PODCAST #17: INDIAN, PERSIAN, ARABIAN POEMS

I have an astonishing opportunity to acquaint you with Indian, Persian, and Arabian poems in perfectly crafted versions, thanks to the mid-19th-century German translator, scholar, and poet Friedrich Rückert, who learned 44 languages, including Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabian.  In talk-show interview style, I offer English versions of Rückert’s poetic treasures, each one followed by a “reply” poem of my own in closely similar style.

To show how enlivening the interaction can be, let me start with Dialogue 64, The Dream Form. In Dialogue 65 Guidance in Love you’ll hear a dialogue in a highly unusual stanza form, faithfully followed by me from the folk poet. Dialogue 51, Verses in the Desert offers an alarming view of love for me to cope with…

Of high entertainment value are the many stories we’re given. Dialogue 52, The Hermit and the Hound is a short narrative masterpiece. Dialogue 115, Most Handsome Gift to the Handsome is a neatly paired couple of clever tales, the second one by Persian poet Rumi. And I love the clever girl featured in Dialogue 127, Abulaina. Finally, Dialogue 128, Al-Mansur’s Death on a Pilgrimage is an extremely short story followed by a relaxed reply.

Love stories are outstanding in this collection. Dialogue 1 and poem 2 of the books opening story Aja and Indumati by the greatest ancient poet of India Kalidasa, shows a typical feature of love narratives in a Hindu context: two sets of characters – the human and the preter-human (gods. who are intensified versions of ourselves). Dialogue 43, Stages of Love features the love-philosophy of Bhatrihari, a man who tried seven times to become a monk.

PODCAST #16, A MUSIC LOVER’S ART

This book is filled with poems about classical and folk music I love. Let’s begin with Mozart, a composer everyone loves because his music is so packed with great tunes, and his personality is youthfully impulsive. Try “The ‘trumpet concerto’” (312).

Beethoven equals him in popularity, and I join in, translating Nikolai Zabolotsky’s “Beethoven” (314) and offering a “reply” to the great “Ode to Joy” in my brief lyric, “Beethoven’s Ninth” (318).

I could hardly choose from the many I’ve done on Bach: a sample is “Thoughts on a Bach Cantata Strophe” (276).

Schubert’s “Alder King” (246) stimulated a lively reply

Let’s try composers from a variety of nationalities. American Samuel Barber is a great favorite of mine, and he stimulated “I want to write what never wasn’t there” (329).  “Old Man River” from the Kern-Hammerstein “Show Boat” (119) entranced me.

 Verdi’s (“La Traviata,” 96) at Glimmerglass affected me strongly. 

Russian composer Moussorgsky I love for his “Song of the Flea” (168), and about Stravinsky I wrote in “Rite of Spring?” (332). 

Finnish composer Sibelius is perfect in his orchestral piece “Tapiola” (217).

Spanish “Sarasate” (71) kindled my interest in the music of Spanish verses, too (“Song arising to the mouth,” 269).

Another national folk tradition comes through in O’Carolan’s tune to which Thomas Moore set his poem “The Young May Moon,” but I have written new lyrics to it! (see Planxty Peyton, 59).

Today’s freestyle chat has 4 parts, all stemming from Roger Brooks’ book The Power of Being Rich: 10 Essential Principles to Manifest What You Already Have. As dialogic interpreter, my bold beginning is to suggest that Roger’s admirable volume might equally well be titled The Power of Rich Being. Roger wants to show people how to conceive and advance a practical enterprise by starting with a feeling of abundant Being, fullness of Being, plenitude of Being. It starts with confidence, which is nothing more than faith – faith in yourself. Gratitude for your gifts is both starting point and end result.

