Speaking of Poetry...

[jjhunter]

lynnoconnacht's post on Thursday re: 'She Walks In Beauty' included a link a beautiful rendition of the poem set to music. Online and off line most of us are accustomed to encountering poetry on the page or the screen, but poetry started as a spoken medium. For this upcoming week, I'm interested in sharing recordings of poems that I'll be performing myself. If anyone wants to join in, it would be wonderful to have a co-Host or two. No prior experience required, nor much in the way of fancy equipment; if you have access to a Mac like me, you can use the app Garageband which comes free with the computer. LibriVox has some good information for anyone looking for more tips on how to get started & other free software you can use.

In order for this to work, however, we need poems to record, recite, perform, declaim, spill forth from our tongues and hearts, and it would be most fun to do so with poems submitted by the audience. Any poem which has not yet been posted in full here at the comm is eligible. Please comment here with the text or a link to the text of any poem or poems you'd be interested in nominating, and don't be shy about putting forth your own work if you're comfortable with doing so.

ETA: old recordings (yours or others') of poetry are also welcome.

Comments

Cool!

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is a great idea. I encourage people to read poetry aloud, and listen to it, although I'm not into podcasts myself.

Feel free to use any of my published poems. There's a "poem" tag on my LiveJournal. Some that I think would be particularly good choices:

"Fair Maiden Meets Fierce Villain"

"The Snake Goddess"

"Stellar Spectres"

Re: Cool!

[jjhunter]

Neat! Thank you for the suggestions. Re: the first one, anything I should keep in mind pronunciation-wise? I'm always suspicious that I'm mangling the heroine's name in my head.

If I do record one of your poems (quite likely), is it okay to include the full text of the poem in the post here as well as a link to the original, or would you prefer I stick to just the link? I know some people like to read along when they listen to poetry performed, but they can do that at your journal if you'd prefer to restrict the circulation.

Re: Cool!

[ysabetwordsmith]

"Fiorenza" means "flower" or "blossoming." The second letter is "i" not "l" -- I've had people make that mistake. It has four syllables (fee-o-REN-sa) with the accent on the third. I found a sound file with the original Italian pronunciation:
http://hearnames.com/pronunciations/italian-names/italian-femalegirls-names/fiorenza-f.html

>>If I do record one of your poems (quite likely),<<

Yay! Thank you.

>> is it okay to include the full text of the poem in the post here as well as a link to the original, or would you prefer I stick to just the link?<<

Please do include the text. I want to maximize exposure for my work. The stuff I'm sharing in this community is mostly published already, so promotion is a good thing. A link back to the Serial Poetry page would also be helpful, in case people want to explore more poems about Fiorenza the Wisewoman:
http://penultimateproductions.weebly.com/serial-poetry.html

[lynnoconnacht]

Neat! I love this idea! I hope it'll be a fun week for everyone. ^-^

Can I mention SpokenVerse's YouTube channel for obvious reasons? Well, considering I just mentioned them that's a rather redundant question, but I do hope it's a useful link to have!

(Also this musical arrangement for John Masefield's "Sea-Fever" purely to give another example of poetry set to music.)

[jjhunter]

Oo...neat! I'll definitely take a look at both. :o)

[lynnoconnacht]

Enjoy! ^-^ Neither of this was exactly what I was looking for, but it'll hopefuly be helpful in some small way.

(For suggestions of poetry to read yourself... I have a massive soft spot for Robert Frost and find it usually reads incredibly smoothly, so you could perhaps look at some of his works for the recordings?)

And if you don't mind the musical adaptations, I could make a short post on Connie Dover's The Wishing Well for the week which is an adaptation of a piece by Pádraig Pearse. I could write it up and send it to you so you could just post it whenever instead of adding hassle and stress by coordinating schedules.

[jjhunter]

That would be awesome with awesome sauce. I would very much enjoy reading such a post!

(Hm. And you know, if you had time to write & post it tomorrow, it would make an excellent transition from the end of your week for hosting--for which you've done a marvelous job, thank you so much--and this upcoming week...)

[lynnoconnacht]

It probably wouldn't be much more informational than the ones I posted this week. Non-fiction was never my strong point.

And I can write it right now and then share it tomorrow if that works? (And you're very welcome! I'm glad I did all right! *was nervous*)

[jjhunter]

Heh. I'm not sure what time zone you're in -- it's 5:30 am-ish Sunday right now for me, so it's already technically 'tomorrow' here. ;o)

No need to be nervous; when someone goes above and beyond to volunteer to host a week, I have tremendous respect for that whatever stage they're at in regards to reading, writing, or reccing poetry. I think you've done a particularly nice job, and I don't give such feedback lightly.

[lynnoconnacht]

Early. ^-^ It's noonish here, so I figured we were talking about Monday. >>

Awww, thank you. *blush* Most of my nerves seem to stem from just not being very good at introductions and they weren't too bad. (Yay! I'm improving! ^-^)

[jjhunter]

Would your most current draft of 'Seventeen Pocket-sized Journals and Counting' be fair game for recording too? No pressure if you're not comfortable sharing or don't feel like it's as polished as you'd like it to be, but I thought it might be fun.

[lynnoconnacht]

If you want to, go for it! I'd be honoured and flattered. I was going to poke that this afternoon, actually, since I didn't get around to it earlier this week. But if you use this second one that's fine too. It isn't as polished as I'd like, but it could still be fun to do and hear. ^-^ (And serve as an illustration on why reading out poetry is important perhaps and spark discussions that way. That'd be a neat bonus!)

I'm rambling... I'll hush and go do things in my day that I'd been planning on...

[jjhunter]

Go forth and conquer! :o)

[lynnoconnacht]

Et voilá. The latest draft of the poem. ^-^ I probably won't be touched it for a while now, if at all, though. You can see my commentary drop incredibly because I wound up being irked by and changing so little.

[jjhunter]

Danke! I look forward to reciting it. :o)

[lynnoconnacht]

I hope you'll have fun with the reciting! ^-^