Episode #40

Book of the Heaven Eleven (2)

As episode #39 offered samples of my 50 catullics, so episode #40 will present examples of my 50 sapphics, another Greco-Roman poetic form that centers on the repeated use of eleven-syllable pentameters. I’ll read a melodious poem describing changes in light and shadow in a room, and then present a metaphoric use of the sun-god chariot. Varying the sun-theme, I write a sapphic about Ovid’s portrayal of the Phaeton myth as a cautionary allegory of a climate change apocalypse, then I sing an Einstein-influenced poem showing that a raisin, changed to energy, could heat New York City for a day. I conclude with poems elaborating the Sapphic theme of bisexual vision: a presentation of St. Onuphrius and then one of Dionysus.

Episode #39: Book of the Heaven Eleven (1)     

Roman poet Catullus and Greek poet Sappho both use eleven-syllable lines in their poetic stanzas. In this first part of my Intro I’ll read my translation of a Catullus poem (with my commentary verse employing his rhythm) and a half-dozen examples of what I call “catullics.” I’ll remark on certain references (Goethe’s use of Greek myth, mystical numerology, Persian Sufi interpretation of Noah) which I’ve explained in my accompanying “blogatelles.” The idea is to ease the reader into the melodic flow of catullic wordsong.

Episode 38: The Heart of Giordano Bruno  

Bruno, burned at the stake in 1600 by the Inquisition in Rome for alleged heretical teachings (e.g. the multiplicity of worlds), wrote a book of love sonnets as did his contemporary Shakespeare. In modern sonnets and “replies” in the same verse form to the highlights of Bruno’s The Heroic Enthusiasms, I hope to suggest the delight and inspiration he conveyed to me. To introduce you to the experience of reading the “interview,” I’ll “act out,” with a few comments, the first 5 of our dialogues.

Episode 37: Modern Psalms in Ancient Rhythm (2)     

As the Biblical psalms often elaborate scripture stories, I want to do that, too. Tonight’s reading will feature Abraham, with a couple of short episodes about Jacob, as well – again I’ll read a total of 7 psalms. Distinctive about the scripture narratives in my interpretations will be the use of the Judaeo-Christo-Islamic legacy as my frame of reference. The story of Abraham’s defiance is shared by Hebrew and Islamic writers; the story of his martyrdom by fire (called to a halt by God’s mercy) is Qur’anic but also identical with a Jewish midrash.

Synopsis Episode 36: Modern Psalms in Ancient Rhythm (1)  

I introduce the reader, first, to ancient psalmodic rhythm by reading (and “conducting”) the opening passages of Psalm 92 (“A Psalm, A Song for the Sabbath Day”) in Hebrew, dramatizing their melodic wordsong achievement. Then, picking up the theme of sabbath, I recite 7 of my modern psalms, all written in the rhythm of my biblical mentor-poems. Kabbalistic and Sufi theme are introduced.

Synopsis Episode 35: Interviewing Sufi Poets

We’ll read sample interviews with 15 Sufi poets 1050- 1650. Each “interview” includes a lyric, a focused verse “reply” by me, and a contextual “blogatelle.”

I Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) Love the things of this world: wine

Pages 41-43 wine

II Anvari (1126-1189) Satire and moral teaching

Pages 79-80 satiric-moral teaching

III Nizami (1141-1209) Master of the parable

Pages 100-103 Tale of Solomon and the Sower

IV Attar (1146-1221) Mystical allegory

Pages 113-117 Colloquies of the Birds: The Hoopoe

V Rumi (1207-1273) Quelling ego to reach God

Pages 147-151 Quelling the Ego

Pages 152-154 To reach God

VI Dervish Breviary (Rumi disciples) Loving a person parallels loving God

Pages 182-183 Two love laments

VII Saadi (1213-1291) Voice of love and loss

Pages 210-213 Love

Pages 221-223 Loss

VIII Ibn Yemin (1287-1367) Prudent (disillusioned) counsel

Pages 227-229 Three on Prudence

IX Hafiz (1315-1390) Wine and tavern romance

Pages 255-258 Love Song

X Kamal Khujandi (1320-1400) Shakespeare-like love poet

Pages 299-301 love song with Shakespeare parallel

XI Jami (1414-1492) Hafizian love poet

Pages 303-305 Hafizian love song

XII Hatifi (1454-1529) Poet-prophet

Pages 325-329 Summoned by God

XIII Hilali (1470-1529) Seeker of the eternal

Pages 382-384 Lament for what is gone

XIV Faizi (1547-1595) Platonist poet

Pages 413-414 From earth to heaven

XV Saib (1592-1676) Poet of the middle path

Pages 415-417 Middle path

Podcast 34: Pushkin’s Hero, Tatyana Larina

In this program, my aim is to introduce the hearer to the hero (now rapidly

becoming a gender-neutral term) of Alexander Pushkin’s world-famed novel in

verse, Eugene Onegin. In many ways, she earns the laudatory title I’m giving her,

and my presentation will help you get acquainted with her background, her cultural

context, her family life, her mother’s personality, and her strong, evolving

personality and character. My “interview” technique, following each 14-line poem

of Pushkin’s with a commentary-sonnet of my own, was stimulated by the

narrator’s own habit of inserting his own comments repeatedly into the action of

the highly absorbing verse novel.

