Baby's Got Bach: Poetry and Its Musical Cousin

Reading poetry alone on stage can be powerful—or can boring, or precious (a precious word writers use meaning, what the Church Lady on Saturday Night Live would call, “Special”). Reading with music—well, I don’t know how to describe that yet because, formally, I haven’t done that yet.

But I will in three weeks.

When my new poetry book was about to be released—birthing children, adopting children, even staging minor coups are all faster than publishing a first poetry book—I knew I needed to read a few times, promoting it. But I wanted it to be more interesting than some readings I've done, and to have a buddy on stage for support, to make it a performance, not just a sight reading.

And I knew I’d rather do it with music, and when I thought of music, I thought of Lorin. He's a professional level musician with a beer blogger, and a friend I know throught friends here: and, he can play.

Flash to Bach concerts in downtown Portland, to having fondue with his partner Kristin at a downtairs restaurant before Beethoven’s 9th, to hearing international holiday music a few years ago where he was the only white guy who’s sway looked natural—all that and him riffing on a piano or strumming a mandolin at parties. I knew he was talented.

But, generous enough to kill a few nights playing with poetry? And, how would it sound?

So far, my iPhone is filled with bars of music he’s played for me—and the notes from our rehearsal last night are next to me, ready to be formalized (they are scrawls from my husband and me, dictations by Lorin, saying, play this there. Pause. Come in here. Let Jan start the poem, then, hit it.)

We are both formally trained, in poetry and music, and I played one of the tunes he’s doing on the piano on my cello: Bach’s first Cello concerto (it’s in relaxing car commercials and movies; you’d know it).

So, for anyone who wants to know how you organize a poetry reading with a musician accompanying you on no budget, with some good free beer:
1. Call Lorin
2. Make sure you have poetry he can play to
3. Watch with amazement when, like a sci fi movie where the flowers all drop into a million stars, he explodes with activity and ideas (excuse me, we just saw Avatar!)—
4. Go to his house and be amazed at the range of music he suggests going with your lyric poems (Purcell, Bach, Eddie Vedder—I would not make this up—something from a Kung Fu movie played on Mandolin--)
5. Rehearse.
Which brings me to the one interesting part that might teach or surprise writers: reading in a rehearsal with music is different from reading alone, and from editing your work. Suddenly things get edited more, or words are omitted because you need more tension that meets the music. Some poems go fast, some go slowly.

If two nights ago, you’d said, which of your poems are Allegro (fast) and which are Largo (slow), I’d have said, “Whaa-a-a-?”

Now, for the two January performances with Lorin, I know. Some, come here our Goldberg Variations and Chinese adoptive parent poems, hear an original mandolin lullaby by Lorin with a poem about naming an international child, and see my counting silently, trying to find my opening through the music and words to what the Japanese poets call the Kokoro, the heart of the work.

For a mailed postcard of our performances, email me. Or join us Saturday, January 16, from 4-5 at Mississippi Pizza, N Portland, or Tuesday, January 26, at 7:30 at The Press Club, SE Portland.