Next, I show that the exchange of approaches between Roger and me amplifies the meaning of the book we’re discussing, and this deepening or broadening of significance is the essence of friendship. Friendship is mutual mentorship, reciprocal shared learning. I invented the new literary genre of the verse interview to develop dialogue-friendships of this kind with writers I admire. In Shakespair I answer all the Bard’s 154 love sonnets with Shakespearean-style sonnets on facing pages. What an extraordinary human experience! But it’s also, for me, very ordinary in that my poetic “career” began when I discovered it was more fun to write e-mails in sonnets rather than in the usual conversational prose.

In part 3 I show how Goethe, Germany’s greatest poet, relates the theme of rich being to that of friendship. In his poem “Breathing,” he tells us that the tension of inhaling and the relaxation of exhaling are two types of “grace” or vital taking-and-giving, the healthiness of rich Being. Next, he writes a myth of Lucifer or Satan as uneasy in the continual society of God or Elohim. Satan leaves them to be on his own, but gets lonely. Using Jesus as a role model, Satan decides to return to harmony with the Elohim. But, being the kind of person he is, Satan eventually gets restless and has to leave again. What results is a pendular movement between Solitude and Friendship. The “devil” loves it, and so will we. This alternation I correlate to the contrasts in the “Breathing” poem between inhaling and exhaling. Moral and psychological “breathing” means alternating between taking and giving, between self-affirming (inhaling) and self-transcendence (exhaling), between “Selving” and “Unselving,” two wonderful word coinages of Goethe. This alternation is deeply, powerfully lifegiving. It enriches our Being.

Finally, in part 4, I show how the gift of a gingko-patterned coffee cup from a potter friend (artist mentor), added to reverie-thoughts on the November window landscape (reminding me of the paintings of painter Andrew Wyeth, another artist mentor), produced a dialogue-response in the form of a newly composed sonnet.

PODCAST #15: ANGELUS, GUIDE TO GOD WITHIN

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Martin Bidney

Angelus Silesius, the Silesian Angel, was the name Johannes Scheffler took when he converted from the Lutheran to the Catholic Church. But as witty mystic poet, he aims to bring his imagining Heart to oneness with ULTIMATE BEING, THE GOD BEHIND THE NAMES and formulations. His poetry book, “Cherubinischer Wandersmann,” could be translated Companion Angel. Living in a century of religious wars, he wants, through introspection, to find harmony.

Mystic = Greek myein = to close the eyes. Looking inward, Angelus finds the oneness of the Beating Heart with the Boundless. Immensely daring imaginative calisthenics through intense love can expand the heart so that it, too, is boundless. I interview Angelus 86 times, commenting on his deep and innovative metaphors. The Boundless itself is a metaphor – a closely related one is Horizon, the Ultimate Being we can’t reach. Look in your heart to find the boundless – I use this thought of Angelus as my own personal motto (Dialogue 200).

Exploring the Boundless – Beyond the Names

Dialogue 115. The Uncreated Ocean.

Dialogue 119. The Over-Godhead.

Dialogue 120. Love brings us to the Over-God.

Dialogue 116. I’m as big and as small as God.

Dialogue 117. God’s the fire, I’m the shine.

Dialogue 140. Become all things & thus a god.

Poet as Mary and God as Her Child

Dialogue 121. Let me be Mary and bear God.

Dialogue 132. I want to be Mary!

Dialogue 136. God allows for all metaphoric family roles.

PODCAST #14: INTERVIEWING SUFI POET RUMI

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Martin Bidney

Intro: Rumi = Pre-eminent Sufi Mystic Poet, thirteenth century. I translate him from Tholuck’s German, and I interview him, offering verse replies. 

Dialogue 49 = Inclusion: all religions are one.

Dialogue 46 = Inclusion: all spirits are one.

I  Rumi teaches through Surprise.

Dialogue 53. The saint turns hell to heaven, as Milton’s Satan did in Paradise Lost. Both of these reside within the human spirit. “The mind is its own place, and of itself / Can make heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.

