Poetry broadcasts and musicians celebrating each other
During my visit to London a few weeks ago, I acquired among other things a collection of Ted Hughes' radio essays about poetry (which include, of course, a lot of recited poems, both his and from other poets) which the British Library edited under the title "The Spoken Word". Back in the 60s, he's been comissioned by the BBC to write and present a series of radio programmes called "Listening and Writing". (If you're familiar with the Plath-Hughes saga you might remember this was one of their principal sources of income in the early 60s.) A word about Hughes' theoretical writing in general: he's one of those rare poets who can talk about the craft without getting incomprehensible or condescending, BUT only in his essays. Not, alas, in the big Shakspeare book. Stay away from Shakespeare and the Goddess of Being, which is what happens when Ted rambles on too long and has too much Robert Graves on the brain. However, the essays, both the written ones and now the radio ones, are great. The short form brings out the best in him, and you can tell why the BBC kept asking him back - not only has he a great voice, but he's a good narrator in both senses, and can recite poetry (both his own and other peoples') with the best of them. (By no means that common for poets. I don't know whether you've ever listened to a T.S. Eliot recording of him reading from The Waste Land - it's painful.) Now I have other audio books of Hughes, but they were made in the 80s and 90s, so what surprised me most about those 60s radio programmes is that the voice remained identical. Meaning: other than in the earliest radio essay, "Capturing Animals", still sounding a bit more declaring and ringing as young people do, as opposed to the later broadcasts where he's relaxed more into the medium, you couldn't tell a difference between these recordings and the ones done decades later by voice alone. Apparently he had this deep Yorkshire voice even in his 20s.
Of his own poems, a lot of the ones he recites are the ones written for children, like the Moon Creature poems from The Earth Owl and other Moon People and from Meet My Folks, where there is a lot of humour which there isn't in his adult poems, though occasionally the ones for children have the same intensity. The selection of other poets occurs in the programm titled "Writing about Landscape" (from 1964), and is interesting not only for the content but about what it says re: Hughes' taste: Edward Thomas The South Country, T.S. Eliot Virginia, Gerard Manley Hopkins Inversnaid and Sylvia Plath Wuthering Heights. (He does not let on he had a personal connection to the last in the programm. This was not yet two years after her death, and she hadn't become world famous yet, but he's nonetheless very careful to present her as he does the other authors.)
His own observations about the way poems can be created and what they attempt to capture, as I said, manage to never talk down or be obscure, which is rare in the field, and though you can tell the subjects move him deeply, he's very matter of fact, with the occasional wry aside, like this one from Capturing Animals about his family moving when he was ten: "The cat went upstairs in my bed and moped for a week; it hated the place."
All in all, probably my favourite audio book among those I bought in London (sadly, the DW audios were a bit of a mixed bunch; I'll write about them some other time) and excellent distraction when relaxing after various gymnastics, medical baths, hikings and so forth.
*
One downside of being stuck here in Bad Brückenau is that in Munich I would be able to buy the newest MOJO which, I hear, is all about my favourite Beatle, but a small town in Franconia doesn't have English magazines. Ah well. Maybe it'll still be in the kiosks of Munich ten days from now? Anyway, something they kindly put online is Elvis Costello's essay about Paul McCartney, which is basically a love declaration. (Not that surprising considering what Elvis Costello did last year at the White House, but very enjoyable to read nonetheless. Even without personal bias, I love it when people in the same field are enthusiastic about each other (especially when it comes without the pressure of needing accolades for yourself in return, and while Costello is a rock generation later, he's by now a senior legend in his own right). It's also interesting because critics and biographers declared Elvis Costello among all the people Paul wrote songs with post-John to be the only "Lennonesque" one. (By which they presumably mean he's politically engaged and snarky? And/or wears glasses?) Anyway, two choice quotes from the essay:
"The last song we wrote was That Day Is Done. Again, I had a fair opening statement of it and had all these images. It was from a real thing. It was about my grandmother's funeral. It was sort of serious. He said, "Yes that's all good, all those images." But quite often when you're writing a song about something personal, what it means to you can sometimes get in the way of what it can possibly mean to somebody else. It needed a release. He said, "It needs something like this..." and he just sat down and played the chorus. It was sort of like a moment, like Let It Be, the creation of a semi-secular gospel song. It was quite shocking when he did that bit. Then you realise that's what he does. Then he sung the hell out of it. That's him, really."