After reading poems 1.1 and 1.5, together with my verse “replies,” to show how

my “interview” or “dialogue” book operates, in my readings about Tatyana I’ll

feature, first, sections 2.23-2.35 with my two poems about Shrove Tuesday (Mardi

Gras) as observed in upstate New York. Then I’ll recite from section 3.1 to 3.21.

The action at this point will have reached a point of major suspense….

PODCAST # 33 Speaking with the Chinese

Theme: interior conversation. Friedrich Rückert completes in 1833 his 325

“adaptations” of the poems in the earliest collection of Chinese verse that we have,

an anonymous work composed by pre-Confucian poets from the 11 th to the 7 th

centuries BCE. Rückert, though he learned 44 languages, didn’t know any more

Chinese than I do. But he did have the recently discovered Latin prose translation

published by Lacharme, a Jesuit priest, in 1733. I call my recital of English

translations of Rückert “Speaking with the Chinese” because the poems Rückert

offers feel to me like interior conversations with the Chinese fictive speakers.

The poets, who lived centuries ago and are alive today through their poems, speak

– or more precisely, sing – their poetic wordsongs to the German listener, and to

each of these memorable people of Ancient China he “replies” by turning their

prose utterances into German poems, in melodious rhythmic forms he invents

to fit the feelings they convey to him.

(1) Introduction to Chinese Life

Poem 158. Pages from a Household Calendar.

Poem 234. The Farmer.

Poem 233. Competition: Outdoing the Steward.

Poem 246. The Wine Steward.

Poem 156. Faithful Steward.

Poem 55. The Building of the Royal House.

Poem 317. Forebears’ Temple.

Poem 310. Music at the Forebear Fest.

Poem 271. A Meal for Death-boy Shi.

Poem 169. Memorial Feast for the Dead.

Poem 225. The Imperial Courier.

Poem 112. Annoyances of Life at Court.

Poem 57. The Border Guard.

Poem 18. The Emperor’s High Priest Robe.

Characterizations and Conflicts

Poem 224. Distribution of Wealth.

Poem 212. Persecuted.

Poem 166. In Praise of Brothers.

Love: Rewards and Discontents

Poem 218. Friends at Odds.

Poem 94. Chance.

Poem 52. Faithful unto Death.

Poem 93. Expectation

Poem 148. By Moonlight.

Poem 149. A Restless Night.

Poem 135. The Queen’s War Song.

Poem 58. At the Entry of the Royal Bride.

Poem 26. Plaint of a Wife Unloved.

Epilogue

Poem 295. Nationwide Drought.

Poem 303. Prayer.

Podcast Synopsis:

The Be-loving Imaginer Episode 32:

Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, A. Tolstoy

This video podcast presentation for Binghamton University Lyceum, via Zoom,

focuses on my new genre of poetry writing, the “Verse Interview Book.” From the

section called “Russian Loves” in my book Six Dialogic Poetry Chapbooks,

available from Amazon, I’ve selected verse interviews with four classic Russian

poets: Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, A. Tolstoy. Here’s my procedure: I’ll read a poem

in Russian, then act out my translation, then perform my “reply,” playing the role

as “interviewer” responding to what the interviewee just said, and using the rhythm

and rhyme pattern and stanza shape that he taught me.

Pushkin poems will be “Cloud,” “Prisoner,” “Raven.”

Lermontov poems will be “Angel,” “Clouds,” “Sail.”

Fet poems will be “Bees,” “In the quiet of the night,” “Grizzle-bearded high

priest,” “Nothingness,” “The winter night has power”

A. Tolstoy poem will be “In the west pallid sunrays were dying.”

PODCAST #31: THREE PARABLES ABOUT JESUS            

My latest book, Persian Poetic Renaissance: 15 Sufi Poets in “Verse Interviews” contains 3 parables about Jesus that are delightful, highly original poetic masterworks. The poets are Nizami (on Jesus and the Dead Dog), Goethe (on Jesus, Peter, and the Horseshoe), and Attar (on Jesus and the Soup Pot). For context I may add: greatly respected as a teacher and prophet, Jesus in the Qur’an is called Messiah and said to have been born of a virgin.            

By each of the 15 poets I chose to translate for this book (from Joseph Hammer’s German encyclopedic anthology of 1818 containing 200 poets) I offered 7 poems, and I added to each a verse “reply” and a more broadly focused interpretive “blogatelle.” In this podcast I’ve chosen to read my “reply” to Attar’s Jesus parable to explore the psychological implications, and in my supplementary podcast comments I offer possible tie-ins with the Sufi teaching of the ultimate unknowability of both our own essential selves and the Ultimate Being in Whose likeness we are fashioned.