Tag Archives: beauty

QOTD – How Do You Feel About Poetry?

by J. Gabriel Allan

poetry-sm

In its inception, the poetry question was simple: is poetry relevant in the 21st century.

Through our meandering exploration of the written word it has become more… or less, depending on your perception.

Recently, Chris started a segment called “How does so-and-so feel about poetry?” in which he asks celebrities the question via twitter and posts their 140. The responses have been beautiful, fun, funny, creative, insightful and wonderful- especially the words from Jon Favreau (the speechwriter, not the Swinger).

I feel that poetry is everywhere; everything is poetry. Life is poetic if you allow it to be. The world is poetic if you look for it. Seek and ye shall find.

The way you speak, the words you say, the way you move is your poetry.

I not only feel poetry is the most important thing we do, I contend it is all we do.

QOTD – How Do You Feel About Poetry?

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Poems for Fathers

by Christopher Margolin

Here are a few of my favorite “Father” poems. If you have a good one, please share it in the comment section.

My Papa’s Waltz

BY THEODORE ROETHKE

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Danse Russe

by William Carlos Williams

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,-
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
"I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!"
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,-
Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

Inventing Father In Las Vegas

by Lynn Emanuel

If I could see nothing but the smoke
From the tip of his cigar, I would know everything
About the years before the war.
If his face were halved by shadow I would know
This was a street where an EATS sign trembled
And a Greek served coffee black as a dog's eye.
If I could see nothing but his wrist I would know
About the slot machine and I could reconstruct
The weak chin and ruin of his youth, the summer
My father was a gypsy with oiled hair sleeping
In a Murphy bed and practicing clairvoyance.
I could fill his vast Packard with showgirls
And keep him forever among the difficult buttons
Of the bodice, among the rustling of their names,
Miss Christina, Miss Lorraine.
I could put his money in my pocket
and wearing memory's black fedora
With the condoms hidden in the hatband
The damp cigar between my teeth,
I could become the young man who always got sentimental
About London especially in Las Vegas with its single bridge­-
So ridiculously tender--leaning across the river
To watch the starlight's soft explosions.
If I could trace the two veins that crossed
His temple, I would know what drove him
To this godforsaken place, I would keep him forever
Remote from war--like the come-hither tip of his lit cigar
Or the harvest moon, that gold planet, remote and pure
  American.

Cross

– Langston Hughes

My old man’s a white old man
And my old mother’s black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I’m sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I’m going to die,
Being neither white nor black?

 

Men at Forty
Donald Justice (b. 1925)

Men at forty
Learn to close softly
The doors to rooms they will not be
Coming back to.

At rest on a stair landing,
They feel it
Moving beneath them now like the deck of a ship,
Though the swell is gentle.

And deep in mirrors
The rediscover
The face of the boy as he practices trying
His father’s tie there in secret

And the face of that father,
Still warm with the mystery of lather.
They are more fathers than sons themselves now.
Something is filling them, something

That is like the twilight sound
Of the crickets, immense,
Filling the woods at the foot of the slope
Behind their mortgaged houses.

 

 

QOTD – Do You Hear The People Sing?

by J. Gabriel Allan

I composed this tweet while driving1 to my step-father-in-law’s2 retirement from the Missouri Air National Guard.

2. I usually refer to him as Bill to avoid all the hyphenation
1. I was actually passangering, not driving. Safety first.

Chris really enjoyed the #LifeAsPoetry tagline and we decided to run with it for a while, which got me thinking. A dangerous pastime, I know*.

*Pardon my Disney reference, but no one is quite like Gaston.

There is so much beauty in this world that gets ignored. There is too much beauty in this world that gets ignored.

By now, I hope you have heard the story of Joshua Bell playing his violin in the Washington DC Metro stop. If you haven’t, you need to internet** more. You can read the full article here, or you can just understand that a world renowned violinist displayed his skills in a subway station and was widely ignored by the masses too busy with the glorification of busy to stop and listen to the roses.

**Yes, “to internet” is a verb – it is usually done on the Google machine or the Facebook, occasionally the Tweeter.

I recently attended an amazing professional development workshop on engaging students of poverty lead by Eric Jensen where he told an amazing story that you won’t find on the internet. This story takes place on a school bus. It was, as school busses are wont to be, a loud, noisy school bus full of talking, screaming, singing children. The bus driver fought daily for the students to sit down, quiet down, shut up…

until he missed a day and there was a substitute bus driver.

