and after watching Esperanza, I began thinking about improvisation and how we, as artists, are called on to re-create on a daily basis. Each day, I go to the page to write a poem that, in one way or another, is much like the poem a thousand other poets have already written. Often my task is much like Esperanza's here--to try to breathe new life into a work that has already reached its pinnacle. While I could be extremely biased here, no one will ever be able to re-do "Overjoyed" in any way that substanstially changes the imprint that Stevie Wonder has made with this particular piece of music. Even so, Esperanza found a way to make this song her own. She found a way to honor and uphold its brilliance while breathing her own life and rhythm and sound into a piece built on someone else's fierce life and rhythm and sound. And she did a bang up job of it. And made it look nearly effortless.
So watching Esperanza made me think about yet another Stevie tribute performance that me me think about not only improvisation, but the interweaving of voice and style. Here's a clip of a performance that brought together to very different vocalists, Kathleen Battle and James Ingram, to re-create another kind of sound:
...All this thinking about improv and interweaving made me think about one of my favorite poetry exercises. An exercise I used to use to break myself out of whatever mode I was writing (or not writing) in was to take a short (preferably less than twenty lines) poem by another poet, re-type it and literally write in between the lines to make not one, but two new pieces. First, the piece you create in conversation with another poet is new. Second, the new lines that you write, when separated, can stand on their own as a poem. The poet, then, is asked to improvise on a piece that already has its own life, tone, space, diction, etc. and find some way to break into the piece and create new points of departure within it. This exercise (much like the performances above) are often more useful if the writing style of the original poet and that of the current poet are divergent.
While thinking about this, I pulled some books of the shelf and flipped through until I found a poem that looked interesting on the page and was relatively short. I stopped somewhere in Erica Hunt's book, Local History. Here is her original poem:
Afterword
Curves are sharp and the
noises mysterious. I close my
eyes and I'm still coming around
the curve. Afterimage on retina
park. And I don't know what will
happen next. There is no guide to
context for this leap to land into.
Rigor of rope and railing, failing
that what parallel lines
we keep.
--Erica Hunt
Now, Erica Hunt is known to break the backs of words and sounds and not always in a linear fashion. This is not something I feel like I do much in my work. Therefore, I felt like I was entering new, odd space by trying to write in-between, but still around, Hunt's lines. Here's what I came up with after sitting with her poem (and the music above) for a few moments:
After/Fore/word
“…Over hearts, I have painfully turned every stone…” –Stevie Wonder
Limestone and granite
curves are sharp and the
underbelly, leaden and heavy, makes familiar
noises mysterious. I close my
body to the sound of his turning body, open my
eyes and I'm still coming around
though the sounds are mistaken. I swear I hear, I see
the curve. Afterimage on retina
his back, in reverse, everything backward. We
park. And I don't know what will
keep us from ending up on the underside of what might
happen next. There is no guide to
steer us, no boxes to be checked, no
context for this leap to land into
the curious fall. He says, Climb, but the
rigor of rope and railing, failing
is leaving too much to chance and I doubt
that what parallel lines
string together—the marble beams, unsteady ladder--
we keep. We tether,
but only for so long.
--Erica Hunt/Remica L. Bingham
And here's what I came up with when removing Hunt's lines and trying to create a cohesive poem of my own using the lines I wrote in-between her lines:
Fore/word
“…Over hearts, I have painfully turned every stone…” – Stevie Wonder
Limestone and granite
underbelly, leaden and heavy, makes familiar
to the body the sound of his turning body, open my ears
though the sounds are mistaken. I swear I hear, I see
his back, in reverse, everything backward. We
keep us from ending up on the underside of what might
steer us, no boxes to be checked, no
curious fall. He says Climb, but
leaving too much to chance I doubt
string together—the marble beams, unsteady ladder--
We tether, but only
for so long.
--Remica L. Bingham
