Poetry Scores to premiere "Grandchilden of Genocide" Nov. 21 at Tap Room

Photo borrowed from Fedgeno.

Poetry Scores will premiere a new work "Grandchildren of Genocide" at The Schlafly Tap Room at 10 p.m. on Saturday, November 21. Old Time favorites Dugout Canoe will open at 9 p.m., and indie rockers Accelerando will close at 11 p.m. It is a free show.

"Grandchildren of Genocide" is a new score of modern poetry from Armenia co-produced by Robert Goetz and Chris King to coincide with the centennial of the 1915 onset of the genocide of the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.

Composers of the scores include Nick Barbieri, Steve Carosello, Marc Chechik, Robert Goetz, Chris King, David Melson, Ann Hirschfeld, Tony Pupillo, Sherman S Sherman and Mark Stephens. The composers will perform the scores live with a little help from their friends.

Poets scored include Christopher Atamian, Peter Balakian, Gregory Djanikian, Adrian Oproiu, Marine Petrossian (self-translated from the Armenian) and Alan Semerdjian. The poets have all endorsed the project, including co-publication of the resulting songs through Hollywood Recording Studio.

Robert Goetz brought the project to Poetry Scores in an effort to honor a dear Armenian friend, the artist Gina Alvarez, born Gina Korakian. It so happens Chris King, Poetry Scores co-founder, had a best friend from high school, Monica Fanning, who was part of a large Armenian family in Granite City, the Takmajians. You could say the producers' hearts are in this project.

Robert started learning about Armenia out of love for an Armenian, but he came to focus on the genocide by reading "Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir" by Peter Balakian -- remarkably, one of the poets who ended up graciously contributing work for the project when Chris pitched him blindly.

Peter Balakian then suggested we invite the poet Gregory Djanikian and shared his contact information. On that sparkling recommendation Gregory sent us an entire book of his poetry on the genocide, "So I Will Till the Ground," with permission to score any or all of it.

Poetry Scores owes a special thanks to another one of the contributing poets, Christopher Atamian of New York. Contacted out of the blue on the recommendation of a mutual friend, the translator Susan Bernofsky, Christopher contributed poems by himself and his friend Alan Semerdjian (who is also a songwriter). Alan's poem "Grandchildren of Genocide" provided the evocative title for the Poetry Scores project.

Susan Bernofsky also put the producers on the trail that led to the other two participating poets, Marine Petrossian and Adrian Oproiu, who had work in "Trafika Europe 4: Armenian Rhapsody," an online publication that Susan suggested as a resource. Poetry Scores now plans a separate project devoted entirely to the work of Marine Petrossian.

As for Adrian Oproiu -- another musician -- he is the one featured poet not of Armenian descent. He is a Romanian who lives in Croatia. But Adrian liked the idea of the project and agreed with the producers that his poem "Woodcocks," which appeared in "Armenian Rhapsody," also belongs in "Grandchildren of Genocide."

The producers would like to note that not all of the Armenian poetry we are scoring is about the genocide. Not all of it is especially depressing. And the composers have not been directed to brood upon the tragedy, but rather to write the best songs in their own voices to the poems that speak to them. Obviously, the Armenian people survived, despite their terrible losses. It is their survival that we celebrate in song.

The Schlafly Tap Room (2100 Locust St. in St. Louis) makes tasty beers in many varieties, stocks a full bar, and serves delicious tavern (and beyond) food. Chef Andy is mulling over adding an Armenian lunch special the week of our show. Recipes welcome!

Poetry Scores is an international arts collective based in St. Louis, Missouri, that translates the poetry of the world into other media, including music, visual art, cinema, spirits, food, games and happenings.

The Poetry Scores blog will be updated with demos and finished scores as they emerge from the poems.

 

Borrowed from "Armenian Flag," Armenian genocide on Twitter

 

 

 

The other bands

Dugout Canoe rocking a square dance.

Accelerando live at Lemmons.





Tick Tock to host listening party for "Poetry Scored" by Nick Barbieri

 

 

Nick Barbieri performs his score of a poem from Josephine Miles' "Ten Dreamers in a Motel" with Heidi Dean, Tracy Swigert, Adam Long and Eileen Gannon.

Nick Barbieri will host a listening party for his debut record as a leader, "Poetry Scored," 7 p.m. Thursday, August 13 at The Tick Tock Tavern, 3459 Magnolia in South St. Louis.

It's a free event. There is a cash-only bar. The Tick Tock connects to Steve's Hot Dogs, serving hot dog classics and creations, and they'll deliver your dogs to the tavern.

