piano player Eberle is, I can fake it ok, & playing with musicians like Lois & Eberle makes things pretty easy on a guy. We can see, tho, in this pic which musicians are relaxed & which one isn't so much so.
For fun: a pic from the dress rehearsal for that production of Alice in Wonderland.
On the porch of a cabin at Burgdorf Hot Springs, where Eberle & I spent my 42nd birthday in September 98; my present? An Epiphone soprano uke, which I’m modeling here (looks like an F chord). Tho I’m not uking much these days, & when I do I prefer the concert & tenor sizes (they’re bigger), I still am very fond of this uke, which has a sweet sound.
If you like this, check back for more pix in chronological order in future Wayback Machine posts.
As you may have gathered, I’m looking at Sundays just now as a time for posting original music, & today I chose one of my very favorites of Eberle’s songs, “Zebra Weather.”
I recall that Eberle wrote this one spring when I was off visiting my parents in Florida. Her initial thought was that the song would be an instrumental, but it wasn’t too much later that she composed the wonderful lyrics. Honey possums are real creatures, by the way—you can read more about them here & that’s a drawing of them to the left.
Sadly, we never got a recording of the full band version—the song was composed during the Alice in Wonder Band’s last year, & although we performed it several times we never did so with a microphone around. Deadre Chase, the band’s singer, had a lovely way with the song, & clarinetist Bob George did a nice job of weaving around a fairly difficult melody—made more difficult by the fact that the song is in Gb; for you non-musicians out there, let’s just say that’s not the people’s key. Art Troutner played mandolin, while Eberle & I played melodica & baritone uke, respectively—although it’s an odd key, the chords fell quite naturally on the baritone. The two of us kept the song alive during our Five & Dime Jazz duo existence, tho as an instrumental—I didn’t sing with Five & Dime Jazz, & the current key is way out of my my limited singing range.
We made this recording for our Rootabaga Country soundtrack in 06. Since this is an instrumental, I’m posting Eberle’s lyrics as well; for those who want to sing along, the vocal part would start just before 1:30 & end just before 2:30. Hope you enjoy it!
A note on the slideshow pix: The following images are licensed for attribution under Creative Commons licenses: Second Zebra image:Pharaoh Hound; Fir0002 Fifth Zebra image:Kevin Walsh (kevinzim) Final Zebra image: eismcsquare Finally, the first image of Eberle playing the melodica is by the late Earl Brockman, a gifted photographer from our area, who is missed
I know I’m not the first one to say this, but if you look at the canonical English language poets from the modernist period you’ll notice one glaring absence: leftist writers. This is especially remarkable because so many big name Continental European & South American poets from this time period were leftists who saw their poetry as linked with their politics—Vallejo, Breton, Lorca, Neruda, Rítsos, Brecht, just to repeat a handful of “names.” But who are the very well known English language modernist poets? Pound, Eliot & Yeats, all political conservatives, Pound quite extremely so; even Auden, who had a leftist start, came back toward the center. Meanwhile, other canonized modernist poets such as William Carlos Williams & Wallace Stevens tended to place their poetry into formal or aesthetic contexts more than cultural or political ones.
The reasons for this are no doubt complicated, & involve a number of factors—e.g., the reign of the New Criticism from the 1950s & well beyond; this school preached a doctrine of reading that was fixed on formal considerations, & tried very hard to divorce literary works from cultural context. In fact, it could be said that the Structuralist & Post-Structuralist approaches that superceded the New Criticism continued to focus on form, & that only the advent of the Feminist & Historicism have lit crit types again put a value on reading works within a larger context. In addition, there was a severe post World War II backlash against leftists in the U.S. Eberle & I discussed this question yesterday, & she postulated there’s also a link between a nation’s superpower status & an innate conservatism, & I believe there may be more than a little truth to this. So poets such as Kenneth Patchen & today’s poet, Kenneth Fearing, tend to be very much neglected in any official canon of essential U.S. poetry; & that’s more than a shame. The fact that they also tend to be overlooked by the poebiz community—which has its own formal obsessions & sometimes still seems to be fighting W.C. Williams’ battles—is really rather appalling.
Fearing has a lot to teach us as poets—even in terms of form, not to mention the way he’s able to bring popular culture, slang & idiom & a distinctly “anti-poetic” sensibility to the uses of poetry. In addition to writing poetry, Fearing was also a journalist, a novelist (including several forays into hard-boiled detective fiction). His novel The Big Clock was made into an excellent film of the same name starring Ray Milland.
Fearing’s poetry has certainly influenced my own work, especially the poetry I wrote in San Francisco, & “Evening Song” is among my favorites. Hope you enjoy it too.
Evening Song
Sleep, McKade. Fold up the day. It was a bright scarf. Put it away. Take yourself to pieces like a house of cards.
It is time to be a grey mouse under a tall building. Go there. Go there now. Look at the huge nails. Run behind the pipes. Scamper in the walls. Crawl towards the beckoning girl, her breasts are warm. But here is a dead man. A murderer? Kill him with your pistol. Creep past him to the girl.