Dialogue 42. Forgiveness is an original ACTION, not a mere re-action. Ali shows that, contra Newton, every action does not have an equal and opposite reaction / retaliation. See Qur’an 42:43. “And verily whoso is patient and forgiveth – lo! that, verily is (of) the stedfast heart of things.”

 Dialogue 40 shows, via Rumi’s poem, the Chinese mural painting less perfect than the Byzantine mirror that makes it clearer through purity of heart. But in my Reply I add that a painting = mirror of the Creativity of the Creator.

 Dialogue 68 = “Golden Mean” ethical model of Aristotle vs. immeasurable Height-and-depth. Spokesman for height-and-depth, though, is deemed weak in character by his Sufi hearers. Balance – or Exploration?

II  Freedom through the Holiness of Nature – and Beyond.

 Dialogue 65, about Ibrahim Ibn Adhàm viewed as like St. Francis or Buddha, attuned to Nature.

 Dialogue 66 shows Ibn Adhàm with a parable of twig and orchard relating to the springtime fragrance of the magic shirt of Joseph. Compare to

 Dialogue 67 = Symposium of Senses, holiness of Nature. Cf. Ibn Arabi: one person praying = Complete Congregation of Organs and Thoughts.

PODCAST #13: SUFI LYRICS IN THE EGYPTIAN DESERT

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Martin Bidney

My month-long spiritual pilgrimage at the Sekem desert farming settlement in 2011 was guided by Sufi mentors in the Religion of Love. 

I  Poet Omar as my Sufi mentor. Medieval Sufi Omar’s most famous quatrain, from his Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Victorian interpreter Edward FitzGerald, begins, “A book of Verses underneath the Bough.” This world-famed four-line love song introduced me to the SUFI RELIGION OF LOVE. I emulate the “Book of Verses” love song in these poems, where I shorten the Omar lines by one beat to sweeten the harmonies: 

82. So went the caravan away

77. The courtyard – filled with leaves and blooms,  

73. Our worldly life was at an end [a woman’s love for God]

63. The eyes that light the sky of her [a man loves a woman and God]

90. A vast and mighty [love of the Unnamable, my epigraph and epitaph]

I also love Omar’s lines beginning Myself when young did eagerly frequent and ending with the words I came like water, and like wind I go. This I emulate here:

69. Like water come, like wind I go [love every moment]

29. Now labor carefully to pay [theme of carpe diem, seize/love the day]

II  My Medieval Mentors in Sufi Religion of Love

IBN ARABI 21. The curlew painted

RUMI 22. The theme of union

34. Of poet Attar, Rumi said

RABI’A 31. Just pure surrender – that’s enough

46. O Lord, I hope each worldly thing

III  Shahid Alam as My Neighbor-mentor in Sufi Religion of Love

83-85 It is the month of Ramadan [legend of lifegiving love]

86 The coachman told: the glowing rose [miracle parable of love]

71 My friend, called Witness of the World [allusion to the Eastern Romeo & Juliet]

PODCAST #12: RUSSIAN LOVES

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Martin Bidney

Wordsong is like music generally – it transforms whatever it touches. When I select a poetic mentor to teach me word music, I reshape what I’ve heard, and then my reshaped self replies with a new music – always new because engendered by what I’ve just heard.

Nineteenth-century poets Alexander Pushkin, Michael Lermontov, and Athanasius Fet – lyrical writers in the Romantic tradition – are three of my Russian poetic mentors, friends, collaborators, comrades, guides, teachers, examples – and interviewees. 

In talk-show format, I’ll translate a lyric by one of my guests and then reply to it in the style I’ve just learned by doing the form-faithful English rendering! The spur to creativity offered by the interview approach to a cross-cultural encounter, what I call “dialogic” or conversational translating, is a continual source of renewed vigor and poetic strength. I’ll offer samples from the “Russian Loves” section of my Amazon compilation, Six Dialogic Poetry Chapbooks. 

