The Tribal Primitive Villanelle
Perhaps Jazz Poetry might not be the way to go for a villanelle? It is hard to say, what with the need to hear a refrain half a dozen times. Isn't that the soul of jazz, though? The mind-blowing refrain that is at once modern and classical, hep and primitive, old and new? What kind of couplet, duet, a little bit of synergy worth repeating could I come up with? It is a bit like that Psycho Killer song by The Talking Heads: "say something once, why say it again? … fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better qu’est que c’est."
First we need a couplet. I shall try to keep it in iambic pentameter, da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM. It's more than just an easy beat, there is something wave-like about the sounds generated by a villanelle in iambic pentameter; the way the lines repeat themselves, like an opiate, narcotic, almost hypnotic, in its repetitions. The poet Jack Spicer throws everything into his ode to Charlie Parker in his: "Song for Bird and Myself" — "distrusting the reality/ of every note" to "chewing angels" to blowing "sentence pure and real." And while the poem is not a villanelle, this is where we shall find our couplet, somewhere with the figure of Jacob wrestling an archangel, cherub, holy guardian, seraph:
Jacob wrestling/ loose belly cherub/
Jericho bebop/ Blue Arab Nightclub/
That sounds purposely obscure enough to be interesting. Let's not worry what it means. It is like what Spicer said, acting as a "radio" to pick up messages from Garcia Lorca, Billy the Kid and Martians; he felt "the personality of the poet … should be kept out of the poem as much as possible." I agree with this, this negative ecstasy. It is far more interesting to see how the poet can shape the words before us like a musician shapes notes. Here is the outline of the poem, with the rhyme scheme. Suddenly one realizes that what might have sounded like an amusing riff1 takes on a heavier importance when repeated:
Line one (A1) Jacob wrestling/ loose belly cherub/
Line two (b) huffing the orchestra/ across his back/
Line three (A2) Jericho bebop/ Blue Arab Nightclub/
Line four (A2)
Line five (b)
Line one (A1) Jacob wrestling/ loose belly cherub/
Line six (A1)
Line seven (b)
Line three (A2) Jericho bebop/ Blue Arab Nightclub/
Line eight (A2)
Line nine (b)
Line one (A1) Jacob wrestling/ loose belly cherub/
Line ten (A1)
Line eleven (b)
Line three (A2) Jericho bebop/ Blue Arab Nightclub/
Line twelve (A2)
Line thirteen (b)
Line one (A1) Jacob wrestling/ loose belly cherub/
Line three (A2) Jericho bebop/ Blue Arab Nightclub/
Call it what you will — fakir smack — dervish bop — morocco t jam — someone, somewhere in the Middle East is starting a jazz combo. Someone, somewhere is playing a low, blues tune, crooning above the wind; listening to old 78s and giving those sounds a North African twist. Since we are on the subject of Bird and his Holy Trinity of Saxophones, I found this fascinating recording: 1946 Compact Jazz: Charlie Parker Plays the Blues from Verve Records. The last cut on it, "The Closer," is how I imagine euphoria should be — smacking with the audience responding to everything.
Jacob wrestling/ loose belly cherub/
huffing the orchestra/ across his back/
Jericho bebop/ Blue Arab Nightclub/
and you and me/ drunk on fever/ washtub
gin/ the whole world/ wrestling in flashback/
Jacob sparring/ with jewel palm cherub/
over and over/ the sax's toll: "Arab
- Cherub - Arab"/ recorded on playback/
Ho! Jericho/ O! bop/ Arab Night/ dub
the drums in/ the yaw of yazz/ the hubbub
of the audience/ calling: "Go!"/ Bareback
Jacob/ wrestling loose/ "Arab - Cherub
- Arab"/ [it's a wonderful refrain]/ scrub
the snazz til' it sizzles/ Jacob's bone black
blues/ Jericho's jive/ Arabesque Blues Club/
Fakir smack/ Jacob his fatigue/ his rub/
his last note/ hanging/ "man, that's fakir smack,"
you say/ some new angel/ Jacob's cherub/
Jericho bebop/ Blue Arab Nightclub/
In the spirit of jazz, I had fun playing with the repeating lines (A1 and A2). Isn't jazz a new form of systems-synthesis, discipline-incorporation, world-making? Tweaking existing systems through dream and song? Maybe this is along the lines of what William Blake referred to when he searched for a system: "that Reason may have ideas to build on."
- I like what Drew Gardner writes about, concerning John Godfrey poetry: "The lines in the book are like a metal grating through which thought and sense pour. They are mostly paired-down to single word and two-word movements, a condensed economy of vocabulary, like Eigner, but heavier." [back]