Sleep, McKade. Throw one arm across the bed. Wind your watch. You are a gentleman, and important. Yawn. Go to sleep.
The continent turning from the sun is quiet. Your ticker waits for tomorrow morning And you are alive now. It will be a long time before they put McKade under the sod. Sometime, but not now. Sometime, though. Sometime, for certain.
Take apart your brain, Close the mouths in it that have been hungry, They are fed for a while. Go to sleep, you are a gentleman. McKade, alive and sane. A gentleman of position.
Tip your hat to the lady. Speak to the mayor. You are a personal friend of the mayor's, are you not? True. A friend of the mayor's. And you met the Queen of Roumania. True.
Then go to sleep. Be a dog sleeping in the old sun. Be a poodle drowsing in the old sun, by the Appian Way. Be a dog lying the meadow watching soldiers pass on the road. Chase after the woman who beckons. Run from the policeman with the dagger. It will split your bones. Be terrified. Curl up and drowse on the pavement of Fifth Avenue in the old sun. Sleep, McKade. Yawn. Go to sleep.
It’s been some time since the last Things Seen post—I believe that was in March, when things were still very wintry in the high country & rather bleak down here in the valley. The landscape is much different now: after a late start, we’re moving into the high summer, which means triple digit temperatures in the lowlands with a more pleasant clime in the mountains (there’s still snow on the peaks). It also means the beginning of the fire season; this morning was the first “official” day with a Fire Weather Watch; apparently dry thunderstorms & winds are predicted for the next couple of days.
But in the meantime, the landscape is lovely—still green, even in the valleys due to a long, wet spring; the skies are clear & blue in a way that always seems unique to the west. On Wednesday morning I made my weekly trek up to Cascade; these are some of the things I saw along the way:
Electric light wires turned silver along Mesa Hill in the early sun
Locusts with dark green leaves & a smattering of yellow leaves nestled among these & Russian olives with pale green leaves & silver leaves lining the banks along the road
Square hay bales stacked in a pasture
Two meadowlarks on a barbed wire fence silhouetted against the sun
A very rusty pale blue pick up with no hood or engine, & with lumber stacked around it
Four crows swooping over the high school football field & landing on the bleachers
The red Adams County dump truck
A bronze 70s vintage Buick parked in a hay shelter
A patch of sunflowers growing from the gravel along the highway
White clumps of serviceberry blooms growing from a rock face
The pine needles along the eastern side of the highway almost white in the sun
Wisps of fog rising off the Little Salmon River near Tamarack Mill
A herd of cows & calves grazing; all the cows are black; two calves have white faces
Salsify gone to seed in puffballs lining the highway
White hellebore blossoms & the hellebores’ fleshy succulent leaves & stems also lining the highway, especially on the west side
Log trucks traveling north
A small plane circling New Meadows, then coming in for a landing, descending thru the sky above Brown’s Market
An old pale green boat with a for sale sign near a house with glass cold frames in the front yard
Young aspens with slender silver trunks shading a white plastic fence—the fence has been designed to look like a whitewashed wood fence
Four planes, including a tanker, on the runway at the McCall Smoke Jumpers Base
Training equipment involving harnesses hanging from large poles at the same base; behind this equipment there’s a large plywood cut out of a smoke jumper with parachute open; the figure is attached to an old water tower
A large herd of cattle grazing in a pasture; there’s an orange wind sock planted in the midst of the pasture, & an old A-shaped red brown at the pasture’s southern end
Purple vetch growing in profusion along a cedar split barbed wire fence
An elk weather vane
More purple vetch, this time mixed with cattails, mullein, sunflowers & salsify along another fence line running east-west in Lake Fork
A hawk perched on a light wire
A melon-colored single-wide trailer home; there’s a melon colored lean-to beside it
Stretches of snow on the western summit of New Business Mountain
White & yellow bee boxes in a rocky cow pasture
Two ospreys standing next to their nest that’s built atop a telephone pole north of Donnelly on Highway 55
Another osprey standing by a second nest; this is at the outskirts of Donnelly, & again built atop a phone pole
Businesses in Donnelly: Buffalo Gal, world cuisine & sushi; Flight of Fancy Bakeshop; Vigilantes Restaurant & Lounge; The Trading Post liquor store sporting both a Coca-Cola & a Pepsi sign; the hat store, with white cowboy hats displayed on tree branches outside the front door
Horses grazing under a stand of hemlocks
A red-winged blackbird preening on a speed limit sign
A horse weathervane
Clouds of dust rising like smoke from a gravel pit
The abandoned ski trails at the bankrupt Tamarack Resort
The glassy slate-colored water of Cascade Reservoir (now called Lake Cascade)
Two young mule deer in a pasture
Sandstone cliffs dotted with pines on the grade before the ascent into Cascade’s valley
