Baldwin’s lessons are so relevant that his message seems to collapse time. From Go Tell It on the Mountain, to Sonny's Blues, to Another Country, or The Price of the Ticket—from his essays to his plays—there is so much to say, so much to revere, that it feels like it would take a lifetime to articulate the complexities of that utterance. But I’ll take a smaller bit and share with you what he most wanted for us—those who would come after him—that we could at last be governed by the benevolence of love. And he shows us what is required to live from that space. I’ll give you a taste of his lulling blues, his idealism, his act of faith…

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Poet of the ordinary, the common, the very drab, Mary Oliver was willing to listen, to hear. From that willingness emerges a body of work that is as humble as it is wise. She sang with open throat the prayers of the grass, the waggle of honey bees, the flowing river, the waiting sun, and asked on behalf of the earth crumbling under our carbon footprint that we get to know this haven we have called mother. 

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“Neruda’s poetry touches the depth of things. One feels its interdimensional layers in the way fragrance or taste can harbor time. But with him, it seems to go further than that; down, down, and into the fabric of what is being played out in the landscape of the lived moment. Neruda’s song marvels at appearance, investigates texture, inhabits cells, and sings with particles that uni.verse--song that unites us all--Love."

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Basho’s poetry delves into the present moment and leaves us with flashes, echoes of ordinary things made extraordinary because he took the time to look at them. Short and seemingly simple, it is the very spaciousness of the Haiku that allows him to open the doors of contemplation for us

-- and that is what he does, when we let him. 

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Whitman's song catalogs a profound empathy for the other, whom he in many ways identified as himself. That sense of oneness pervades his poetry, and in my mind stands as his most important message--that we are one and must therefore include the other. These ideas are conveyed with forward intimacy, a closeness that engages and reflects with you, a voice that speaks directly to you. It is almost shocking how Whitman gets to us, how well he seems to understand what is most vibrant about the American character:  it’s diversity. 

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Rumi's poetry speaks to us from a state of deep inspiration. The luminescence of his verse carries hope, delivers method and the emotional depth needed to find our way to the knowledge seasoned by love—wisdom. From reading Rumi, one learns that there is a rigor to love. That it reaches beyond attachment to something closer to what we do. “Let the beauty we love be what we do.” Love is action, love is devotion, love is a willingness to make sacred the demands of our higher self, cater to its need for beauty, for gentleness, for light. Such practices push us towards the incredible energy, the dynamism that is human happiness. Having acquired it, we naturally share it, deliver it with abundance. It seems that in such a state we no longer ask what can be done? Rather, what is beloved in my life? What do I cherish? What have I rendered sacred?

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“Out of the gospel of the middle passage, the blues of slavery, the jazz of big city ghetto nights,” the Nobel Prize winning Toni Morrison whose generative depth and sounding of interiority produces a lyricism that is radiant in its generosity and in my mind can only be described as song. Morrisson rivets because she has an ear tuned to the complexities of the American saga in all of its beauty and travesties. Her dives into her characters' inner lives read like ballads, like rhapsodies, like adagios-- its all music. 

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“Baudelaire’s life ended in 1861 in syphilitic delirium in a hotel room in Brussels. With him died the caustic dandy: the son of an art critique, the translator who brought Edgar Allan Poe to the French public, the stepson of general Jacques Aupick, the aesthete of impeccable style whose trenchant remarks often made him cruel, who flaunted his Haitian Mulatto mistress- his Black Venus- in the face of bourgeois conventions, and whose every breath and every stroke of the pen showed us why it hurts…”

Musical Selection for this Podcast

• Für Alina by Arvo Pärt
• Bird on the wire by Rosemary Standley and Dom la Nena
• Spiegel im Spiegel (mirror in the mirror) by Arvo Pärt
• O cessate di piagarmi (Please stop bothering me) by Alessandro Scarlatti, Nora Fischer, Marnix Dorrestein
• Suzanne by Leonard Cohen
• King Arthur or The British Worthy by Henry Purcell interpreted by Andreas Scholl and The Accademia Bizantina
• Où vont les fleurs?(Where have the flowers gone?) by Marlène Dietrich
• Vocalise Op.34 No. 14 by Sergei Rachmaninoff  interpreted by Mstislav Rostropovich 
• O Solitude by Rosemary Standley and Dom la Nena
• Les Fleurs by Clara Luciani

L’article Charles Baudelaire on suffering in the first world est apparu en premier sur Poet on song.

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“Paul Laurence Dunbar was the first to take a bird’s-eye view of black identity in America. The first to look at his people objectively and catalog their humor, their pain, their strength, their shortcomings. In short, he offers one of the first literary portraits of Black America. He introduces an African-American character to our literary landscape, one that rises above the painted black faces which made the minstrels such a landmark of our theater.” 

Musical Selection for this Podcast

• The shadow of your smile by Dexter Gordon

L’article Paul Laurence Dunbar on accepting the truth about who we are est apparu en premier sur Poet on song.

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“With Rilke there is always this sense that the universe was not made for us; rather we are a part of it and subject to greater hierarchies–that celestial realm that he felt we could access by leaning into our pain. Beauty is both turmoil and peace, alluring and alarming–a pregnant emptiness. Creativity. This understanding and continuity is what Rilke adds to the frame of our personal stories. As if to say: “Someone like you has sat in such a chair before and has wondered the same things eons ago. Someone like you will desire and reach in the same way that you have long after you are gone. So pay attention now.” 

Musical Selection for this Podcast

• Six Romances by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, interpreted by Lisa Batiashvili, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
• Regina Caeli Laetare from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana, interpreted by Jessy Norman and Rosa Laghezza with the Paris Orchestra, Semyon Bychkov, conductor
• Die Nacht by Franz Burgmüller interpreted by Anja Lechner and Pablo Marquez
• 3 Nocturnes for Cello and Guitar: Nocturne No. 1 in A minor
  By Franz Burgmuller interpretation by Anja Lechner and Pablo Marquez
• Auf Flügeln des Gesanges(On the wings of song) by Felix Mendelssohn interpreted by Mischa Maisky and Sergio Tiempo
• From Schwanengesang (Swan Song) by Franz Schubert: Ständchen in D minor interpreted by Misha Masky Daria Hovora.
• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D Major: Air by Johan Sebastian Bach, interpreted by Yoyo ma, Ton Koopman, conductor
• Chants d’Auvergne: Baïlèro by Joseph Canteloube interpreted by Anna Moffo, American Symphony Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, conductor.
• Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor Op. 18.2 Adagio Sostenuto by Sergei Rachmaninoff, interpreted by Daniil Trifonov with The Philadelphia Orchestra, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor
• Vladimir’s Blues by Max Richter

L’article Rainer Maria Rilke on leaning into pain as a way to transcend it est apparu en premier sur Poet on song.

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