This Thursday, April 30 is International Jazz Day. Paris, France is this year's Global Host City. You can watch the webcast of the All-Star Global Concert on the International Jazz Day website. Don't forget to support your local jazz scene on this day and every day! If you are in the Kansas city area, check out the American Jazz Museum.
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Friday, August 29 marks the 94th anniversary of Charlie Parker's birth. As part of the 2014 Charlie Parker Celebration, there will be a 21-Sax Salute on both Friday, August 29 and Saturday, August 30 at the grave site in Lincoln Cemetery. Go to the KC Jazz Alive website for details about these events and the final events of this year's celebration. Remember, you can always learn more about Charlie Parker by visiting the American Jazz Museum.
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Recently, I saw this video of Charlie Rose and Billy Taylor discussing improvisation, which had been posted on Facebook by the American Jazz Museum. Taylor's comments made me think of poetry forms and how they may be used to enhance creativity.
Taylor states that preparation is necessary in order to improvise. The preparation he talks about is knowledge of the craft of creating music.
First, the musician must have an understanding of the song as it was written. How did the composer put it together?
Additionally, the musician must have a knowledge of the three elements, rhythm, harmony and melody, that may be improvised. How does changing the rhythm change the mood created by the music? What goes into creating a new melody?
Poetry forms teach poets knowledge of the craft. They deal with elements such as overall length, line length, rhythm and repetition. For example, if you try a few forms that have a small line count; how do you distill your idea to stay within the limit? Doesn't this exercise help you learn to tighten up your writing when you go back to free verse?
Forms show me what comes easily to me and what is hard for me. They give me a way to develop an element if I think it adds to my writing.
For both the jazz musician and the poet, it's all about conveying a feeling. Working with forms helps poets develop more ways to do this.
Do you think working with poetry forms enhances your skills? Do you write in forms on a regular basis?
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I'll miss having a new prompt served up first thing each morning. Thanks to all of the poets who shared a prompt for this month's challenge. This was a new twist. I enjoyed being introduced to members of the Poetic Asides community this way and look forward to continue visiting some new blogs.
I also hope to keep the writing momentum going by providing my own prompts. I have a long list of ideas that I've been keeping. Now its time to start crossing them off the list by turning them into poems.
A few of the prompts this month involved using lines from poems by other poets or from other poems we had written. That reminded me that I have some random lines and groups of lines in a list and in various notepads. They should keep me busy, too.
Of course, it would be nice to have a prompt from someone else every so often. Fortunately, Robert Lee Brewer provides a prompt on Poetic Asides each Wednesday. He also sneaks in a form challenge every so often. Thanks, Robert.
Following is my favorite poem from this challenge. I think it is my favorite because it is about a topic and place that have become very special to me through poetry.
Still Sweatin’
the music they say is dead was so alive, it sweated.-Mbembe Milton Smith
The music still sweats
in a familiar place
a room known as blue
in the mecca of
18th and Vine
in a building that
keeps it alive
where the greats
are enshrined
and a new generation
gets it start
Congratulations to all the writers who participated in a writing challenge this month! What did you take away from your challenge?
Give the following link a click:
The Big Yellow Taxi Tour from Lara Britt's Writing Space (This is a must read for Joni Mitchell fans!)
This month, a new exhibit opened in The Changing Gallery at the American Jazz Museum. It is called Beyond Words {A Fusion of Poetry (+) Visual Art (+) Jazz}. If you are like me, you will want to go to this exhibit, which remains open until April 26, 2013, several times because you will take something new away from it each time.
I have been working with combining poems and photographs since early 2011. The poem and photo are distinct pieces that are being viewed together. The poem is an entity in itself and can stand alone.
After visiting the exhibit a couple of times, I created a new piece using the same photograph and elements of the poem. In this piece, the words and photo are truly joined.
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