What We Have In Common: Poets and Folksingers
When Merry started the Woman-Stirred radio hour a few months ago, I was thrilled that she was going to interview not only poets and writers but also musicians and artists. For me the creative expressions of our queer-ness is not limited to words but must necessarily include our bodies - our ears, our eyes, our hearts, our souls. We need that stimulation of all senses.
Still, I as a poet feel a special kinship with the folksingers. I confess, it may be jealousy that is the root of my kinship; I'd like to be alone on a stage with a guitar singing my poems. I can't carry a tune. I can't play the guitar. My poems don't have the refrain of the folksongs. They don't have the reassuring lilt of a song. I would wish that they did, but they don't.
Fortunately, others write folksongs. Amazing folksongs. Like Catie Curtis. I first heard Catie Curtis when she had just put together her first album, From Years to Hours. She came and sang at a local coffeehouse. I loved her. Her lyrics made me swoon. They were poems set to music.
***
Her music grew from that first album to now include a handful of CDs, online song releases, regular tours, and my favorite venue for her: Provincetown.
All of the women (wimmin?) of Woman-Stirred have been talking about how amazing Merry's show is because it captures our shared lesbian/bi/trans culture. Catie Curtis is an important part of that for me. You'll want to tune into www.wgdr.org on Thursday, April 6, 2006 at 4:30 p.m. EST to hear Merry interview Catie. The Woman-Stirred radio show starts at 4 p.m. and extends until 6 p.m. Tune in early--I bet Merry will be spinning some of Catie's early and current hits.
Still, I as a poet feel a special kinship with the folksingers. I confess, it may be jealousy that is the root of my kinship; I'd like to be alone on a stage with a guitar singing my poems. I can't carry a tune. I can't play the guitar. My poems don't have the refrain of the folksongs. They don't have the reassuring lilt of a song. I would wish that they did, but they don't.
Fortunately, others write folksongs. Amazing folksongs. Like Catie Curtis. I first heard Catie Curtis when she had just put together her first album, From Years to Hours. She came and sang at a local coffeehouse. I loved her. Her lyrics made me swoon. They were poems set to music.
***
But I'm not being radical when I kiss you***
I don't love you to make a point
It's the hollow of my heart that cries when I miss you
And it keeps me alive when we're apart
Is it morning? Is it night?
She don't know, can't remember which is dark and which is light
Is this the end of life?
She don't know, can't remember if she's young or if she's old
I've got my grandmother's name, but she don't remember who I am
Her music grew from that first album to now include a handful of CDs, online song releases, regular tours, and my favorite venue for her: Provincetown.
All of the women (wimmin?) of Woman-Stirred have been talking about how amazing Merry's show is because it captures our shared lesbian/bi/trans culture. Catie Curtis is an important part of that for me. You'll want to tune into www.wgdr.org on Thursday, April 6, 2006 at 4:30 p.m. EST to hear Merry interview Catie. The Woman-Stirred radio show starts at 4 p.m. and extends until 6 p.m. Tune in early--I bet Merry will be spinning some of Catie's early and current hits.
Labels: Woman-Stirred Radio
posted by Julie R. Enszer | 1:59 AM
1 Comments:
Julie, I couldn't agree more re the kinship of poets and musicians (I would open up the category of "folksingers" to be all-inclusive... even the lyrics of Modest Mouse are, well, lyrical, if not breathless and highly visual. And musicians also recreate a poem within their own cycle of creativity... such as SONiA of disappear fear... her adaptation of Countee Cullen's "Incident"
Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.
Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."
I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.
...to her own experience of difference and bigotry:
When i was fourteen i took a bus to san francisco
i was full of hope and joy till this girl called me a boy
but i was already on my way, so frightened to be gay
just like 1942 the world screaming
"something's wrong with you, jew."
The poetry in the song opens up many
possibilities... anyway... there's my two cents!
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