"Poetry Scored" is a 12-song effort with a brief instrumental intro. Nick took the title from the idea of a poetry score, a poem set to music like you would score a movie. It's another way to describe the classic form of the song setting, the poem set to music, introduced by the St. Louis-based arts collective Poetry Scores.

Nick writes in a wide range of styles, giving the record something of a musical sampler quality. The through-line is rock and pop, but he also writes a smoldering soul blues, a folk ballad for harp, a vocal quartet, a fanfare, and a synth dance number intentionally made to sound cheesy, in keeping with the tone of the poem.

Nick is a drummer who sings like a bird and can also play a little bit of everything. He is accompanied by all sorts of extremely talented musicians, playing guitars and harp and horns and strings and keyboards and vocals: Brian Henneman, Eilen Gannon, Carl Pandolfi, Alex Mutrux, Obeid Khan, Mark Buckheit, Tony Ostinato, Dino Monoxelos, Frank Catalano, Phil Jost, Nathan Pence, Meghan Gohil, Jay Lauterwasser, Adam Long, David Melson, Heidi Dean, Tracy Swigert and Lyris Hung.

Nine of the twelve songs on "Poetry Scored" are actual poetry scores -- most, but not all, composed for Poetry Scores projects. For Poetry Scores, Nick set to music poems by Josephine Miles ("Longing to Find Myself Out"), Mary Dalton ("The Swallowing," scored as a four-song suite) and Andreas Embirikos, translated from the Greek by Nikos Stabakis ("Desire").

There is a good story about "Desire." Poetry Scores commissioned Barbara Harbach to score selections from Embirikos' Surrealist classic "Blast Furnace," and she discarded six of the prose poems we had selected for her to score. Surrealists adore the concept of chance, and it occurred to me there are six sides to a die for each of those six discarded poems.

So the night of the art invitational for Embirikos, we had six songwriters, including Nick, agree to roll a die the second they walked in Mad Art and score the Embirikos poem we had randomly assigned to that number. They had the three hours of the invitational to write and record it. Nick rolled for "Desire" and scored it that night in a corner of Mad Art where the chairs get stacked, his wife Beth encouraging him and giving him feedback.

Nick also scored Albert Saijo for Poetry Scores Hawai'i, Poetry Scores' first affiliate outside of St. Louis, housed at the Art Department at the state university in Hilo, with a focus on poets of Hawai'i. Saijo was born in the San Fernando Valley, went to high school at a Japanese internment camp in Wyoming and befriended Jack Kerouac in San Francisco, but he lived his best, last years in Volcano, just up the volcano on the Big Island from Hilo. .

Nick also scored two poems by yours truly, Chris King. Though I co-founded Poetry Scores and first invited Nick to compose for us, these songs had other origins. "The Shape of a Man" is the title track, so to speak, from my second chapbook of poetry, and Nick scored it on his own initiative. I love how this song struts and rocks, earning an extremely rare comparison from me: to Lou Reed.

I wrote the poem "Man with Briefcase at #2968443" for a Laumeier Sculpture Park project. Eric Hall invited people to score sculptures, and I decided to write a poem to the Jonathan Borofsky sculpture of the man with briefcase silhouette, and then score my own poem with David Melson. I invited Nick to improve upon my melodic sketch and sing it with stacked harmonies. The song is now in Laumeier's permanent collection.

"Man with Briefcase at #2968443" by Jonathan Borofsky at Laumeier

Though I'm totally psyched and honored that Nick picked up on our idea of scoring poems and ran so far with it, even scoring one of my own poems, he includes two songs he wrote with his own lyrics, "The Ground" and "Fireworks," which are as good as anything on "Poetry Scored." Steve Pick of KDHX said to me that "Fireworks" is a "perfect pop song," and I agree absolutely.

Nick also includes one cover by St. Louis songwriter Chuck Reinhart. "Midget's" is a song I first heard at a Guitar Circle and have held very dear to my heart ever since. A group of musicians associated with Poetry Scores is working on a very occasional series of covering fellow local songsters. This performance was really transformed in the mixing process by Meghan Gohil, the Poetry Scores partner in Los Angeles.

Meghan Gohil (Hollywood Recording Studio) co-produced "Poetry Scored" with Nick Barbieri. He also mixed all but two of the songs. It was mastered by Poetry Scores' co-founder and East Nashville partner, Elijah "Lij" Shaw (The Toy Box Studio). Adam Long mixed the other two songs and recorded three of Nick's vocals. Nick recorded everything else.

