Poetry DNA: Recent Episodes
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Poetry DNA Poet made a test run of Ableton’s new app, Note, and found that it’s an addictive and fun tool, a kind of musical sketch pad. Try it out and let us know what you think. These current events Will need a mightier poem than this An arsenal of fierce poems Written by an […]
An engineer, Iver Jordal (@iver56) ran a guitar clip through Project Shasta, a speech enhancement program. The result has that interesting borderline human/machine quality, like an electronic version of vocalese or scat singing. It’s like a Poetry DNA experiment in reverse. Listen, and read the fascinating thread here: https://twitter.com/iver56/status/1565305055795974147?s=20&t=2qdSwUS9TV0Htm_cvrYJCg More of these AI-adjacent experiments to […]
Sharing her method for turning poetry into melody, artist Nandi Rose (Halfwaif) demonstrates her Ableton Live workflow in a video for Ableton’s One Thing series. There’s a refreshing simplicity and clarity to her approach: record some chords, speak a poem, sing the poem using the spoken track as a guide, then delete the spoken portion […]
50 degrees, cloudy consider ourselves warned Tweaking the audio/video template daily; meanwhile, you can hear the progress or lack thereof. Sunny by 11 a.m. ! –poetrydnapoet
1 Sunny bright and warm With clouds of doubt rolling in On a raven's caw 2 Tornado debris Negative emotions flood Depression hits home 3 Lethal raindrops fall Spring sky returns to winter Daffodils freezing 4 Rain freezing rain sleet Hail snow icy rain drizzle Bullet missile bomb Experimentation continues. These poems all used a […]
. . . or the Short and Long Of It. Or the Short Short / Long Long . . . well, anyway, here’s an experiment exploring different types of metrical feet, if those metrical types are rendered in a digital music setting. Consider them poetic forms in search of a poem. The method: Apply certain […]
[T]he strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept.” –Athenian representative speaking to Melian governing body; Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (Rex Warner translation), Book Five [I]f we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our […]
The children’s sandlot chant “Hey batter, hey batter, hey batter SWING!” supplied the tempo and downbeat for this whimsical poem-story. Whimsical, but if you’ve ever stood at the plate and tried to hit a curve ball–even a Little League curve–you know the serious mind warp and sense of imbalance a well-thrown pitch can cause. Written […]
Officially launching later this summer, the Library of Congress’s Citizen DJ project is an innovative, elegantly designed cultural Cuisinart that encourages the playful remixing and re-imagining of culture. Mashing up early sound recording and film-era culture with post-modern hip hop and pop music production techniques, Citizen DJ offers a combination sampler and sequencer (based on […]
Tony Addison’s LibriVox reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141 conjures the image and sound of an amorous robot or a cyborg’s love. The rhythmic regimentation and narrow melodic range suggest a techno setting. The bass line is the vocal DNA edited and realigned. Apologies to the Bard and dance floor!
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 141 read by Tony Addison, mix by poetrydnapoet
In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
For they in thee a thousand errors note;
But ‘tis my heart that loves what they despise,
Who, in despite of view, is pleased to dote;
Nor are mine ears with thy tongue’s tune delighted,
Nor tender feeling, to base touches prone,
Nor taste, nor smell, desire to be invited
To any sensual feast with thee alone:
But my five wits nor my five senses can
Dissuade one foolish heart from serving thee,
Who leaves unswayed the likeness of a man,
Thy proud heart’s slave and vassal wretch to be.
Only my plague thus far I count my gain,
That she that makes me sin awards me pain.
Martin Geeson’s wonderfully musical reading of this 15th century poem–the first Valentine poem?– lent itself to a whimsical mix. A poem for any day, even those that are not Valentine’s.
Rondel: A ce jour de saint Valentin (Middle French) by Charles d’ Orléans; read by Martin Geeson, mix by poetrydnapoet From the LibriVox Multilingual Poetry Collection 020
Text from Poésies de Charles d’Orléans
``` A ce jour de saint Valentin, Que chascun doit choisir son per, Amours, demourray je non per? Sans partir à vostre butin. A mon resveillier au matin, Je n'y ai cessé de penser, A ce jour, etc. Que chascun, etc.