Adding to the overwhelming cacophony of noise was a ten year old named Darrel. Darrel was singing. Darrel was always singing.

As Darrel approached the doors to get off the bus, the substitute bus driver did something beautiful. Instead of telling Darrel to shut up, he told Darrel you have an amazing voice and gave him a phone number of a relative who was involved in music.

Darrel, whose full name is Darrel Labrado, released three albums, had two Billboard Top 100 hits and has performed on MTV and in New York for Billboard.

Because someone took the time to listen to his voice instead of telling him to shut up.

Because someone took the time to hear the music over the din.

How much beauty, how much poetry gets lost in our world because we forget to look, to listen, to see?

Art does not imitate life. Life is art.

Artists merely capture the moments.

 

QOTD – Where do you find beauty, art, or poetry in the world around you? What is your #LifeAsPoetry moment?

Respond here, on Facebook, or on Twitter.

INTERVIEW: Taylor Mali is Metaphorically Yours.

by Christopher Margolin

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Taylor Mali is one of the best known poets of the last decade. He’s been a part of seven national slam poet teams, four of which have won the competition. He spent nine years as a middle school teacher, and worked to create 1000 teachers through poetry, finally hitting the mark in April of 2012. He has written two books, put out four CDs, and appeared on several other anthologies. He gives lectures, teaches workshops, and will always make sure that you know how to spell “definitely” and “beautiful.” I’ve had the opportunity to take a workshop from Mr. Mali, and the knowledge I gained from those few hours has been absolutely priceless. It was my pleasure to interview Taylor Mali for The Poetry Question.

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1. What are your earliest memories as a reader? Were there books that you remember being read as a child? Was there a favorite reading moment? Maybe a light bulb moment where you realized that you were reading a text that would define your life?

I remember taking a bus ride in New York City with my mother shortly before the first day of first grade and talking with her about the importance of reading and math. I wasn’t one of those kids who knew how to read before first grade; that’s definitely where I learned. But the thing is, I thought I would know how to read when I got home after the first day. I thought they would lock the doors and let us all in on the big secret. “Okay, kids! Here is how you read!” I must have been disappointed to find out it was a slower process than that. Other memories of actually learning how to read include correctly spelling the word THEY in a spelling bee. Later, I remember finishing a certain book with a blue cover and “graduating” to the next book (with a green cover. There was a lot of reading aloud in my family (I’ve written about the subject in a poem called “Reading Allowed”); both my mother and father did it, and they had different things they were good at. My mother was great with voices, and my father could make anything sound suspenseful.

2. Do you remember your first poems? How old were you when you started writing? When did you begin to develop the style upon which you’d build your career?

My mother had an electric typewriter, and I remember pecking out poems at the age of six or seven. A few years later, I wrote a poem called “It,” which was about living your life to the fullest and not waiting for “it” to happen to you. But the earliest poem that I can put my hands on is from when I was 12. It was called “Dawn Life” and it’s about duck hunting at sunrise with my grandparents. That’s not WASPY at all, is it?

3. Who were the poets, or authors, or people, who most influenced you when you were starting out? What was it about their work that made them an influence?

Besides Dr. Seuss and Robert Frost, my biggest poetic influence was my father, Allen Mali, who enjoyed writing “occasional” poems, poems for special events. My mother’s 38th birthday, his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, his father’s 80th birthday, my mother’s 50th, my sister’s wedding—certain events would elicit from him poems of a dozen or so wonderful rhyming couplets. It was pure doggerel but it was good doggerel, almost Dr. Seussian. He never had any of his poems published in a book, but my mother, Jane Lawrence Mali, wrote and had published many children’s books (maybe five). She won the National Book Award one year for a book called “Oh Boy! Babies!” about a baby-care class that was taught at my school (The Collegiate School for Boys). The boys got to practice diapering and bathing with real babies! (Most of the mothers who “donated” their babies for the period had older sons at the school.) So writing was in my blood. I knew from an early age that words had power.

But to mention a few poets other people will be familiar with: Billy Collins, for sure. In fact, I consider myself the direct descendant of Billy in his poetic lineage, and that was long before a woman told me that I was “just like Billy Collins, except EVEN WORSE.” We read together at the very first pairing of Page Meets Stage in New York City, and it was a blast. I even took a class with him once, and was secretly thrilled when he took me aside and said, “What are YOU doing in this class? I have nothing to teach you!” I love Mary Oliver for the sheer authority with which she writes about matters of the soul. And Tony Hoagland is a hero of mine for the risks he is willing to take and the trouble he gets in as a result. He once told me that if he waited until the poems were perfect before showing them to the world, it would be too late for them to actually DO anything.

