2010 June « gingatao

the gentle art of soft landings (podcast)

I have podcast the piece below “the gentle art of soft landings’ below this linkage.

I did it in one take with no rehearsal because I wanted to practice live work which I feel kind of fits with the idea of improvisation.

Now I will have to ask Joseph Tawadros for his permission to use the music as a background for the performance. But only if I don’t write a better one for it in the meantime.

the gentle art of soft landings

June 28, 2010 at 7:28 pm | Posted in australian poetry, jazz poetry | 9 Comments
Tags: jazz poetry, Joseph Tawadros, Oud, poetry, writing

Suddenly his hands forgotten,

Take one moment to see my work he said breathing dirt
and holding out an open hand tis true one develops
a heart of stone when one sleeps rarely
and only in certain uncouth company, yesterday
a gilded cage
then under bridges
fallen

Sketched you in Morocco
standing naked hips tilted,
at the window in the morning
thinking about breakfast.

with a twist on ice, if it’s not too Dean Martin, omerta
principles with an end to occam Picasso was an immaculate
draughtsman before he was a Cubist without
being sweeney practiced my grammar, recap
italising the ‘I’ and using ‘one’ as in one may assume?
between the keeping of secrets and the breaking of promises
insert ocean metaphor here teddy as I explored your consent
to my manipulations of the roots of language and gloried in my power.
remember that car exit bridge alternate endings either way and both shot down
left you standing by that river shivering and her dying
hyannis port, white sails blue horizon,
on the occasion of another passing
found at the centre Matsuo Basho
giggling over a still pond no frogs nor
the sound they make when they land

(composed to the music of Joseph Tawadros -”Hand in Hand” which you can listen to here, with Alister Spence (piano), John Napier (cello) & James Tawadros. )

(written as a first attempt at the National Jazz Writing Competition)

The Puzzle Box (2nd Edition)

June 24, 2010 at 3:34 pm | Posted in australian poetry, poetry, writing | 4 Comments
Tags: The Puzzle Box

I would like to take a moment to introduce “The Puzzle Box” 2nd Edition. I was never really happy with the layout and presentation of the first edition, it had a very ‘first edition’ feel. So I employed (and at very reasonable rates I should add) the services of an experienced freelance editor, the inestimable Kiersty Boon. The book is now completely typo free, it has an index, acknowledgements, new font, a stylish cover, frontispiece, is perfect bound and is, in every way, new and improved.

Importantly, the first edition has now been removed from sale, so if you own a copy of it, you are in possession of a rare and valuable asset. However, with the second edition and the application of the incredible style and precision of Ms Boon’s editing expertise, I finally feel that the frame enhances and accentuates the work. If you are preparing a manuscript, a skillful and independent eye is an absolute necessity and I do not hesitate in recommending Kiersty’s services as an editor to all and sundry.

There are many ways of supporting the gentle art of poetry but none more effective and realistic than buying the work of the poets. Please consider this small investment, I guarantee you will not be disappointed.

liberation

June 22, 2010 at 3:46 pm | Posted in ekphrasia, poetry, writing | 9 Comments
Tags: abstraction, poetry, writing

would that it were possible
to write pure instrumental lines
an imperceptible dissolution
into a henry moore shaped whole
like grass pondering dandelions
or two children holding hands
light variations
to untie the sublime from this humanness
of language, the moral, the spirit,
tethers which dull the glisten
of wordless beauty vaulting
the harmonic between open sky
and the softness of skin,

faith is not required

June 5, 2010 at 7:54 am | Posted in poetry, writing | 18 Comments
Tags: poetry, writing

between the it is (always) dark(est just
before the (dawn) of her
blink andthe
busyness bustle of
mind the day
there’s an infinitesimal
time the sky
,exact

blue
shade of smiling
eyes

Translation into Romanian

June 3, 2010 at 6:53 am | Posted in blogging, writing | 10 Comments
Tags: poetry, translation

Translation of poetry always raises difficult questions. Because the sound and movement in the language is an integral part of poetry, I believe that the translation is always a new poem, a variation on the original not a replication.

There is a sense in which all communication is a form of translation, of course, a process of encoding thought events into signs and signifiers which are translated or disencoded by the listener. And in a broader arc, there is a way of seeing the world in which it is a subtle and mysterious process of translation. Consciousness translates experience through the mediating filters of the mind which constructs waterfalls and sunsets in a delicate spiraling interplay between perception and conception…

When Ana asked if she could translate one of my poems into Romanian I was thrilled. This is the poem she chose…

different senses, different shoes

unless you are a practioner of the dark arts emerging
schmooze leadened sense
from Bowen Hills
highhat bass and most important
esoteric referensh
perhaps in sullen sluggish chains led
regretful wriggling uncomfortable on its claws
look for two most
unexpected arrivals
rival twice
then be gone

and here is the translation…

alte simţuri, alţi papuci

De nu eşti un practicant al actelor oculte originar
zvonite plumburiu (re)simţite
din Bowen Hills
chimval în timbru grav şi foarte important
o referinţǎ ejotericǎ
probabil cǎ îţi târşâi mohorât înlǎnţuitele
regrete furişate incomod pe gheare
te uitǎ dupǎ douǎ
ajunse pe neaşteptate
îndoitǎ rivalitate
şi te du.

(Thank you, Ana. You can hear Ana reading the poem in Romanian here.)

The Moondog Poem Saga

June 1, 2010 at 9:41 pm | Posted in blogging, writing | 11 Comments
Tags: extempore, poetry, writing. Moondog

“The only one who knows this ounce of words is just a token,
is he who has a tongue to tell that must remain unspoken.”
Moondog. (from Bird’s Lament)

Moondog was a jazz composure who lived homeless on the streets of New York for twenty years. He dressed as a Viking and invented his own instruments which is very cool. I am trying to write a poem about or based on him for the Extempore Jazz Writing competition. But it is proving difficult. My brain is geometric and I seemed to have lost that instinctive feeling for the architecture of water which is so much a part of jazz. Still, I have one verse, so we’ll see.