I want to read another thing about music poetry.
I said yesterday in talking to the writing department
that the music of poetry is not the music of music.
There are people that write poems
that sound beautiful and it's like an instrument playing,
but my contention was different.
I want to read you a poem that in a way
shows a little of that difference.
There is a gorgeous kind of music, like Dylan Thomas.
It's sort of in between.
Dylan Thomas has a poem called "In My Craft or Sullen Art,"
which goes, "In my craft or sullen art,
exercised in the still night when
only the moon rages and the lovers
lie abed with all their grief in their arms, I labor
by singing light.
Not for ambition or bread.
Not for the strut and trade of charms on the ivory stages,
but for the wages of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man do I write on these spin drift pages
nor for the towering dead with their nightingales and songs,
but for the lovers, their arms around the griefs of the ages
who pay no praise, no wages, nor heed my craft or art."
Anybody who reads that before reading their poem
is a little nutty, but I am.
This poem takes as its music--
some of you will remember the time
when this music comes from.
Well, actually, Ronstadt, in her album did this music.
I want to sing a little of it so you
have a sense of the difference between this American style
of poetry and the music of the ballads of the '40s.
The song in the '40s is, "I've got
a crush on you, sweetie pie.
All the day and night time hear me sigh.
I never had the least notion that I could
fall with so much emotion.
Could you coo?
Could you care for a little cook,
for a cunning cottage we could share?
The world will pardon my mush cause
I have got a crush, pretty little baby, on you."
You're merciful.
Well, I was dreaming this song.
Actually, in the original, I had it wrong,
but I lost my courage so I fixed it
so that it was what I should have dreamed instead.
I'm on a Greek island living out in the fields in a shepherd's
hut.
It's called "The Sweet Taste of Victory."
You'll see what I mean by the two kinds of music in here
and both are different from the Dylan Thomas
and all three are different from those people that
make lush, Edith Sitwell kind of tone poems.
"When I woke up my head was saying the world
will pardon my mush but I have got a crush and I went outside.
The wind was gone.
The last of the moon was up and the stars
even brighter than usual.
A freighter in the distance was turning into the dark bay,
all lit up.
The valley was so still I could hear the engine.
The dogs were quiet, worn out from barking
all week at the full moon, at ease in their failure.
The ship came out the other side and blew its horn softly
for the harbor, starting a rooster up on the mountain.
It went behind the other hill and I started back
into the farmhouse.
All the day and night time hear me cry.
The world will pardon my mush, I sang from my bed
up into the dark, my voice unfamiliar
after not speaking for days, thinking of Linda
but singing to something else."