And "He's got a couple of voices. He's got that killer Little Richard-influenced voice, and very few people can sing like that. Then that very plaintive ballad delivery like Yesterday or For No One. When you think about it, what other people sound like that? Gene Kelly sounds like that. So does Jimmie Rodgers, except for the twang. It's like all the world is in his voice. When you get down to why people react to him, it's that."
And he likes Ecce Cor Meum, which since I discovered it for myself only a few months ago makes me very happy indeed. In conclusion: aw.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/689127.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Of his own poems, a lot of the ones he recites are the ones written for children, like the Moon Creature poems from The Earth Owl and other Moon People and from Meet My Folks, where there is a lot of humour which there isn't in his adult poems, though occasionally the ones for children have the same intensity. The selection of other poets occurs in the programm titled "Writing about Landscape" (from 1964), and is interesting not only for the content but about what it says re: Hughes' taste: Edward Thomas The South Country, T.S. Eliot Virginia, Gerard Manley Hopkins Inversnaid and Sylvia Plath Wuthering Heights. (He does not let on he had a personal connection to the last in the programm. This was not yet two years after her death, and she hadn't become world famous yet, but he's nonetheless very careful to present her as he does the other authors.)
His own observations about the way poems can be created and what they attempt to capture, as I said, manage to never talk down or be obscure, which is rare in the field, and though you can tell the subjects move him deeply, he's very matter of fact, with the occasional wry aside, like this one from Capturing Animals about his family moving when he was ten: "The cat went upstairs in my bed and moped for a week; it hated the place."
All in all, probably my favourite audio book among those I bought in London (sadly, the DW audios were a bit of a mixed bunch; I'll write about them some other time) and excellent distraction when relaxing after various gymnastics, medical baths, hikings and so forth.
*
One downside of being stuck here in Bad Brückenau is that in Munich I would be able to buy the newest MOJO which, I hear, is all about my favourite Beatle, but a small town in Franconia doesn't have English magazines. Ah well. Maybe it'll still be in the kiosks of Munich ten days from now? Anyway, something they kindly put online is Elvis Costello's essay about Paul McCartney, which is basically a love declaration. (Not that surprising considering what Elvis Costello did last year at the White House, but very enjoyable to read nonetheless. Even without personal bias, I love it when people in the same field are enthusiastic about each other (especially when it comes without the pressure of needing accolades for yourself in return, and while Costello is a rock generation later, he's by now a senior legend in his own right). It's also interesting because critics and biographers declared Elvis Costello among all the people Paul wrote songs with post-John to be the only "Lennonesque" one. (By which they presumably mean he's politically engaged and snarky? And/or wears glasses?) Anyway, two choice quotes from the essay:
"The last song we wrote was That Day Is Done. Again, I had a fair opening statement of it and had all these images. It was from a real thing. It was about my grandmother's funeral. It was sort of serious. He said, "Yes that's all good, all those images." But quite often when you're writing a song about something personal, what it means to you can sometimes get in the way of what it can possibly mean to somebody else. It needed a release. He said, "It needs something like this..." and he just sat down and played the chorus. It was sort of like a moment, like Let It Be, the creation of a semi-secular gospel song. It was quite shocking when he did that bit. Then you realise that's what he does. Then he sung the hell out of it. That's him, really."
And "He's got a couple of voices. He's got that killer Little Richard-influenced voice, and very few people can sing like that. Then that very plaintive ballad delivery like Yesterday or For No One. When you think about it, what other people sound like that? Gene Kelly sounds like that. So does Jimmie Rodgers, except for the twang. It's like all the world is in his voice. When you get down to why people react to him, it's that."
And he likes Ecce Cor Meum, which since I discovered it for myself only a few months ago makes me very happy indeed. In conclusion: aw.
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/689127.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.