published on
some instruments, including synth and the pulsating synth bed, mix: tea are sea @tea_are_sea
other instruments, narration, mix: sonic structures and silent stretches
method: some back and forth, with stonerjazz and re-evolution café orchestra sometimes listening in and edging on
narration: the thirteen canto poem finds its way into sound, a canto at a time
image: copyright jo richter, using a detail of my photo of a magazine depiction of the phaistos disc as one element among others
info: there is one more version of this canto to emerge from other collab partners. LOOK FORWARD!
poem / copyright jo richter
How long he stayed, he could not tell.
He worked ferociously, sounding all
existence that had touched upon him into
being: the smell of meadows, the curl of
ripples, the calm that centers in a storm;
the timbre of voices, the straight lines of buildings,
the aloofness of announcers on the radio.
His desk was cluttered, his mind strove clear.
When he did not write, he‘d read up on
the origins of his ancient art: Vergil and Dante,
Marlow and Shakespeare, Homer and Joyce,
Ovidus, Cervantes, Rabelais and Wieland.
He felt the linguistic seeds, blown from foreign
stems, grow filaments deep in his native soil, he
saw them ripen, flower profusely, yielding
their beauty to ever-changing mentalities.
And as his insight widened and he gained
perspective, the rows of encyclopedias
and dictionaries that lined his shelves
slimmed down, as he gave up consulting
English for French and German, these for
Latin and Greek, those for Persian and Sanskrit,
until he only referred to Indo-European roots.
His desk turned clear, his mind became uncluttered.
Eventually, he also slept and dreamt
whenever the veil sank upon him.
Guarded by the spire‘s safe walls, he would
awaken slowly, remembering outlandish
lore, scribbling notes and poems of bizarre
truthfulness and penning recollections of his
archetypal ties. Some of his realistic verse de-
rived from fragments of prolonged poetic trance.
His muse meanwhile taught him to cook, the
art of mixing individual ingredients to bring about
a taste all of its own that nourishes both mind and
physicality. The painters tend to fixate on surface
and colour, she said, the musicians on timing
the process, whereas the poets never get anything
done, enchanted by words like ‚ginger‘ or ‚yeast‘.
All of their dishes taste awful.
- Genre
- poetry soundscape