Pushkin’s “Prisoner” and “Raven” both offer a mood and feeling that makes the poem feel like a folksong, so I respond gladly – to the first with exhilaration, to the second with alarm. “I built myself a monument” is a model for a goal-oriented manifesto-poem, and I offer a similar invitation.

Lermontov’s “Angel” and my “Homo Dubitans” offer comparable sober-minded assessments of the perils of retrospection. Lermontov’s triumphant “Clouds,” with its melodious meter, “set free” no fewer than four of my exuberant “replies” in comparably singable stanza forms. 

Fet is the least known of the three masters, but Russian readers have generally ranked him near the top of their roster of supreme lyrical adepts. “Bees” made me want to unfold an explication of the poem’s cleverly subtle psychology in my “reply.” Fet’s poem “Don’t Ask” challenged me even more strongly to reply with psychological spelunking. “My Day Gets Up” took me deeper into the poet’s ways of exploring how his past affects every moment of his present awareness. I was startled at the tenderness and power of these too-long-neglected lyrical revelations. 

PODCAST #11, TAXI DRIVERS

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Martin Bidney

Taxi Drivers – a topic made from an eye problem – and a way of making friends for the be-loving imaginer. Art is at the heart of startle. I like to consider each of my taxi driver interview lyrics a mini-drama with an outcome of startling power, occasioned by either a sudden change of perspective toward the end, or else simply by the surprise of having a moment of life turned into a wordsong to be remembered and resung.

In poem 2, “She growled, and loudly,” we start with a catfight but suddenly switch to places where people fight. Poem 5, “Pettable animals,” leads to a surprise biographical revelation.

Poem 8, “Look searching, mirrored,” varies the pattern: here I am the speaker, and my explanation of a viewpoint to the taxi driver builds up color and strength by adding more and more detail.  In poem 9, “Curved cover, curled-up corners,” indirect discourse, reported statement, lets me unfold the story I’m hearing in the speaker’s own language. Poem 14, “You came back here from Nashville, Tennessee?,” performs the personality-unfolding at a slow, casual tempo. Poem 15, “Sure, more than thirty years. Played bass guitar,” was a ready-made anecdote so effective I wonder if it’s a near-poem that I’m hearing. Poem 18, Year and a half,” about leaving Florida, has the inevitability of a flower unfolding. Poem 19, “Tattoos referring to the tunes he wrote,” shows this again, more intensely.

Poem 20, “Give me this mantle of a grace-rich green,” turns me into a possible fictive taxi driver. I hadn’t guessed that merely looking out of the cab window would draw forth such a deep satisfaction. In poem 21, “Algerian-born, the taxi-driver” a similar surprise awakes from the depth of my gratitude in response to the driver’s earnest, hesitant question. Poem 25 is the monologue of a poet about a cactus. Poem 27, “The changing sets of heaven theater” lets a story unfold through reported statement blending with my own feelings.

Poem 29, “We’re going down – I’m from Manhattan, so you see,” gets all the sudden power from a child’s intelligence. Poem 30, “My car was flooded, so I called to see if maybe” was a drama written by my fellow passenger! In poem 32,

PODCAST #10: GUMILEV, WORLD TRAVELER

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Martin Bidney

Nikolay Gumilev (1886-1921) was Russia’s pre-eminent traveler poet. He has even said that his sponsor, his supernatural patroness, was the “Muse of distant travel,” the Goddess of Journeying. His journeys were adventures in self-discovery. 

TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, RISK, & SELF-DISCOVERY could be the motto of his life-work. Is it a surprise that, working in the literary department of the Soviet bureaucracy to translate, compile, and publish major poems of world literature, he should focus on translating England’s greatest poem of travel, adventure, risk, and self-discovery? And this is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” I’ll offer a few lines of each, to show Gumilev as connoisseur-translator.

