The Be-Loving Imaginer

The Be-loving Imaginer Episode 44 -

A Song for Sappho

Sappho (ca. 610 BCE to 570 BCE) is the earliest woman poet we know of in Western literature. [Moses’ sister Miriam, called a “prophet” (“neviah”), leads the liberated Jews in a song of triumph in Exodus, but the two verses that she recites cannot be proved to be her own compositions; they may have been excerpted from a psalm by her brother.]

1

In the original poem I sing here (three sections, four stanzas per section), I express my feelings about her wondrous achievement. The tune I composed is based on her trademark stanza form. I demonstrate her “rhythm chart” and then show how singable it is.

Plato is said to have uttered the judgment that Sappho should be counted as the “tenth Muse,” the newest member of that sisterhood of patrons of the arts and sciences. I mention this in my Part One.

2

Sappho is widely attested to have produced a massive output of lyrics, but only a pamphlet-size collection survives. Since I can’t read her in Greek, I try to communicate with her spirit by singing in the rhythm she invented and prized.

Will such a stratagem work? I compare my singing of her rhythm to a child’s listening to the “ocean” roar in a seashell. The child doesn’t hear the physical ocean. What it hears is the sound of the circulation of the child’s own blood in the ear, vastly amplified by the intricately shaped shell! I learned this by consulting a scientific encyclopedia years ago. What the child hears, and what you too will hear in a seashell, is the FLOW OF THE OCEAN OF BLOOD WITHIN YOU. I note this in my Part Two while I sing and hear “the Sappho within me.”

3

In my Part Three I envision a chorus joining me in Sapphic song as the currents, waves, and waterdrops combine in the seashell’s ocean.

Playful Warm-ups

(173) It’s time

(174) Continued

(175) Conclamant

(176) From Chaucer to Me

(177) Hispanic

(178) Chaucer

Varied Applications

(234) Early Memory

(235) Capriccio in Rhyme Royal

(236) Psalm 150 in Rhyme Royal

(237) What Never Wasn’t There

(238) Cup of Kindness

(245) In and Out, Give and Take

(246) Enigmatic Solitude

(247) Quarantine

(267) Joyce and Me

In this second episode from my latest book High Five! The William Shakespeare Beat is Back I’ll offer examples of what can happen when you revive the 5-beat line (and ONE, and TWO, and THREE, and FOUR, and FIVE) that the world’s greatest verse writer used in all his plays. Reviving Shakespeare, you also revive Keats, whose six great odes are mostly in iambic pentameter, as well. I wrote a half dozen original odes to emulate those of Keats, and then I wrote another 7 to prove it wasn’t just luck. Here I’ll give you samples from both groups.

First, for context, the opening stanza of Keats’ most famous poem, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (p. 30 of my book).

Then, the samples. From Group One:

362 (1) Ode on Weather Theater

363 (2) Ode on Verse Pedagogy

367 (6) Ode on Words New-Wrought

From Group Two:

376 (2) Ode on a Shmurah Matzah

377 (3) Ode on Dead Languages

380 (6) Ode to a Cup

Of special interest in this collection of 400 original poems in iambic pentameter is a group of 70 dialogues with Spanish folk singers. I selected them to represent the main category groupings in Love and Hate: Spanish Folk Songs (1911), translated into Russian by K. D. Balmont from the collection (1882) by Francisco Rodríguez Marín, Cantos populares españoles. These delightful micro-melodies (3, 4 or 7 lines each) each elicited from me an interpretive sonnet comment (in 5-beat lines).

Poem 78: Introduction: Art of Spanish Wordsong

79 Being in Love (6)

80 Being in Love (32)

88 Tenderness (25)

91 Envy (3)

98 Confessions (4-5)

110 Lamenting (22)

117 Hate and Scorn (5)

136 Serenade (1, 2)

146 Lullabies (12)

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