"Poetry Scored" by Nick Barbieri is distributed digitally by Hollywood Recording Studio and should be available wherever music is downloaded or streamed (iTunes link). Nick also pressed actual physical CDs that you can  pick up at The Tick Tock on August 13, or through Nick (nickbedrock gmail com).

A song about a poem about a photograph about playing darts in Newfoundland

All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #7, Avondale, Conception Bay
Scott Walden (2007)
Artist retains rights.

Like I was saying, Poetry Scores has a live premiere of a new poetry score on Saturday, May 30 at the Schlafly Tap Room in downtown St. Louis.

We are scoring "All the Clubs from Hollyrood to Brigus" by Mary Dalton, a twelve-poem sequence of "fictions, ruminations and riddles," according to its subtitle, about the taverns and social clubs that line a 16-mile stretch of one of the oldest highways in Newfoundland.

We are translating into music poetry that was itself the translation of photographs. Mary Dalton based her poetic sequence on a series of photographs taken on the road between Holyrood and Brigus, Newfoundland, between 2005 and 2007 by Scott Walden.

Only three of the twelve poems in the sequence are subtitled after a specific photograph. "Darts (villanelle)" is subtitled after the photograph "All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #7, Avondale, Conception Bay," a photograph of a woman throwing a dart behind a man who has just thrown a dart into a separate dart board. Behind them are the shadows of a lounge where chairs and tables have been cleared from the floor and stacked on top of each other. Her poem opens with the most vivid image in a quiet, contemplative photograph: the flash of the woman's throwing hand.

 

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Darts (villanelle)
All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #7

By Mary Dalton

In a flash the hand soars into flight;
here the scuffed lino’s a stage
The bar chatter’s faint from this height.
           
Banished from thought is the fight
that burrowed its way out of rage;
in a flash, the hand soars in flight

Y’know, the missus and buddy are tight.
That fellow stole his new gauge.
The bar chatter’s faint from this height.

Birds hover or, it might be, a kite:
the plodder’s transformed to a sage.
In a flash the hand soars in flight.
           
The wheel of the dartboard’s a site
where drudgery’s exiled, and age.
The bar chatter’s faint from this height.

The massed shadows now cannot quite
mew up this prey in their cage.
In a flash the hand soars in flight;
the bar chatter’s faint from this height.

                          

*

"Darts (villanelle)" includes in its title the traditional poetic form that Mary Dalton employed to write it, as does "Tommy's Lounge (triolet)." The villanelle is a tricky form. The Academy of American Poets summarizes it:

The highly structured villanelle is a nineteen-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains. The form is made up of five tercets followed by a quatrain. The first and third lines of the opening tercet are repeated alternately in the last lines of the succeeding stanzas; then in the final stanza, the refrain serves as the poem’s two concluding lines. Using capitals for the refrains and lowercase letters for the rhymes, the form could be expressed as: A1 b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 / a b A2 / a b A1 A2 . 

Poetry Scores is setting Mary Dalton's poetic sequence to music anthology-style, with a committee of composers working on the project. Michael Martin - a veteran of many great St. Louis bands, including Three Foot Thick, Kamikaze Cowboy, and Karate Bikini - scored "Darts (villanelle)" as a folk rock song with a loose, fetching feel. Michael is a busy producer in his Broom Factory Studio, and it sounds to me like he had some fun in the studio with this tricky poem about a simple game.

*

mp3

"Darts (villanelle)"
(Mary Dalton, Michael Martin)

Performed, produced and recorded by Michael Martin at the Broom Factory

*

Another photo from Scott Walden's series also depicts a dart board as part of an impromptu tavern wall formal study, "All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #28, Holyrood, Conception Bay" (2006).

All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #28, Holyrood, Conception Bay
Scott Walden (2006)
Artist retains rights.

Video of Mary Dalton reading "Darts (villanelle)" that she recorded for our project.

The original announcement of the May 30 show with more details.

Michael Martin

Mary Dalton

Rock song to a poetic triolet about a formal study photograph of lounge exterior in Newfoundland

                            

"All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #47, Brigus, Conception Bay"

By Scott Walden (2005)

Artist retains rights 

Like I was saying, Poetry Scores has a live premiere of a new poetry score on Saturday, May 30 at the Schlafly Tap Room in downtown St. Louis.

We are scoring "All the Clubs from Hollyrood to Brigus" by Mary Dalton, a twelve-poem sequence of "fictions, ruminations and riddles," according to its subtitle, about the taverns and social clubs that line a 16-mile stretch of one of the oldest highways in Newfoundland.