4. How has the culture of poetry changed over your time in the industry? Have you found that you’ve needed to adapt your style, or has it felt fairly consistent?

What has changed is what’s required to win a poetry slam. You can’t win with quiet, reflective, beautiful poetry anymore. But perhaps that was bound to happen. As for “the industry” as a whole, it feels pretty consistent. There is still no shortage of folks who can get by writing poems that the average person cannot understand. There is a fear of being too easily understood. Or rather, as a result of this fear, there is a common misconception that you MUST be good if no one can tell what in the hell you mean. Many exceptions, of course. But I’m amazed at how often I read the poems in The New Yorker and think, “WTF?”

5. Pigeon John told me that, to paraphrase, he feels as if 2chainz is the new Bob Dylan. How would you respond to that? Is hip-hop the new poetry?

I don’t know who that is, so it’s probably true. Actually, no; it’s only partially true. Hip-hop is where all the best rhymers are. So if rhyme is important to you (and it should be), then you probably consider hip hop the new poetry. I certainly lament the paucity of rhyme in contemporary poetry, but it is by no means the most important quality of language that I think a poem should have. What is? Well, hard to say. But my favorite definition of poetry currently is Gerard Manley Hopkins who said poetry was ” speech framed . . . to be heard for its own sake and interest, even over and above its interest of meaning.” That doesn’t really describe the hip-hop that I know. I think 2chainz (okay, I just looked him up on YouTube) is more interested in being funny, provocative, and selling records with memorable melodies and beats. And there’s the real difference: poetry on the page doesn’t have a melody or a beat. And those are important! Without the beat or the melody, the lyrics don’t stand up as poetry worthy of our attention. The beat and the melody keep the words from being merely insipid and offensive. “All I want for my birthday is a big-booty ho?” Um, no thanks. I want those night-vision binoculars your brother said he could bring home from Afghanistan.

6. Seeing as two of the founders of The Poetry Question are educators, we’re always curious in how other teachers worked poetry into their classroom. Since your students were middle-schoolers, how did you utilize poetry? How did they react? What was your favorite poem to use in the classroom?

I actually never got to teach poetry when I taught middle school. Sure my MA is in creative writing, and I was an English major in college, but I mostly taught math and history! I made my students memorize poems in history class that were germane to the topics we were studying. In math, I just made them appreciate the pure poetry of a balanced equation.

7. It seems as if the Slam Poetry world has grown a considerable amount over the last few years, and the poets, and audience alike, are getting younger; however, it still seems that it’s very much a word-of-mouth scene. How do expand that? What’s the next step?

I think it’s time to bring a show like Def Poetry Jam back, but this time mix it with The Sing Off/American Idol/Last Comic Standing so it’s interactive and America gets to vote people off the show! Call it American Poet. Can you imagine the conversation that would start about poetry across the country?!

9. If you could have a drink, or a dinner, with any poet, living or dead, who would it be and why?

Probably Rumi, the 13th century Turkish poet. His stuff was so deep and timeless. I’d just like to listen to him (and understand, of course).

10. And finally, since lyrics and poetry are so closely related, who is your favorite lyricist?

I like Fiona Apple, Alanis Morisette, and Ryan Adams. And Jason Mraz has some great turns of phrase and memorable melodies. But the greatest is still Paul Simon for me. I mean, “My life’s so common it disappears. And sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears.” Motherfucker what!

There. How’s that?

Metaphorically yours,

Taylor Mali

INTERVIEW: Buddy Peace, The Man Who Produces Those Underground Emcees

by Christopher Margolin

You don’t know his name. You’ve probably never heard of him before, but you know the music. You’ve listened to the Sage Francis songs, the B. Dolan mixes, Buck 65, Sole, and the Strange Famous catalogue. If you’re a hip-hop head, you know the work of Buddy Peace, and at some point, he’ll be as recognizable as DJ Premier. He’s the white guy who can mix a Howlin’ Wolf set like he was born to scratch and sample the blues, and then lay down the smoothest landscape for some of the best lyrical poets in the underground game. Enjoy The Poetry Questions’ unedited interview with Buddy Peace.

