Wednesday, February 25, 2015: “Writing poetry is all about discovery.”
This evening, I just happily attended “An Evening with David St. John,” a part of the ongoing USC Visions and Voices Series: The Arts and Humanities Initiative and USC’s The Provost’s Writers Series, which was held in the Doheny Memorial Library, at USC, from 6:30 to 8:30pm. I am lifting from the program a brief synopsis of David’s career: “Professor of English and Comparative Literature, and the current Head of the English Department at USC, St. John is the acclaimed author of eleven collections of poetry, including Study for the World’s Body, which was nominated for the National Book Award. He has also written a volume of essays, interviews and reviews, Where the Angels Come Toward Us, and two librettos. The co-editor of American Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of New Poetry, St. John has been honored by the National Endowment of the Arts and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. The multimedia evening [included] live music, poetry and a conversation with Frank Tichell, a composer and professor in the Composition Program in the USC Thornton School of Music.”
Two perhaps under-appreciated themes in David’s career came out in the course of the evening in addition to an appreciation of his poetry, first, the range of David’s teaching, within the university, from freshmen through the graduate level. (And I need to add, that to my great benefit and to that of many others, David also teaches ongoing workshops with a large community of working poets outside the university, in addition to his work at USC.)
Another theme in David’s career that emerged in the course of the evening is the range and very high quality of David’s collaborations with musicians, a number of whom performed this evening. David read a very small selection of poems: “The Bridge,” “The Hungry Ghost,” “Zones,” the always riveting (you’ll understand the pun if you read the poem) section 27 from David’s book length collection, The Face, and “GUITAR. I have always loved the word guitar.” This latter poem was beautifully accompanied by Christopher Sampson, Vice Dean of the Division of Contemporary Music; and Founding Director of the Popular Music Program.
Next, the composer, Donald Crockett, composer of the opera of David’s book-length poem, The Face, sang the male part of the duet called “Zones,” in part:
“It was in the night’s minute disturbances (You said) that you’d discovered the exquisite
Composition of desire….
…tonight,
Sitting alone in this distant hotel, I lift another
Shattered glass of stars to you….”
from: “Nocturnes and Aubades, I. Zones,” in The Red Leaves of Night.
Mr. Crockett is Chair of the Composition Program, director of the New Music Ensemble, Assistant Dean of Faculty Affairs, Thornton School of Music. The female singer was Katherine Beck, MM student in voice in the Thornton School of Music, and they were accompanied by Brian Head (Chair of the Classical Guitar Department and faculty in the Composition Program, Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs, Thornton School of Music. Also performing was one of David’s students, the LA Times Book Festival award-winning Catherine Rose Smith, of the band, Ghost in the Canyon, who sang her songs “Learn from You”, and “Mice in the Heather.” All of these musical performances were exceptional.
Next came a conversation between David and his friend and collaborator, the composer, Frank Tichell. Here are some of David’s comments: (forgive me for paraphrasing) about the relationship between song and poetry: although they may seem separate, poetry still retains its intimate connection with song and dance. Dance, song and lyrics having once formed more of a seamless whole, were apparently severed from each other with the development of the printing press, as poetry came to seem to be able to stand alone on the page. However, David and Frank agreed that the apparent separation of poetry from song is an illusion, that a poem still contains dance in its rhythm and song in the musical aspects of language; and that the rhythms of the early English Ballads that have come down to us through the oral tradition form the basis of all English poetry.
David believes strongly that poetry emerges from the body, while it reveals to us the movements of the mind at work. A poem is a “little piece of consciousness, set to language.” The main subjects of poetry are perennial: love, loss of love, life, and “that other thing…” (I wish I could convey David’s wit, humor and well-honed sense of self-deprecation, but you’ll have to take my word for it, if you haven’t heard him read.) But what is almost miraculous about poetry is the way an individual personality and tone, tone of voice, an individual’s intelligence and unique reflections can be conveyed by poetry and can impress us so deeply. That “writing is all about discovery…”
David advocates “reading everything, even work you don’t like. Some work you don’t like at first can open up to you, and what you continue to not like can serve to clarify your own poetic values.” In answering questions about how he became interested in poetry, David talked about his development toward poetry: being raised by his father and uncle to be a professional tennis player, but not liking the kind of person professional tennis was turning him into; on his way to poetry, via music, to playing in “very bad bands in the 60s.” When pressed to reveal the name of the worst of these bad bands, David consented to a rueful true confession: when the British Invasion was at its height, he played in a band called, “The Blokes.” This naturally produced a big laugh from the audience.
Concerning the state of poetry overall, David feels that the idea of separate, competing schools is no longer a strong tendency in American poetry, and when asked about his many collaborations, especially with musicians, David said he relishes the generosity of the collaboration process – “collaboration makes me happy.” I plan to discuss David’s work in greater detail in later pages of this blog.