Instead of posting an actual song today, I'm going to post a link to the poetic chant "Fast Speaking Woman" by Anne Waldman. This is only an excerpt. When I read the long-form of the poem, I enjoyed the way she took a concept and continually built on it by deviating from it and then returning to it in a cyclical path. I also really admired how she went from one sentence to another by building on word sounds, using language as a means of progression and discovery.
There are two other poems by Anne Waldman that I really like, but I can't find them on Youtube so I'm just going to type up the text here. The first is actually part two of a three-piece poem, "A Book of Events":
In Her Lament
spin
spin
the saint is a woman scorned
wash your hair
your skirts
scent your hands with myrrh
say you will never die of love
spin
spin
-----
The second is a little bit longer, but has such a great rhythm:
GYPSY NUN
after Lorca
She wants to be weaving
imaginary flores:
magnolia
sunflower
saffron
moonflower
all these for
the end of time
In a nearby kitchen
5 yellow grapefruit
ripen
5 wounds of Christ
She doesn't cackle
she gives up her pain
- something outside -
distant - ho -
where did her youth
her sex go?
What reminds her of what?
A white dress loosens
Her heart of herbs, sugar,
of spice
isn't broken
Longitudinal pain recedes
further back
20 suns above blink on, off
on, off
She reverts tension to
flowers, horizontal
light playing
a game over her window
blind
magnolia
sunflower
saffron
moonflower
on, off
on
on
2 comments:
Good read, quite the excerpt of her work. I can see why an audience would be entertained. The other two, like the first seem to me to cry out for respect for her gender. Which is cool it is a needed cry but then it is written specifically for a single audience for only the most perceptive male or partner would "get it."
So how be that job going tired of paying my social security yet?
I agree that her stuff can be off-putting because some of it is a bit too feminist. The job is going well; it's day three and I haven't wanted to kill myself yet. So that's good, right?
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