https://stonesoup.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Poetry-Soup-Ep.-19.MP3.mp3 Transcript: Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Today, I’ll be talking about a poem by David Shapiro, titled, “Falling Upwards.” David Shapiro was born on January 2, 1947, in Newark, New Jersey. His family was very big on music – they often performed string quartets together. This might’ve been part of what influenced today’s poem, which is about a violin player. Like Kenneth Koch and John Ashbery, poets I have talked about on past episodes of this podcast, Shapiro was a member of the New York School of Poets. Though he was very proficient in violin from a young age and performed with orchestras for many of his teenage years, his first poetry collection was also published when he was young, at the age of 18, titled, “January.” In addition to poetry, Shapiro wrote a lot about art, such as his book, “Jim Dine,” about the works of the painter Jim Dine. Shapiro’s poems are good to read together due to his unique style. Sometimes, it takes reading a few of his poems to understand one, because a lot of his poetry is very abstract and surreal. It also focuses a lot on language and form, adding a rhythmic flow to his writing. For example, in his poem, “The Devil’s Trill Sonata,” he uses subtle rhyme throughout which makes it very musical to the ear. Shapiro often wrote about the bridge between music and poetry. As an adult, Shapiro settled in Riverdale, a neighborhood in The Bronx, New York, which happens to be where I live as well! Shapiro died there on May 4, 2024. A certain violinist had a beautiful violin But before he had time to play her long and listen To her tones as such, he was compelled to renounce music And sell her, and go on a far journey, and leave his violin in the hands of the violin case. What was there to do? It is said You cannot live life in quarter tones. What was there to do? It is said you cannot live your life in silence. What was there to do? It is said you cannot live your life playing scales. What was there to do? It is said you cannot live your life listening to the Americans. What was there to do. It is said you cannot live your life in your room and not go out. What was there to do? It is said music disobeys And reaches the prince’s courtyard even farther than smell and grits its notes like teeth and gives us food and drink. And orders a fire to be lighted, famished silk to hang over it and repetitions to be sharpened. What was there to do? It is said it is the violinists who do not sleep. What was there to do? It is said we think and don’t think; we are asleep. What was there to do? It is said music sinks into the mire up to its neck, wants to crawl out, but cannot. What was there to do? It is said the violin was a swan, seized the boy, falling upwards to some height above the earth. “Falling Upwards” contrasts music with life through repetition. It begins with an almost soothing tone, much like a children’s story or a folktale. However, the mood quickly becomes more somber, this contrast almost foreshadowing the comparison that will be highlighted in the next three stanzas of the poem. The reader is told of a violinist who gives up music and sells his violin, unsure what to do with his life. But the poem itself isn’t that simple. The tale of the violinist is only a way of conveying a larger message – whether or not life and art can coexist, or if an artist has to give themselves up to make something truly meaningful. The repetition is a key part of demonstrating this. The phrase, “what was there to do?” is repeated throughout the poem, and then followed by a statement. The statements, such as “you cannot live life in quarter tones,” connect life and music, and suggest that beautiful art is created by putting the whole of yourself into it and cannot be done any other way. This makes the violinist feel conflicted about what he must do. In a way, he is fighting with himself – it comes across very obviously that he believes that his violin is beautiful, and that music is as well, but he still chooses to sell the violin and try to start anew. The last line of the poem, about the violin “seizing the boy,” suggests that the violinist has enjoyed music from a young age. This makes the poem feel even sadder. The last stanza also portrays music as a kind of trap, one that the violinist is trying to avoid. It’s like music has chained the violinist, and he wants to be set free. At the same time, it’s almost like, at the end of the poem, the violinist comes back to music – the violin calls to him and it is like he is the boy he was before. In this way, music is portrayed as very complicated – and that for some, it could be the life that they want to live. In that case, leaving it could be the wrong decision. Music being “food and drink” and ordering the violinist around makes it seem like it is the only thing in a musician’s life. There can be nothing else. David Shapiro both played violin and wrote poetry, so he probably understood this conflict. Can you create true beauty when you are not dedicated completely to just one art form? In fact, Shapiro wrote a lot about music, almost combining his two talents. However, the violinist in this poem does not have this option. It makes the reader wonder what he does after giving up music – he quit violin so that he could
John Ashbery
Poetry Soup Ep. 1: “The Painter” by John Ashbery
