In Appreciation
“Her records were the first evidence that one did not fight alone. It was playing of such uprightness, to put it into the moral sphere. There was such a sense of repose that had nothing…
Category: Music
Inspiration for the Day (or Decade)
If I hadn’t heard the Robert Johnson record when I did, there probably would have been hundreds of lines of mine that would have been shut down—that I wouldn’t have felt free enough or upraised…
DJs
Dear Zosia, I was playing some Dylan a while ago as I was trying to get my study in some semblance of order. Then I picked his Chronicles off the shelf and opened to the section when…
“Up to Me” (National Poetry Month, 4.22.22)
Dear Vanessa, It took me a few weeks to work in the 2016 Nobel Laureate of Literature in these NPM missives to you. Is he a poet? He’d say “song-writer.” This is one of my…
Still Swirling through My Mind
To live outside the law you must be honest About having to be scrounging for your next meal Look out kid, it’s something you did Yes, indeed, you gotta serve somebody There was something about…
A Small Part in the Cosmic Play
Mukunda: In the Iyrics to that song “Awaiting on You All,” from the All Things Must Pass album, you come right out front and tell people that they can be free from living in the…
Creators
The escape through the belly of the beast seems designed to be put on a cinema screen. Fear of the dark, fear of getting lost, fear of drowning and of being shut in – all…
Uncancelable
Colin Irwin, Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited New York : Billboard Books, 2008 Legendary Session 1. You’ve been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books… And dropping a barbell he points to the sky saying,…
Singers/Musicians
5th Dimension, Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine June Carter Cash, Will the Circle Be Unbroken Krishna Das, Om Namah Shivaya Bob Dylan, Series of Dreams Sinead O’Connor, You Made Me The Thief Of Your Heart The…
Sending a Poem and Its Translation to a Friend
This is by Nicanor Parra. Sound familiar? Parra. As in Violeta Parra (Nicanor’s sister). As in Gracias a la Vida. As in her own recording of same (YouTube hers, not Mercedes’s) As in try and…