Check out his album with Prolyphic.

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TPQ: What are your earliest music memories? Who introduced you to that music? What was that defining song you heard where the light bulb turned on, and you knew you wanted to make music your full time career?

Buddy Peace: I have one very vivid memory which has been coming back to me with increasing frequency over the past few years or so, of me in my toddler years sitting in a kitchen with ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ by The Supremes playing on the radio. That was one of the first jams that really caught my ear and I will never forget it. I love it! Then we have the introduction of Dire Straits and Buddy Holly into the family car stereo rotation, which REALLY set things off. Even though I was like 5 or 6 years old, these tapes seemed to tie in perfectly with my young mind and what was going on. I can’t explain it but there it is – cemented in there forever! I’d probably get all teary if you played me ‘Alchemy’, the live Dire Straits album. It was my brother who really gave me the business though- he bought ‘The Show’ by Doug E Fresh & Slick Rick on 7″ and it was my favourite right away. The drums, the Inspector Gadget reference, the telephone ring mouth sound effect. Perfection. Incidentally my first 7″ was ‘Live Is Life’ by Opus. It has some importance somewhere I guess, maybe? Anyway, then came De La, NWA, Public Enemy and so on, and I was all set. All of this together, along with whatever metal I was bumping at the time, combined to give me a feeling that I had to throw my hat in the ring in all this at some point down the line…

TPQ: Do you remember your first beats? How old were you when you started writing? When did you begin to develop the style upon which you’d build your career?

Buddy Peace: Oh yeah. Definitely. I used to keep all kinds of tapes and later minidiscs of things I did, as I know tons of us analogue hounds back then used to do. I started off DJing back around 1993 so I built up a nice little catalogue of mixes and scratch sessions, but the beats started happening around 1995. I got this mini sampler which had an amazingly precise loop facility but it was all numbers, so I’d sample bits off record, then get the next thing I was going to sample in time manually, then sample it and fiddle with the numbers til the tempos matched. It took way too long but kept you in the process, and the end result after a bit of work was so satisfying back then. I’d strengthened my rap radio tape edit-finger too so my timings were sharp. I bought an MPC2000 from my friend in 1997 and pretty much taught myself step programming on that, and I was really into heavy, rugged drums and tech edity programming styles and that found its way into the MPC beats I was making then. Lots of hours hunched over a little screen and a clunky, chugging and unstable zip drive whirring away.

TPQ: Who were the DJs and lyricists that most influenced you when you were starting out? What was it about their work that made them an influence?

Buddy Peace: I’ll list off a few and give some notes, if that’s cool. There are so many but I’ll give you some of the key names or the more pivotal people for me…

Prince Paul (De La, Stetstasonic and so on- huge for me, diverse and imaginative with such a broad range of influences, which it’s hard not to absorb)
Gangstarr (the perfect hip hop duo- Guru was just on point all the time, and Primo had such sick, funky production with a scratch style that definitely inspired me so much)

Public Enemy, Ice T & NWA (absolutely essential- a huge chunk of my formative listening)
Wu Tang (obviously)
Bomb Squad (severely heavy and innovative, such a huge influence)
DJ Cash Money, Pete Rock, Funkmaster Flex, DJ Riz, DJ Scratch and tons more (I was really into that loose, rhythmic scratch style which was razor sharp but not flashy for the sake of it. There are SO many more but I’ll use these as shorthand for that kind of sound for sake of not making a 20 foot long list…)

More (sort of) recent influences that I’ve spent a good while absorbing and enjoying include the Beat Junkies, QBert & the old ISP lineup, all the 1200 Hobos crew (Dibbs, Buck 65 and the rest- they opened another door later on to the more freakier side with a whole new world of influences), Sage and all the Strange Famous fellowship (had a HUGE impact on my listening back around 1999, which has only grown and amplified over the years), Atmosphere, the Low End Theory/Brainfeeder platoon (too much greatness) – this is super tricky as there are literally hundreds of names I can pull out and explain why they had an impact on me but I think that’s a sensible amount. I feel like I’ve connected more with that late 80′s/early 90′s style of hip hop, and most of what I listen to these days (in terms of hip hop, at least) feels like it has a lot of that flowing through its veins. I’m not locked down to older stuff, but because that’s when I really got going with DJing and record buying, it’s stronger within me. Throw on ‘Breaking Atoms’ by Main Source and I’ll be happy forever.