Mais Nonchaloir, mon medicin, M'est venu le pousse taster, Qui ma conseillié reposer, Et rendormir sur mon coussin. A ce jour, etc. ```
Poetry written in the moment and shared immediately has the quality odds stacked against it. Poetry needs the distance of time, revision, perspective. On the other hand, some events cry out for immediate response: collective tragedies, crises, injustices. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, people turned to poetry for solace, clarity, vision. Today, after the police brutality murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, poets don’t have the luxury of editing, revision, or careful reconsideration of diction and meter. If we want our poems to speak to the moment, in the moment, better be like the best freestyle rappers and just spit it out there.
But I haven’t been able to write a poem for George Floyd. My mind is too tangled.
If I were to write a poem in memory of George Floyd, I’d want it to have as much heart and smart as Gwendolyn Brooks’ writing about Emmett Till. I’d want it to have the fury of an Amiri Baraka poem and wry wisdom of Gil Scott-Heron. I’d want it to have the American sweep of a Whitman, the incisive zing of a Dickinson. The courage of a Bob Dylan protest song or a Curtis Mayfield record. The agile lyrical ninja power of a Kendrick Lamar rap.
Most importantly, I’d want it to somehow powerfully convey the theme of home. George Floyd never made it home that day. He called out for his mother in his dying moments. America has denied the spiritual sanctuary of home for a whole swath of its citizens. Is there a poem that can convey that wound, that pain? The fear of wondering that if you go out on the American street with dark skin you might be arrested or killed before you make it back home?
Musician Sidney Mills posted to Twitter a few days ago as he walked toward his New York City home as police began enforcing curfew during continued protests against the killing of George Floyd. Listening, I was struck by the contrast of his voice (“Tryin’, still tryin’ to get home, people”) with the rising crescendo of police instructions from a loudspeaker (“This assembly is unlawful. If you do not disperse, you will be subject to arrest.”). The blaring police command repeats 13 times over the crowd noise. Mills finishes the post by saying, “OK, this is on my block where I live. And if I’m not careful, I could get arrested on my way home. Crazy.” The juxtaposition of Mills’ humanity with the harsh militaristic tones of the police is the difference between poetry and anti-poetry.
Mills’s Twitter post captures just one soundbite of this tumultuous American tragedy, but it is a good starting point for a poet’s preparation to write. “I can’t breathe,” of course, is the starting point of the starting point.
It’s not insignificant that Mills’s work with Boogie Down Productions and Steel Pulse reminds us that hip hop and reggae have been ringing the alarm on police brutality for decades. Respect due to the poets of justice.
—poetrydnapoet
Note on the DNA audio: I converted the police command into MIDI and applied a hi-hat sound, then a “klang” sound from the Ableton library. The mix goes from the original sound to the blended digital sounds. Intentionally unmelodic and harsh, a note/sketch for a future mix.
“This Assembly Is Unlawful”… echoing in the streets of NYC #NYCPROTEST #justiceforGeorgeFloyd #GeorgeFloyd #BlackLivesMatter #unionsquareprotest #sidmills #spimusicinc Sidney Mills @sid_mills @spimusicinc pic.twitter.com/Da1lgEu1TN
— Sidney Mills (@sid_mills) May 31, 2020
Boogie Down Productions “Who Protects Us From You”
KRS-ONE “Sound of Da Police”
Collection/Bibliography: Poems of Protest, Resistance, and Empowerment
Also check genius.com for more musical responses to the murder of George Floyd.
“Kouen no isu” by Hagiwara Sakutarō; read by kaseumin; mix by poetrydnapoet Fascinating comment in poet Jerome Rothenberg’s NOTE about Sakutarō Hagiwara: “Unlike Pound’s call for a return of poetry to music, however, Hagiwara’s poetics brought that whole relation into question. Thus he wrote of his own practice: ‘Through the free verse form the poet has been able to freely reveal the perfect rhythm of his ego for the first time. When it broke every unreasonable restraint and escaped from the bondage of music, poetry for the first time was able to discover its legitimate route and construct the ‘music of words’ in the true sense.’”
The bondage of music?!
The first lines of the poem, read so–dare we say it?–musically by kaseumin, provided the DNA musical figure. Sonic Bloom’s excellent Array Mbira virtual instrument enhanced the sonic landscape.
Find the original in this excellent Multilingual Poetry Collection by LibriVox.
P.S. Linguistic propriety question: is it Hagiwara Sakutaro, or Sakutaro Hagiwara? Seems to depend on the English website. I took kaseumin’s lead and went with HS.
Here’s one for the scansionists, aka poets!
