"Paul's Case" — the opera

The Post today has a review of the world premiere by UrbanArias of Gregory Spears' opera of Willa Cather's story at Artisphere in Rosslyn. Last three performances are this weekend. I'm unable to go but I hope someone else will and post a review or comment. A ten-inch sample (oh Mary, how deranged!) — a ten-minute sample can be heard by clicking here.

where the lines break

What is a poem? In high school the joke was anything with a jagged right margin. Hence a "prose" poem (or maybe that's a prose "poem"). Dan Chiasson has something to say about this in his review of Carl Phillips' twelfth collection Silverchest :

Many fine poets would retain their power even if their poems were printed as prose. … The prosiest poets would not: there is no William Carlos Williams, or H.D., or George Oppen, without line breaks. Phillips is one of the latter.

And as an example: "The trees wave but, except to say 'wind—up again,' this means nothing." Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to break the quote and turn it into poetry. You can check your efforts against the original in the latest, 4/15/13 issue … Oh, how annoying! It's behind The New Yorker paywall! (Paying to read a poetry review—the idea!). I'll post the "answer" as a comment (below).

Carl Phillips, by the way, we've come across him in three anthologies we've read, most extensively in Word of Mouth. He's gay and black but doesn't make much of either. Notwithstanding, a very fine poet.

February House: The Musical!

Greetings, Colleagues--

While preparing for our Feb. 6 discussion of February House: The Story of W. H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Jane and Paul Bowles, Benjamin Britten, and Gypsy Rose Less, Under One Roof in Brooklyn by Sherill Tippins (which I highly recommend), I came across a reference to an off-Broadway musical based on the real-life characters Tippins tells us about in her book.  It ran at the Public Theater a year ago; here is Ben Brantley's review in the May 22, 2012, issue of The New York Times.

My intention was to order the cast recording at that time, but (as too often happens) I promptly forgot about it.  But now, prompted by an article about the show's composer, Gabriel Kahane, in the March 31 Washington Post, I've finally ordered it.  I'm hopeful the music will live up to his reputation!

By the way, Kahane is giving a joint recital with another composer/performer, jazz pianist Timothy Andres, in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress this Friday, April 5, at 8pm. And Kahane's newest song cycle, "Gabriel's Guide to the 48 States" (sic) will be performed at the University of Maryland's Clarice Smith Center on Sat., April 20.  I can't make it to either gig, alas, but if any of you attend, please let me know what you think.

Cheers, Steve 

Sublimation Point

So sorry to have missed the discussion of Jason Schneiderman's book of poetry. I've thought of posting some of the things I might have said (the Caliban poem, e.g., is wonderful, and the aperçue  "To think / that the young are always beautiful / is to admit to have grown old" is trenchant) but the best commentary is perhaps simple quotation:

THE SURFACE OF THE WATER

has properties, tension, behaves differently
from the rest of the water. If you fell

onto it from a height, you would bounce.
The surface would reject you, say

I'm a solid too—we can't both be here,
but then the rest of the water would accept you,

take you into itself, pull you down
away from the surface, saying I'm sorry,

I want you, come in.

A Guide for Boys

D. A. Powell, several of whose poems we read in Timothy Liu's Word of Mouth, has won the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry (2012) for his collection Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys —

a hymn to beauty and fantasy, a song-cycle to the Bay Area's bars and boathouses, [bringing] forward a verve and jocularity that is exhilarating, generous, and typical of this deeply sprung lyric poet.

Pope Aflutter

As Benedict departs, Colm Toíbín wrote an absorbing piece for the London Review of Books on him, homosexuality and the Catholic church:
"Among the Flutterers." His legacy for some of us has been his dazzling wardrobe, from his gorgeous hats to his perfect red pumps.



May he enjoy life at Castel Gandolfo while laypeople prepare his retirement suite in the Vatican. We will miss his sumptuous appearances.

The Ambassador from Venus

We've read enough by and about Robert Duncan, here and there, that some BookMen, I am sure, will be interested in looking at Michael Dirda's excellent review.