THE TWELVE BAR BLUES AS POETRY: A WORKSHOP

A LITTLE INTRODUCTION TO ANCIENT CHINESE POETRY: A LECTURE

DANVIS TALES: THE STORIES OF ROWLAND E. ROBINSON: A LECTURE

After a quick explanation of how the 12 bar blues form works, followed by recorded examples, beginning with John Coltrane's slow blues, "Blues to Elvin," David Budbill and the workshop participants count through the 12 bar form over and over again, in order to see how the 12 bars of music is divided into three lines of 4 bars each.

Then the participants listen for the chord change that signals the beginning of each new line. Then they notice how the second line, more or less, repeats the first while the third line says something new. All this is done with music only during this first example.

Then the group moves on to examples that include words and they listen to Earl Hooker's "You Don't Want Me," a traditional you-don't-love-me blues.

After that come two old old blues, "Ain't It Hard to Stumble" and "Mr. Rich Man, Rich Man," both sung by Odetta, that demonstrate how statements of personal suffering and political rebellion can be overwhelmingly powerful in the blues form.

The recorded musical examples conclude with Aretha Franklin's "Pitiful."

Then the workshop studies four blues poems by Langston Hughes.

Now each workshop participant writes as many three-line blues stanzas as she or he wishes and while they work on their blues poems, the volunteer blues band, which has miraculously appeared out of the participants, rehearses.

When the participants are ready with their blues poems and the band is rehearsed, the band begins to play and the participants come forward one by one or in groups to say--or sing!--their blues lyrics over the 12 bar form being played by the band.

This workshop communicates a wealth of knowledge and awareness about how words and music fit together and helps demonstrate the intricate and delicate complications and rhythmic subtleties in this apparently simple form. It also helps people begin to see the almost infinite possibilities in how to lay out a line of the spoken word over a musical line.

In addition to all the above, David Budbill hopes this workshop will help participants recognize the blues poem as a legitimate literary form the equal of any villanelle, sonnet, georgic or aubade.

A LITTLE INTRODUCTION TO

ANCIENT CHINESE POETRY:

photo credit: Lois Eby

A LECTURE

This presentation begins with a twenty to thirty minute talk about the nature of ancient Chinese poetry, from 2000 B.C.E. through the Sung Dynasty--with a few Ch'ing Dynasty poets included. The lecture addresses the manner in which the ancient Chinese poets wrote and sang their poems and the ways in which this poetry comes from a vastly different world-view from our own Judeo-Christian way of seeing things. The talk concludes with some words about the Chinese poets' ambivalent attitudes toward words and silence. The presentation then moves to having those in attendance read out-loud some of the poems of Chinese antiquity. A question and answer period on the subject plus a general discussion concludes the evening's presentation.

A modest pamphlet called A LITTLE INTRODUCTION to ANCIENT CHINESE POETRY plus A SMALL ANTHOLOGY and an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY, written, compiled and edited by David Budbill is available at a small price to accompany this lecture.

The annotated bibliography has publication information and thumbnail reviews for 84 books including anthologies of ancient Chinese poetry, books by individual poets, the sacred texts of Taoism, books about tea, and numerous other books on related subjects.

DANVIS TALES:

THE STORIES OF ROWLAND E. ROBINSON:

A LECTURE

This talk of approximately 45 minutes presents essayist and fiction writer Rowland E. Robinson, Vermont's best known 19th-century writer and one of America's first ecologists. An acute observer of nature and humanity, Robinson presented an unparalleled picture of life in Vermont 150 years ago. Robinson's loving and impassioned presentation of people, both in their wholesome generosity toward each other and in their wanton destruction of the natural world, created an honest and well-rounded picture of our progenitors.

A volume of Robinson's stories which David Budbill edited called Danvis Tales, serves as the basis for this talk.

on this website visit: Danvis Tales

For partial funding for this lecture contact:
Vermont Council on the Humanities
www.vermonthumanities.org
email: info@vermonthumanities.org

call (802) 888-3183
fax (801) 888-1236
or write
Vermont Council on the Humanities
200 Park Street
Morrisville, VT 05661-86598

Updated: 2/16/2000

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