TPQ: How has the culture of hip-hop changed over the years you’ve been in the game? Is it a good change, or a bad change?

Buddy Peace: When I was really starting out as a young teenager around 1993, and with hindsight and benefit of seeing how things panned out over a couple of decades, it feels like those early years for me were very kind of hands on, earthy and dusty. I have the sense of being actually physically dirty for some of it, looking through old grimy record stores and going into places looking for music where my rational side was blatantly asking me “Are you out of your mind? What are you DOING??”. It was exciting and I could feel my mind opening up on every expedition, and it was just something you had to do to find the obscure or slightly weirder stuff. Or to find hip hop in shops that were essentially trying to hide it out of view. With no internet or any idea of internet you would have to pass a headphone to record store clerk and wait for a facial expression of recognition to find out the name of something (I did this a lot). Also from all the radio tapes I was accumulating (just taping stuff off the radio), if I was really into something I’d try and piece together clues in the lyrics as to who it was, what the name of the track was (If it wasn’t obvious) or any kind of nugget I could use to find it in a record store. It was all very hands on and physical. I think that’s my major observation, it feels kind of obvious to say it but it really is a tangible change. Now things feel very clean, and in some cases laboratorial. Things are done in numbers and algorithms and you really don’t even have to move a whole lot to immerse yourself in the culture. I’m not necessarily against the change though, and it’s hard not to come off as Old Man Buddy in saying how different it was “back in my day”, I just find it very interesting being caught on either side of it all, that pivotal change in how music and culture is consumed, and seeing how it is still being dealt with and experienced. I’m very glad I did have that time to put in the effort to find out all that stuff, and it definitely aided other aspects of my life (Even down to communicating in a record shop! I eventually went on to work in a few), but now I suppose that time can be used for actually making stuff rather than trawling so much. There are benefits to the trawling but there are also benefits to actually having time to do real life human things too. I won’t go into the whole download thing or how stuff is dying, I really hate all that. I’ve been working in a record shop and people have come up and started talking about how record shops are dying and the internet’s killed everything, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they’re standing in a functioning record shop surrounded by music lovers who are buying music. Crazy. A tangent, I know, but that’s why I won’t perpetuate all that music industry observation stuff. There are too many good, positive power moves being made out there to focus on the negative.

TPQ: You’ve worked with some of my personal favorite emcees: B. Dolan, Sole, Sage Francis, Buck 65. Who has been your personal favorite to work with, and why? Who was most inspiring?

Buddy Peace: No way! I couldn’t pick like that. That’s brutal! I’ll be perfectly honest, I genuinely feel very honoured and actually very lucky to have been and be able to work with all of these people. I’ve been listening to all of them for a very long time, and put a good few people onto them too who have more often than not become voracious listeners, so it can be kind of a trip being a fan at the same time as enjoying a working relationship, but I’m much more comfortable these days and know people I work with on a more personal and friendly level. It means a lot for me and to be frank, I work best in that situation. I know it doesn’t automatically happen that way and so I’m all the more appreciative, and everybody has different approaches and processes which I fully understand. I know my place in every project and I get so much from every one, and it’s always different, so I just look forward to seeing what we can do and how we can work together to make something raw. I spent enough time working alone to know what that’s like, and while I’m mostly all about that I do love getting the hell away from it all and working with another human being that ISN’T ME! I can safely say that Strange Famous as a whole has proven to be one of the most inspiring and supportive groups of great people I have had the fortune to be a part of, and I’m constantly grateful for my place at the table.

TPQ: Would you consider rap lyrics to be the new Poetry? Why or why not?

Buddy Peace: I think lyrics in music in general can be beautifully poetic. Maybe hip hop is more easily quantifiable as poetry because it can have a very measured and controlled form, but of course like poetry as well, it can stray outside of all form and still remain poetic. Some lyrics in general can be absolutely nothing, or maybe a word repeated, or even spoken word, so perhaps context plays a big part in deciding what’s what. With hip hop specifically though, in the same way it can make you a music expert from tracing the samples and references down to the source, you might become more in tune with lyricism and poetry from the emcee and want to discover references, look up a name, all of that stuff and it feels like that would inevitably lead you to a poetic source of some kind. Of course you could tie in the sample sources as well as the lyrical side and find groups like The Last Poets and Gil Scott Heron, people like that which will open up even more for you… I don’t consider hip hop lyrics ‘the new poetry’ as such, but I’d probably class it as a newer kind of poetry under a larger poetic umbrella.

