Tags: sharing of art, experience of art, loving of art, syntax
I read this poem and listened to the corresponding classical music piece and have been listening to it relatively nonstop for the past few weeks. I really love when a poem or book shares a piece of classical music or other art (not exclusive, just I happen to have read a number of pieces that point to classical music) and I can go experience it and understand the piece on a new level. Also, discovering new art that you enjoy is always, well, enjoyable.
What Is It You Feel I Asked Kurt
Diane Seuss
What is it you feel I asked Kurt when you listen to
Ravel’s String Quartet in F-major, his face was so lit up
and I wondered, “the music is unlike the world I live
or think in, it’s from somewhere else, unfamiliar and unknown,
not because it is relevant to the familiar and comfortable,
but because it brings me to that place that I didn’t/couldn’t
imagine existed. And sometimes that unfamiliar place is closer
to my world than I realize, and sometimes it’s endlessly distant,”
that’s what he wrote in an email when I asked him
to remind me what he’d said earlier, off the cuff, “I don’t
recall exactly what I said,” he began, a sentence written
in iambic pentameter, and then the rest, later he spoke of two
of his brothers who died as children, leukemia and fire,
his face, soft, I’m listening to Ravel now, its irrelevancy.
I don’t find the first half particularly compelling as poetry, though it’s a beautiful sentiment that I share at times. The last few lines where Seuss begins paraphrasing take on the character of someone forgetting their suffering through music, the dreamy quality created by the soft syntax peppered with commas. I listened to the piece after reading this and honestly think it’s a perfect piece for the poem and its message, as it is quite unlike anything I’ve heard elsewhere or any other classical music I’ve listened to: Ravel’s String Quarter in F Major.