Then I’ll use 97. Adam’s Dream as a frame narrative to orient us to the twofold character of Gumilev’s poetic travels: joyful self-discovery in the face of risk, peril, and death. Adam and Eve were legendary history’s first self-discovering travelers, having left a protected garden for a protracted Time of Transition.

In Romantic Flowers 35. Giraffe playfully suggests to a young person a trip to present-day Africa, and 36. Rhinoceros continues in that spirit. The poet identifies with both traveler and animals. Yet risks for travelers are shown in 33. Contagion and 52. Forest Fire. Gumilev’s travels to far-off places and cultures resulted in poems of peril and alarm. But also humor, and amusement! My favorite is one of his last lyrics, 258. Drunken Dervish, portrait of a hippie mystic. In contrast, 260. Prayer of the Masters portrays a spokesman for traditional icon painters in a Greek monastery. Gumilev, adventurer and studious literary organizer, can identify strongly with each: the rule-breaking rebel and the spiritual seeker bound to the constraints of duty. Poem 1. Sonnet presents the poet as youthful knight in shining armor, an early Spanish explorer of the Americas, triumphantly envisioning his beauty-adorned death. Then, already in 58. Old Conquistador (Pearls), the explorer plays dice with death as rival. Who can win such a game?

In 72. Antiquity boredom generates a burst of desire for visionary journeys. Gumilev’s travel gets spooky when he enters the dream world and encounters the preternatural, as in 49. Possessed.  

Life and death, travel and risk, peril and self-discovery combine in Gumilev. 75. Backwaters, a poem astonishing for sudden power, contrasts with 211. Ezbekiyeh, where the hero’s life hangs in the balance between affirmation and a sudden end.

PODCAST #9: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE QUR’AN

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Martin Bidney

The Be-loving Imaginer, seeking to be the scripture he sings, is delighted to discover ways that a love for already be-loved scriptures can be startlingly expanded. The Qur’an is chiefly a storybook, where you encounter participants in the stories of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The Qur’an shows you these people in new episodes and adventures. I’ll focus on the new perspectives I love the most. I’ll be using as sourcebooks my A Unifying Light and East-West Poetry. Poem 1 UL shows an inclusive attitude: God offers three religions co-equally.

Adam and Eve (poems 6, 7 UL) are co-equal in their eating of the forbidden fruit (wheat seed?) and are soon forgiven. But one offense remains (poem 5 UL); Adam is a failure at stewardship.  

Abraham is not only founder of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; for the Qur’an he pardons his father for trying to burn him alive (see Qur’an intro, poem 95 E-W P) and becomes a martyr hero who teaches forgiveness (poem 75 UL).

Joseph has no coat of many colors but acquires a miracle shirt. When the official’s wife at Pharaoh’s court tries to tempt him, she rips the back of his shirt, which turns into a miracle cure for the blindness of his grieving father Jacob. She accuses Joseph of the misdeed and he’s sent to jail (poem 44 UL, no intro). When the court ladies call her to account, she introduces Joseph, and in a comic scene they’re overcome by his beauty (intro to poem 42 UL).

Moses’ cordial welcome by Pharaoh’s wife may have engendered the love that later drew her to convert to the Jewish God and to condemn Pharaoh (poem 79 UL). Pharaoh’s wife Asiya is a wonderful new character in the Qur’anic story of Moses.

King Solomon – a bad steward? I raise the question, as the Qur’an does (poem 87 UL).

Virgin Mary receives miraculous nourishment to soothe her horrendous labor pains (poem 93 E-W P). According to Sufi poet Rumi, we are each a Mary who must bear a Jesus.

The Qur’anic Jesus offers a sermon while still in cradle (2nd half of intro plus poem 30 E-W P). He models a clay bird and it flies (poem 27 UL). This latter story is told in a Chrstian gospel, as the idol-smashing narrative occurs in a Jewish Midrash. But Torah, Gospel, and Qur’an are all Divinely created, as shown way back in Poem 1 UL.