TPQ: As the media visibility of rappers continues to grow, how do you feel that has changed the approach to writing? Do rappers need to write more mainstream lyrics because they are in the spotlight, or are they still able to write conscious hip-hop, and gain notice?

Buddy Peace: I think it would probably only affect certain kinds of artists, probably the ones who are more into the idea of blowing up quicker or riding some kind of wave. If there’s a trend happening and a course that mainstream rap is taking, some artists will take that as a draft call to come out with something equalling that, where some will actively try and buck it or just steer clear of it. The more broad lyrics will appeal to broader audiences, but that’s not to say that a conscious tone can’t be baked into that. The mainstream arena is probably only really at the front of artists minds who are seeking that though, it’s not what everyone wants and not everyone’s styles or content is suited to that. There is a place for everyone and all styles, and some will generate broader material suited for broader palates, while others will create the material that fits with their process and their particular audience. You can probably write your way into mainstream channels but then you’d need that personality to sustain it in the end.

TPQ: How do you see the hip-hop culture evolving over the next decade?

Buddy Peace: With hip hop specifically, I think there will always be that back to basics approach which for me is just rapping over drums. Drum machine, live drums, sampler, lunch table, whatever. That will stay forever I think. But outside of that, I think hip hop will continue to mingle with other genres and blend into all kinds of other areas. Where one generation might be wary of stepping, the next will just go on in and get it done. So I think there will be more guest spots and collaborations, and probably a fair bit more splintering off at the same time. On the whole though, some huge things will happen very quickly, while some changes will be glacial, but I hope to see a more open minded and evolved hip hop take form. I have a lot of hope for that. There’s no room for intolerance in this music and no excuse for it. I remain positive…

TPQ: What is your process for beat making? And then how do you and a lyricist work to put your music to their lyrics – or vice versa?

Buddy Peace: It depends on what I’m working on and who for, or what for really. If it was for an album or a beat-tape, something like that, there might be a point where I have accumulated a lot of ideas and sketches and realise that I really should be doing something with all this… Then I’ll go in and shape it, massage it, get dirty a little bit and form it into something. I’ll also have bits and pieces I’ve stashed away that I want to look at later, and if they’re right for the project I’ll unlock those and introduce them to the others, see how they fit in. Troublemakers get escorted out, I won’t force it. I also love working to specific projects, that’s what makes me crazy excited. Stuff like that Muddy Waters / Howlin’ Wolf mix I did, I can’t get enough of that. Some ideas I have start rattling in my brain and I can’t work on anything else until they’re finished, I get proper tunnel vision on things like that.

If I’m working with an emcee, some have ideas and specific themes for certain tracks, so I may be adapting some beats to suit a demo recording, or working with lyrics first (Looking for sounds that I can program into a suitable beat for those), or I might have a batch of sketches with an emcee in mind that I’ve been holding onto. On the Prolyphic album (‘Working Man’), we would do a bit of both, so I’d send him some beats, or he’d send over a rough vocal over a loop and I’d make something specific to that. We’d hammer out the arrangement over time with some email pingpong and keep it moving like that. I know that I can always go back to my own personal beatmaking so I won’t ever crowbar in my own style at the sake of an emcee- if someone wants a track to have a certain style or with a certain reference in it, I’m always open to it as I have my own platforms to interfere with things as much I want. Say with the House Of Bees mixes with B. Dolan, some beats I had already which we would sort out later, but a lot of them were done with a very clear outline and path laid out by B from the start. It was very cool because we’d often meet in the middle without even realising sometimes, or be working on stuff remotely that was on similar paths (He’d have lyrics written which tied in perfectly with a beat I’d been making, that sort of thing). Occasionally though I will pass on a track I’ve been working on that I think, hmm, Sage would murder this, or B would destroy this one, and see what happens.

TPQ: We’re The Poetry Question, so I have to ask: What is Poetry?

Buddy Peace: I wish I had a more eloquent way of putting it but for me, it’s something you don’t have to understand the mechanics of for it to have a powerful effect. You may appreciate what’s happening more if you understand what’s going on, but I feel that if you let it wash over you and see where it takes you, poetry can change more than it could ever know. I wish I knew more about it and had that understanding, but I’ve felt some of the greatness it can offer and I’m excited about finding more.

