Poetry, music, fire!

Who’d of thought a quiet little writers’ festival panel about poetry and music (Reading Music) would be so full of discord – clanking symbols, a low note sounding beneath some of the words, loud feedback from the audience… It was quite exciting, and Classic FM’s Emma Ayres did a solid job as conductor. On the panel were poets Les Murray, August Kleinzahler, and πO; and author/pianist Anna Goldsworthy.

The panel began with some questions around music and influence. Anna Goldsworthy’s breakthrough pieces included Chopin (and we were treated to some Chopin over the speakers later – where I became quite melancholy and lost); August Kleinzahler’s siblings played badly; πO got all his early music off the jukebox – a combo of Greek music and rock ‘n’ roll; Les Murray enjoyed music as live performance as a child but as he grew the radio became ‘just noise’ and actually turned him off music a bit. Goldsworthy noted then, that there’s a difference between hearing and ‘listening’, though, to which all nodded.

The questions was raised re pulse (which in my notes looks like pube, heh) rhythm, cadence, melody – some properties of music and how they apply to the work. Murray doesn’t consciously use any musical tools like this, but ‘does it by touch’ and when he later read a poem about bats, imitating the sounds of their way of seeing, it was certainly musical. Kleinzahler has been ‘stimulated by a piece of music’, but many things come into the mix when he’s writing – music, musac (that’s popular, noise music), visual arts, emotional states and more. πO demonstrated the way rock and blues came into his work by performing a fantastic poem about work (to which Kleinzahler tapped his foot). It was here I first noticed a kind of antithesis between πO and Les Murray – it seems πO resented something Murray once wrote about ‘ethnic’ writing… and admitted they were on ‘different planes’.

But πO also disagreed with any suggestion of raw talent, of genius – he said it’s all hard work. He said you ‘bathe’ in influences, yes, you learn, but you go through that and then you work hard. Kleinzahler did not agree (tapping πO on the leg). He said ‘you can persist all you like, but if you don’t have talent you’ll persist until you disappear’. What do you guys think?

The last bit of conflict came from an audience member, who, on the way in gave us flyers about a deceased poet whose works had been turned into song. He put up his hand and criticised the panel for not mentioning ‘rhyme’ and folk music – which he said is poetry sang. πO thought he was being very reductive (I think most of the audience agreed). And I’m not sure he really did his friend on the flyers a favour by being so cranky.

So, an entertaining song and dance. And it was a treat to hear each of them read such different, definitely rhythmic, pieces.