It's interesting that we are translating into music poetry that was itself the translation of photographs. Mary Dalton based her poetic sequence on a series of photographs taken on the road between Holyrood and Brigus, Newfoundland, between 2005 and 2007 by Scott Walden.

Only two of the twelve poems in the sequence are subtitled after a specific photograph. "Tommy's Lounge" is subtitled after the photograph "All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #47, Brigus, Conception Bay," a formal study of the lounge's exterior.

A handsome, Western-themed sign features the lounge name framed by a Stetson tented over a pair of cowboy boots, with two big stars like lawmen badges. The lounge sign does not line up quite right with the smaller side window it butts up against. Siding that looks like it's seen a few hard winters buckles here and there throughout, forming a background pattern that is slightly warped.

Mary Dalton's poem picks up on the Western imagery, the things not lining up quite right, and the slightly warped atmosphere of the photograph.


*

Tommy’s Lounge (triolet)
All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #47

By Mary Dalton


There’s Western gear on Tommy’s sign;
cartoon Stetson, boots and star.

Here’s no tang of kelp or brine,
but big bucks earned fast, by gar.

And, caught in a pane, a stave of lines,
and the sky that scatters us far.

Western gear on Tommy’s sign:
cartoon Stetson, boots and star.


*


I don't understand that bit about gar fishing in Newfoundland, but I know something about tough commercial fishing port towns, which seems to be what's evoked here.

The "triolet" in the poem title is the name for the poetic form that Mary Dalton uses here. Though "triolet" has "trio" in it, it's got nothing to do with threes, but is rather a short poem of eight lines with only two rhymes used throughout. It makes perfect sense that the poet would use a traditional poetic form to write a poem about a photograph that is a formal study.

Mark Buckheit scored "Tommy's Lounge" for us. Mark made that triolet rock.

*

mp3

"Tommy's Lounge"
(Mary Dalton, Mark Buckheit)

Demo performed and recorded by Mark Buckheit.

*

Video of Mary Dalton reading "Tommy's Lounge," recorded just for our show.

The original announcement of the May 30 show with more details.

Mary Dalton
 

Mark Buckheit

A song about a poem about a photograph of a girl at a bar in Newfoundland

"All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #24, Colliers, Conception Bay"
By Scott Walden (2006)
Artist retains rights 

Like I was saying, Poetry Scores has a live premiere of a new poetry score on Saturday, May 30 at the Schlafly Tap Room in downtown St. Louis.

We are scoring "All the Clubs from Hollyrood to Brigus" by Mary Dalton, a twelve-poem sequence of "fictions, ruminations and riddles," according to its subtitle, about the taverns and social clubs that line a 16-mile stretch of one of the oldest highways in Newfoundland.

It's interesting that we are translating into music poetry that was itself the translation of photographs. Mary Dalton based her poetic sequence on a series of photographs taken on the road between Holyrood and Brigus, Newfoundland, between 2005 and 2007 by Scott Walden.

Only two of the twelve poems in the sequence are subtitled after a specific photograph. "Girl at the Bar" is subtitled after the 24th numbered poem in Scott Walden's series, "All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #24, Colliers, Conception Bay" (2006). The poem even mentions the photographer and places his portrait of this young woman in the history of art alongside Vermeer and Botticelli.

The poem is self-consciously ekphrastic: it's deliberately a poem about a work of art.

*

Girl at the Bar
All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #24

By Mary Dalton

I spend most of my time not dying.
That’s what living is for.
—Frederick Seidel, “Fog”

She is looking into the distance.
The light touches her forehead, her neck,
hovers about her eyes and chin,
gold strands of her hair,
gold of the beer glass.
Fiery light glances off her
hair, upswept at the back.
The busy iconography of the bar,
its framed memories and plaques,
the phone talker nearby—
against their blurry clutter
a stillness, a space at once inner
and knowing, a pool of solitude
in the whirl of the carnival.

Here, in the commotion, the crowd,
the photographer’s found
a Botticelli angel,
a Vermeer beauty,
T-shirted,
yet his gaze travels further:
one senses that soon
the moment will vanish;
she will slide off the bar stool,
toss off a wise-crack,
grin at the comeback,
sashay out with buddy,
out into the lava shift of the strobes,
out into the roiling
spree of the dance floor.

*

We are scoring "All the Clubs" compilation-style with a committee of songwriters, and Ann Hirschfeld called for "Girl at the Bar." Here is her demo.





Video of Mary Dalton reading "Girl at the Bar," recorded just for our show.

The original announcement of the May 30 show with more details.