TPQ: And finally, if you could drink a glass of scotch with any emcee, DJ, author, or artist, dead or alive, who would it be, and why?

Buddy Peace: I’d save the scotch for afterwards, but Jason Molina. He died this year which knocked me sideways as I really fell for his music from the first listen, and it was so sad to realise that it was the end of the beautiful music he had been making all of these years. His music, whether solo or with his bands, has brought me (And so many people) so much and I think taking a stroll out in the wilderness with him would be perfect. Just talking. I’d like that.

 

 

“Make Silence Your Friend”

by Christopher Margolin

I’ve made a deal with my students that I will perform a piece at a local poetry slam on May 26th. Even writing that down here means that I have to follow through with my promise. Then again, even writing that down here makes me nervous. I’ve written the piece that I want to perform, and it’s heavy. The subject matter is not suitable for everyone, but it’s very honest, and after watching a few slam poetry events, I know that it fits in with the overall feel of what people have been performing. I think I’m more nervous about the subject matter because it’s opening myself up to some of my students, and that’s an odd line to walk at times.

The other hitch in my proverbial giddy-up is that I suffer from social anxiety disorder, and while I stay fairly medicated, it doesn’t mean that standing on stage, and performing a piece about my world to a group of complete strangers, and a handful of students doesn’t make the lump in my throat go down any easier. It’s funny though, because I play music on a regular basis – live music, in front of a lot of people. In fact, I’m playing a show tonight for 300+ people, and I’ll be perfectly fine. The playing portion is okay; frankly, it’s the getting onto the stage that is the issue. Once I’m there, I feel great. I’m alive. I strum a few chords, sing a few lines, and I feel at home. But I typically arrive several hours early, have a drink to relax my mind, and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait for load in, and set up, and soundcheck, and then continue the waiting process until I play. I’ve gotten a lot better over the years. I’m not angry before shows anymore. I no longer hide in the corners. I’ve been doing shows for 17 years, so why does this poetry slam bother me so much?

It’s the waiting. It’s the fact that the only people I’ll know are a handful of students. It’s the fact that I can’t hide behind my guitar, and that the only thing I’ll have as my crutch is the microphone, and my piece of paper – if I don’t memorize the whole thing. I know I’ll be calm once I start the piece. And it’s a very accepting and open crowd. I’ve seen people truly mess up, forget lines, get rattled, voices crack, and the audience cheers them on to keep going, and gives them praise. I know that I can do this.

Taylor Mali’s advice is right on point: If my hands shake, I should memorize my piece. If they don’t, then I need to make silence my friend. Well, my hands don’t shake, and I love making people listen to my words. I thrive off of the silence during a solo set, when you know that every ear is straining to hear each and every syllable. I can do this. It’s just the waiting. Damn you Tom Petty. The waiting really is the hardest part.

QOTD – Even the Masters Found Inspiration Somewhere; How About You?

by Christopher Margolin

Inspiration comes to everyone in vastly different ways. It might be a parent, or a sibling, or a teacher, or television star. It might be the mailman, the police officer, the street preacher, or the homeless man on the corner. There’s always a light bulb moment, but never a clear sign that it’s going to turn on, or that you’ll even notice the change in brightness. Inspiration is nowhere near an exact science, but it happens to all of us – just depends on whether or not we are willing to actually see it for what it is.

I’ve asked a lot of celebrities who their main influences are, and while I’m received a lot in return, the ones listed above were ones that caught me off guard. Sadat X, member of Brand Nubian, actually lists someone who’s CD doesn’t even come out for another month. Obviously, he’s looking at current inspiration. Scarface, the rapper, turned to Gene Simmons from KISS as his inspiration. This totally threw me, because they are from completely different worlds. Then I took a moment to realize they are both incredibly theatrical on stage, and understand how to build a marketing machine. It was an important discovery, and lead to my biggest profits ever. The Ralphie May one wasn’t so odd to me. I can definitely see some Sam Kinison in his act. Kinison was a master of timing, and as Ralphie points out, “Controlled Chaos.” Truer words could never have been written about comedy, and writing. It’s all controlled chaos.

My question to you requires a bit of thought beyond the normal go-to answers. I want to know who really inspired you. Don’t give me the “My parents are wonderful” line if they aren’t the ones who actually inspired you to do what you are doing now, or will do in the future.

Who is your biggest inspiration?