Mission Statement A lot of people don’t realize how great poetry can be, and there are very few places where young people can be introduced to great poets. I created Poetry Soup to share my love for poetry and to inspire others to read more of it. In this podcast, which will come out 1-2 times a month, I will read and discuss poems by some of my favorite poets, such as Wislawa Szymborska, Tomaz Salumun, and Wallace Stevens. I hope you enjoy it! Ep. 1: “The Painter” by John Ashbery Transcript Hello, and welcome to Poetry Soup! I’m your host, Emma Catherine Hoff. Each episode, I’ll discuss a different poem and poet. Today, I’ll be talking about a sestina by John Ashbery. Imagine a painter that could never even begin a single painting. This is the subject of John Ashbery’s “The Painter.” This poem is a beautiful sestina (we’ll talk more about sestinas later) that Conner, the instructor of one of the Stone Soup writing workshops, brought up in one of his classes. John Ashbery was born on July 28, 1927, in Rochester, New York, the US. He was a member of the New York School of Poets, a group of poets, many of whom lived in New York City, who had similar writing styles. The school included some of my favorite poets. James Schuyler, Kenneth Koch, Barbara Guest, and Frank O’Hara were all members. Ashbery wrote a lot during his lifetime, including a novel called A Nest of Ninnies (published in 1969) with Schuyler and many poetry collections, including Self-portrait in a Convex Mirror, which was published in 1975 and won three awards: the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Award. Ashbery also penned several plays and was an art critic (in fact, a book called Reported Sightings, Art Chronicles 1957-1987, edited by Daniel Bergman, was published in 1989, containing Ashbery’s collected art reviews). Ashbery’s poems were also compiled into Collected Poems, 1956-1987, which made Ashbery the first poet to ever be published in the Library of America (LOA) series. John Ashbery died on September 3, 2017, in Hudson, New York, US, at the age of 90. Now I’m going to read “The Painter.” Afterwards, I’ll talk about it! Sitting between the sea and the buildings He enjoyed painting the sea’s portrait. But just as children imagine a prayer Is merely silence, he expected his subject To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush, Plaster its own portrait on the canvas. So there was never any paint on his canvas Until the people who lived in the buildings Put him to work: “Try using the brush As a means to an end. Select, for a portrait, Something less angry and large, and more subject To a painter’s moods, or, perhaps, to a prayer.” How could he explain to them his prayer That nature, not art, might usurp the canvas? He chose his wife for a new subject, Making her vast, like ruined buildings, As if, forgetting itself, the portrait Had expressed itself without a brush. Slightly encouraged, he dipped his brush In the sea, murmuring a heartfelt prayer: “My soul, when I paint this next portrait Let it be you who wrecks the canvas.” The news spread like wildfire through the buildings: He had gone back to the sea for his subject. Imagine a painter crucified by his subject! Too exhausted even to lift his brush, He provoked some artists leaning from the buildings To malicious mirth: “We haven’t a prayer Now, of putting ourselves on canvas, Or getting the sea to sit for a portrait!” Others declared it a self-portrait. Finally all indications of a subject Began to fade, leaving the canvas Perfectly white. He put down the brush. At once a howl, that was also a prayer, Arose from the overcrowded buildings. They tossed him, the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings; And the sea devoured the canvas and the brush As though his subject had decided to remain a prayer. This is a miraculous example of a sestina — but what is a sestina? A sestina is a poetic form with all lines ending the same way. Did you notice how certain words repeated throughout the poem? Those are the six end words. Each line has to end with them, but they shift position in different stanzas. Each stanza has six lines. Each line ends with a word. The last word of the last line is the word that ends the first line of the next stanza. The end word of the first line becomes the end word of the second line. It’s a really complicated pattern, so it’s always helpful to have an example poem! A sestina has seven stanzas. The last stanza has three lines and uses two of the end words in each line. Sometimes, because this form can be restrictive, sestinas can sound clunky. “The Painter,” however, has done a very good job of flowing just like a free-form poem should. Now I am led to talk about the poem itself. I’m not trying to be cliche when I say that this poem emphasizes the power of creativity. In the beginning of the poem, the painter sits and stares at the sea — but he doesn’t paint. The people in the buildings tell him to “try using the brush” and actually paint something. They tell him that if he can’t paint the sea, he should choose something else for his subject, so he chooses his wife. However, the painter still does not draw anything and returns to the sea as his subject. The ending of his poem is strange. The people become so angry that they throw his canvas off the top of the building into the ocean — but even though he has not painted anything, he is so involved in his art that the blank portrait has become himself. They are one and the same. In the last line, “as though
