One thing we’ve been missing in the Battle of Stupidity Regarding the Iraqi War has been Allen Ginsberg. Witchita Vortex Sutra is a salve. Miracle maker Hal Willner and his angel Danny (Artemis Records) Goldberg produced Allen reading this epic mome of orality in 1994. WVS is a rambling nightmare of US plains transplanted to Viet Nam in February, 1966, originally composed on the tongue into a portable reel-to-reel. Willner commissioned a gang of downtown music all-stars to compose for their favorite sections of the poem. Anchored by Philip Glass’s extraordinary, tender, ecstatic “I’m an Old Man Now, And a Lonesome Man in Kansas,” other standouts are Art Baron’s didgeridoo and the guitar squad of Arto Lindsay, Marc Ribot, Elliot Sharp, Lenny Kaye, and Lee Renaldo. What Ginsberg had to learn -– and teach -– in 1966, we have to learn all over again in 2004. Great thanks to the St. Mark’s Poetry Project where this event was presented and recorded live. Ah! segue to “He was one of my heroes,” Ed Sanders’ tenderness…
Ahem. Mayhaps ya wanna argue the Dylan as Poet routine? Personally, I prefer reading his Chronicles, Volume One, a totally brilliant, bizarre, loving, generous and nasty memoir that centers on the Village folk scene of the 60s and Robert Zimmerman’s entrance therein. The book folds into criticism (back-to-back takes on Robert Johnson and Bertolt Brecht -– priceless! including a 3-page exegesis of “Pirate Jenny”) and whiney high camp put-on (pp. 162-3, especially “In the midst of this, another piece of sad news came in. My sixty-three-foot sailboat had hit a reef in Panama.”). For me, this writing cements it: Dylan hits at the point of equilibrium and ambiguity, and folks, if that ain’t poetry I don’t know what is. He takes you into the studio, where personality meets technology, for a no-holds-barred narration of the production of “Oh Mercy.” He drops names forgotten and familiar, creating a living portrait, a family tree of folk to rock (Dylan liked the Kingston Trio, yes indeed; it could have been Peter, Bob and Mary, yes indeed) and generally makes you glad to be alive, to be able to breathe through the nose. Go Bob.
Leonard Cohen stays the course: avant garde poet at 70, his Dear Heather, while not yet replacing his incredible Ten New Songs on my playlist, is sly, smooth and smart, the title cut pure genius, light and sad, full of dark desire, rain. Cohen is popular, and will at some point be recognized like Dylan as a poet, troubadour, keeper of the word. There are two covers among the album’s tracks -– “Go No More A-Roving,” written by Lord Byron, dedicated to his longtime friend, Canada’s other famous poet, Irving Layton, is the first cut, and “The Tennessee Waltz” is the last. Get lost, get Leonard, get Heather.