An Open Letter

by Kenny Norris

Dear those who have banned or are trying to ban The Perks of Being a Wallflower,

Why is it that in every generation there are people who try to ban the very literature that defines and envelopes a population? This book, as much as you want to deny it, captures so much of what it is like to grow up in this day and age. Please, for the sake of future musicians, poets, authors, and humanity, do not ban this book.

Allow me to lay it out for you. Your children will be exposed to, and even may try alcohol and/or marijuana at some point in their high school career. I am not saying that this is good nor bad, I am simply pointing out a simple fact. As much as you would like to not think about it, your kids will talk about, engage in, and have numerous questions about sex during their high school years. Denying this will only cause you not to be a part of the conversation. Gay people are a part of this world and your son/daughter will interact, and probably be friends with at least a couple of them. This is the world we live in whether you believe in it or not. Lastly, depression is a huge issue amongst teenagers. It’s awful and terrible and sometimes just part of growing up, but denying that it exists and not talking about it will just make the problem increase, not go away.

This book discuses all the topics addressed in the previous paragraph. Why is that important? Because it allows kids to connect in a way that is relevant and familiar to what they are experiencing. High school is such a unique and interesting time for every person. There is so much going on and it is difficult sometimes to place the exact emotions and feelings that you are experiencing. Many people, especially in their formative teenage years, personally relate to literature because a story can paint a picture similar to their own. It many times offers a mirrored effect in which the person sees themself in the character and finds comfort in this relationship.

This is not a letter to ask you to change your beliefs or even how you view the world. It is a request though to allow this type of literature in schools, and to allow creativity to flourish. You should tell your child that it is ok to talk about these topics either with you, a teacher, or one of their trusted friends. If it isn’t, it will stay bottled up and explode at some point. This breaking point can be positive, but most of time it is negative, and in the worst case leads to endings such as suicide. So please let the youth live, and love, and hurt, and experience life within a safe environment, and have a place to share their pain, and their happiness. Let the future musicians, poets, authors, and artist express themselves and enjoy the fullness of this complicated life that we are all required to live. And please, let them enjoy the books that have helped so many realize their potential and their worth. I, for one, would not have the same perspectives if it were not for this book.

Sincerely,

A Musician/Poet Who Has Felt Infinite Before

“The Role of Art,” or “Do I Need More Therapy?”

by Christopher Margolin

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I want so badly to agree with the statement that “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” It seems like such a bold proclamation, and frankly, one that should be more than justifiable; however, I don’t know if that truly sums up the role of Art. Can’t Art simply comfort? Can’t Art make a person question, or discuss, or disgusted? Can’t Art make people notice their surroundings, their generation, their voice, their role in history? It doesn’t all have to be comfortable or disturbing. Right?

On the other hand, the word “disturb” can be taken in several different ways. It is the job of an artist to bring something to the attention of the viewer, or listener. It is the job of the artist make a person feel. So, maybe “disturbing the comfortable” is doing just that. Maybe the comfortable isn’t used to feeling or having to think about certain things outside their comfort-zone. If that’s the case, than this quote is incredibly accurate.

Does “comforting the disturbed” mean that a disturbed mind will be eased by something that others may find unsettling? Since Poetry is counted as art, does that mean that if I’m comforted by Browning’s “Porphyria’s Lover,” that I’m a bad person, or a disturbed person? If I find that poem to be one of the most honest love poems ever written, does that mean that I need more therapy than I already receive? I don’t feel like I want to murder anyone, let alone the woman who I love, but in that poem, his love is so unrequited, and so maligned that he feels it’s the only way they’ll ever be together. Now, Browning’s poem never alludes whether or not the strangulation of Porphyria is real, or simply in the lover’s head, but either way, when he wraps her hair around her throat, it’s dark, but immensely beautiful at the same time.

I love Jackson Pollock paintings, but they are violent in nature. The paint is splattered, and thrown, and while they may not seem like “art” to some, to me, much like the Browning poem, I find them beautiful. Is that wrong?

I love the smooth sounds of the Miles Davis Quintet era, but I also love the scattered, and dangerous Bitches Brew album. Is it comforting or disturbing? Right or wrong? Is there an answer to that question?

I agree that art is meant to force, or focus, or provide emotion for people, but I do not think you only get to options. I do not believe that art is there to provide comfort or disturbance. Art is there to promote thought, and whatever those thoughts are, as long as when a person thinks something, the artist has done their job.