Homeric Dactylic Metronome Experiment by Jr. James Long short short. A kind of triplet, but with emphasis on the first beat. That makes a foot. Six feet make a line of Homeric style epic poetry–dactylic hexameter. Throw in a foot or two of spondee (long long) for variety’s sake, and because it’s too demanding to make every foot a dactyl. Dactyl, like the bone segments of your fingers.
I always had trouble sussing out the meter in epic poetry. Too many variations, seemingly, to the standard dactylic hexameter, and too hard to fathom the rhythm without a stringed instrument or frame drum accompaniment. Maybe I have been a lazy scansionist. And maybe my Latin is too weak and my Greek nonexistent.
What if we located some dactyl words found frequently in The Iliad and The Odyssey, like “glorious,” and, after recording them, sliced them into a sampler that we could then trigger for a random sampling?
Homeric dactylic words and phrases in the Ableton Live sampler Sharing this experiment in hope that it will illuminate some of the challenges of working with meter. Metronomes for musicians are helpful tools for learning and locking the tempo, but the savvy musician realizes the music needs to breathe–Duke Ellington’s famous adage “It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing” should always be front and center. So too for poetry. So don’t let the machine rob the swing. Or, use the machine to advantage and exploit the grid a la Kraftwerk.
As I prepared my experiment, I found some great resources online. Respect due, scholars! Please consult these for a more legit introduction to the topic.
- Hexameter.co (Homer)
- Hexameter.co (How to Scan)
- Homeric epic meter: dactylic hexameter | Reading practice, with Leonard Muellner
- Poetry Kaleidoscope: Guide to Poetry
- The Iliad in English dactylic hexameter verse
- What does Dactylic Hexameter sound like in English?
- The Rhythms of Latin Poetry: Hexameter
- Reciting Homer – Iliad book 6
- “The Dactyl Poem” by Allan Wolf
Body Politic by Jr. James If certain current events turn your stomach, this one’s for you.
To see your country descend into astonishing, dismaying levels of corruption, hatred, and racism; to see an army of smug lower-case wannabe bullies defend the indefensible actions of an upper-case Bully; to see attacks on immigrants, on the free press, on the environment and on the rule of law, all to bolster a money-grabbing con; to see all this and more, on a daily basis, is to feel angry, betrayed, confused . . . and sick. So a body metaphor suggests itself to a poet.
Talked this one’s chorus into the mic first, then used the DNA method to set a tempo, bass line and rhythm track.
Kate Tempest was a key inspiration, as were the The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. And James Brown, of course, is the wise man reference for the “money won’t change you” line.
Here you have it: poetry to make you puke. Ha haaaaa haaa!
``` Body Politic What's happening to my body Politic? Is this a disease, Or am I just sick?
When I was just a baby, a few days old Had to get a blood transfusion, that was the Constitution And then as a teen of 18 or 12 I caught a Canadian’s cold And in a fistfight suffered a minor contusion Then in a tougher fight, got hit by cousins’ cannonball crossfire I caught typhoid, dysentery and pneumonia And nearly had to get an amputation But the army doctor didn’t know to look for cancer And a nasty tumor metastasized, JimCrowanoma Still a young man, My eyes and lungs got burned by chlorine and mustard gas I had blisters oozing yellow pus Pearl Harbor was a hit to the gut, blood everywhere, another transfusion And Korea and Vietnam nearly took me out And probably I never healed properly But then I got complacent Quit going for my annual checkup Thought I was invincible Now something’s eating at me from within And I’m doubled over in agony The only time I invoke Jesus Paying for my hypocrisy and paying twice for my sins, no doubt A wise man once said that money won’t change you But time will take you out Problem is, money did change me And time might be running out Nothing humorous about these humors Blood and phlegm and bile, and gall, the gall! Now feel like I’ve caught some nasty bug Should’ve worn a mask like Michael I guess Feel like I have orange soda instead of blood Orange soda mixed with undigested fast food beef Clogging my arteries, fogging my brain I should have the strength of a teen Instead I’m ready for the morgue *What’s happening to my body Politic
Look people, this body politic was once young, strong, resilient It wasn’t perfect, and sometimes there was blood in our e. pluribus urine But now a steady diet of Fox and mountain bluebird Is rotting us, choking us, killing us We haven’t been eating our vegetables It’s suicide by Diet Cokes and Big Macs, Bigotry and greed, deception and misdirection We’ve got brain disease, senatorial septicemia We’ve got heart disease, coronary racism and arrythmia Who’s going to rush us to the ER? And what happens if I get pregnant?*
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