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A POETIC CITY: Poet and leading figure of the Black Arts Movement David Henderson reads poetry to the audience. (Annie Wu/The Epoch Times)
In ancient traditions, poetry was inseparable from music. The Confucian classic, The Book of Odes, was a collection of classical Chinese poems that in antiquity were sung to a number of popular folk tunes. Aristotle observed the production of “rhythm, language, and harmony” in Greek tragedies, comedies, and poetry in his famous treatise, “Poetics.”
At The River-to-River Festival and Poets House’s “Poetic City” event held at Rockefeller Park on July 6, poetry and music were joined together again for a delightful evening by the Hudson River. To reflect the theme of the event, poets Sally Bliumis-Dunn, David Henderson, Cor van den Heuvel, and Cythnia Kraman read poetry of their own and of others that reflected the sentimental, the quirky, and the thrilling that comes with living in the big city.
Unlike the Chinese poetry of yore, these contemporary poets did not read poetry to the accompaniment of music, but musical guests José James and Bobbi Humphrey delivered soulful jazz music that left many in the audience bobbing their heads to the beat. In truth, poetry is meant to be read aloud, and the importance of meter and rhyme to its composition makes poetry a craft that is very much like music making. With jazz vocalist José James, the reverse is also true—his alternate speeding up and slowing down of his lyrics to the jam of his back-up band was reminiscent of the heartfelt syncopation of stressed and unstressed syllables in the lines of a poem.
Poet Sally Bliumis-Dunn began with a poem by Muriel Rukeyser that conjured up the rambunctious and energetic sounds of the city: “Pounding of steel girders, clank of broken chains,/ Cries of wordy prophets, shouting out a warning/ To the silent, smiling watchers in the busy crowd;/ Shouting out a warning to the new generations,/ Bidding them look up, shoulder to the morning” (“Cities of the Morning”). She then read several poems she wrote herself, including “Their Names,” about the annual memorial service for September 11 victims, and “A Portrait,” a reflection on a painting she saw at an exhibition in the Guggenheim Museum. In “Driving Across the Bridge,” Bliumis-Dunn recalls a time when she couldn’t be with a friend who was gravely ill. While driving, she is “imagining the steel girders/above me are your ribs,/and the slow pulse/ of the broken yellow line/is your pulse.” She closed with a poem about the delights of solving a crossword puzzle in “Crossword.”
MUSIC AND POETRY: New Yorkers attend the 'Poetic City' event at Rockefeller Park in Lower Manhattan to enjoy an evening of poetry and jazz. (Annie Wu/The Epoch Times)
Haiku poet Cor van den Heuvel chose to open with poems by fellow haiku poet Alan Pizzarelli. Heuvel read one of Pizzarelli’s poems that was featured on a Times Square theater marquee during the “Haiku On 42nd Street” project in 1994. The poem is a “senryu,” a form of Japanese poetry with a similar structure to the haiku. The poem reads: “Done/the shoeshine boy/snaps his rag.” Heuvel then read from his 20-haiku sequence, “Passing Through.” One, in particular, captures the nature of New York’s sprawling metropolis perfectly: “evening coming/people rushing home to change/into other lives.” In “Curbstones,” a prose poem, Heuvel recounts how he fell in love with granite curbstones. From the “granite seascapes and landscapes of Maine and New Hampshire” in his hometown, to “under the Brooklyn Bridge,” these stones that evoke “the mysterious presence of mountains, the strange, halted stillness of great glacial deposits” also bring back precious childhood memories.
Cynthia Kraman shared New Yorker poet Frank O’Hara’s “1951,” which he wrote when he had just moved into the city from Michigan, where he attended graduate school. She also read her “Ride to Manhattan (With Rainbow),” which appeared on PATH trains and stations as part of Poets House’s collaboration project with The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, “Along These Lines.” In addition, her “Summer Night Poem” was a provocative account of what one observes while riding a bus through New York.
Meanwhile, poet and early founder of the Black Arts Movement, David Henderson shared “The Gift Outrage” by Calvin Hemton, a poem about the wonders of Tompkins Square Park and the diverse, vibrant culture of the city. He also read with great fervor and rhythm “African Burial Ground,” about the site in downtown Manhattan and the ancestors who came before him.
SOULFUL MUSIC: Jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey gives a breathtaking performance at the 'Poetic City' event at Rockefeller Park in Lower Manhattan. (Annie Wu/The Epoch Times)
The last act of the show was jazz flutist Bobbi Humphrey’s breathtaking performance. Humphrey plays the flute as if she is singing through it; the richness of her emotional expression is simply stunning. Toward the end, Humphrey’s writer-daughter shared with the audience a poem of her creation, titled The Birth of Music, which traced the roots of jazz and hip-hop to the African plains.
Against the backdrop of the setting sun, with gentle breezes blowing in from the Hudson River, it was evident that the New York evoked in the poetry readings of the night, which expressed the very soul of the city in all its colors, was indeed the beautiful landscape before us.