Mary Dalton

A song to a poem about a bar named for a fool in Newfoundland

"All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #21, Conception Harbour, Conception Bay"
Scott Walden (2006)
Artist retains rights

Like I was saying, Poetry Scores has a live premiere of a new poetry score on Saturday, May 30 at the Schlafly Tap Room in downtown St. Louis.

We are scoring "All the Clubs from Hollyrood to Brigus," a twelve-poem sequence of "fictions, ruminations and riddles," according to its subtitle, about the taverns and social clubs that line a 16-mile stretch of one of the oldest highways in Newfoundland.

The poet Mary Dalton - like any self-respecting tavern-goer - relishes the names of pubs and social clubs. Throughout the sequence, she names taverns -- and then renames them for what their real names would be if they truly described what happens to people in there.

In "The Twilick," a prose poem, she savors a few actual tavern names -- and then invents the name of a fictional lounge and imagines a typical scene inside it.

*

The Twillick
By Mary Dalton


The Blue Moon. The Velvet Hat. The Newfoundland Lounge. They should have a bar called The Twillick. Go in there now and what you’ll see is those fellows—and the women, too—home from Alberta, the SUVs and the monster trucks gleaming in the parking lots, and them huddled over the flash and dash, the blips and beeps of the VLTs, feeding in the dollars they left their place and young ones for, feeding in the big money they got on the planes for. The big money they sold their backs and lungs for, often as not. Or crowded round a pool-table like worshippers at one of those new-fangled centre altars, praying at the shrine of Texas Hold ’Em.

*

According to The Dictionary of Newfoundland English, a "twillick" is a long-legged sea shore bird -- and a fool.

St. Louis songster Mike Stuvland, who is no fool, set "The Twillick" to a wistful acoustic tune that includes my favorite-ever intonation of the phrase "monster trucks" in a song.






Video of Mary Dalton reading "The Twilick" just for our show.

The series of photographs by Scott Walden, also titled "All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus," that inspired Mary Dalton's poem.

The original announcement of the May 30 show with more details.

Mike Stuvland

Mary Dalton

"Riddling" by Mary Dalton and Eric Rose

"All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus #31, Avondale, Conception Bay"
By Scott Walden (2006)
Artist retains rights

Like I was saying, Poetry Scores has a live premiere of a new poetry score on Saturday, May 30 at the Schlafly Tap Room in downtown St. Louis.

We scored "All the Clubs from Hollyrood to Brigus," a twelve-poem sequence of "fictions, ruminations and riddles," according to its subtitle, about the taverns and social clubs that line a 16-mile stretch of one of the oldest highways in Newfoundland.

Close to the end of the sequence - poem ten of twelve - the poet Mary Dalton poses a riddle and even titles the poem "Ridding."


*


Riddling
By Mary Dalton


How is a club like a story?

One may beget the other;
atmosphere is all;
the light is a transforming one;
in the shadows are symbols and myths;
the characters are gathered against the storm;
time stops or expands or shrinks;
epiphanies abound—or fail to occur
the narrator is unreliable.


*


With twelve separate poems to work with, we offered them to different songwriters for a compilation-style score. Eric Rose volunteered for "Riddling."






Eric is based out of San Francisco, where he runs a company called Right Brain Consultants. He played in the Washington University campus band scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the guys who would eventually found Poetry Scores: Matt Fuller, Chris King and Elijah "Lij" Shaw. Eric and Matt formed half of the legendary Wash U campus band Butt of Jokes that first pulled Chris into the campus music scene as a fan and inspired him to start the band with Matt and Elijah (Enormous Richard) that eventually evolved into Poetry Scores.

"Riddling," after all of these years, is Eric Rose's first contribution to Poetry Scores, though we hope it will be far from his last.

Eric Rose (stretching) with Butt of Jokes, ca. 1989.
Future Poetry Scores cofounder Matt Fuller is on drums.
Stomping on his bass pedal is Ben Herzon, soon of The Bishops.

The other songwriters on "All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus: Nick Barbieri, Mark Buckheit, Robert Goetz, Ann Hirschfeld, Michael Martin, Joe Thebeau, Three Fried Men, The Lettuce Heads and Mike Stuvland.

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The original announcement of the May 30 show with more details.

The series of photographs by Scott Walden, also titled "All the Clubs from Holyrood to Brigus," that inspired Mary Dalton's poem.

Mary Dalton

Mary Dalton has published five volumes of poetry, most recently "Hooking" (2013), "Merrybegot" (2003) and "Red Ledger" (2006). Her work has been widely anthologized in Canada and abroad and won many awards.