Poets and Operas

So I almost peed my pants with glee tonight.

I was doing research for my new project and found this gem of literary genius: Anne Carson created a libretto around Simone Weil.

I don't know why it surprises me when I find operas written by poets and why I get excited by this form in particular. But I am delighted each and every time I make a new discovery. These libretto tend to be gifts of often glorious writing.

Margaret Atwood was interviewed on CBC radio on February 2nd, when she was in town. She discussed how she is working collaboratively with groups of 3 writers/actors/musicians at a time to create the readings around The Year of the Flood. This all got me very excited. I did not get out of my car until she finished talking about these performances (and bird watching in Stanley Park before her interview,) and I did not care that my neighbours were looking at me funny as they walked by.

Atwood also recently wrote a libretto about Pauline Johnson. You can read an article about that equally exciting project here.

I took Meryn Cadell's Lyric and Libretto class at UBC a few years back and not only did I just love, love, love all the young musicians I got to work with, I considered myself thoroughly blessed to get 4 months to muck around with a form that was outside my ken with Meryn as my guide. I have my own libretto of sorts in the works; reading and listening to Carson tonight made me want to revisit this work of mine and see how to make it come alive again.

Stay tuned.

poetry promised

Hi,
I promised poetry and politics but the anti-choicers took up sooo much of my time and so did the existential angst about the BFA program (and okay, okay, I admit it - facebook too.) But enough of that I say - be banished and gone, all distractions from poesy.

I will post at least a link about a poet accompanied by a copy of their already published poem or other writerly contributions at least once a week.

to start us off... a little of the Margaret Atwood herself. Some story telling about becoming a poet. (note: upon re-reading I realize bits of this speech have been recycled in others, most recently the speech she gave for the Margaret Laurence Memorial Lecture for the Writer's Union, here in Vancouver this past May...it doesn't matter.)

http://www.web.net/owtoad/lecture.html

http://www.owtoad.com/ ~Margaret Atwood's official site.

I am beginning to see there is a long history of poetry writers writing about poetry and being a poet. Open the Norton Anthology of the Major English Writers and see for yourself...

If you surf the net and find a poem from Margaret A. or you are ambitious and want to transcribe it, please post in the comments section below. Make sure to give credit info. No plagarism (wagging finger!)

Here's a poem, to get us started!

In the Secular Night

In the secular night you wander around
alone in your house. It's two-thirty.
Everyone has deserted you,
or this is your story;
you remember it from being sixteen,
when the others were out somewhere, having a good time,
or so you suspected,
and you had to baby-sit.
You took a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream
and filled up the glass with grapejuice
and ginger ale, and put on Glenn Miller
with his big-band sound,
and lit a cigarette and blew the smoke up the chimney,
and cried for a while because you were not dancing,
and then danced, by yourself, your mouth circled with purple.

Now, forty years later, things have changed,
and it's baby lima beans.
It's necessary to reserve a secret vice.
This is what comes from forgetting to eat
at the stated mealtimes. You simmer them carefully,
drain, add cream and pepper,
and amble up and down the stairs,
scooping them up with your fingers right out of the bowl,
talking to yourself out loud.You'd be surprised if you got an answer,
but that part will come later.

There is so much silence between the words,
you say. You say, The sensed absence
of God and the sensed presence
amount to much the same thing,
only in reverse.
You say, I have too much white clothing.
You start to hum.
Several hundred years ago
this could have been mysticism
or heresy. It isn't now.
Outside there are sirens.
Someone's been run over.
The century grinds on.

– By Margaret Atwood,
Copyright © O.W. Toad Ltd. 1995.
Originally published in Morning in the Burned House
(McClelland & Stewart, Houghton Mifflin, Virago, 1995)