I don't find his readings tremendous. I find them rhythmically assured
but tonally monotonous - what's with this lugubrious drone, some of it
deadpan wit, I realize, but all "relentless" & "mournful" to use two
words from poems he reads, as though he had put his ecclesiastical
reader's hat on - he actually manages tonally varied vocal emphasis at
"spare" in the Hopkins poem, it's quite a shocking effect that he
repeats later in the poem, but there are almost no others in the doleful
litany. I think Lawrence would have had an apoplectic fit to hear his
poetry read like that. This whole scene is so worshipful, piety-laden.
Actually Ricks's quavering parody of some sly Oxbridge High Table
rendering comes as a relief from the verbal juggernauts of doom.
mj
Dominic Fox wrote:
> Ricks is one of the readers at this event:
>
> Life in Poetry: An Evening with Geoffrey Hill:
> http://www.buworldofideas.org/shows/2006/05/20060514.asp
>
> Hill's own readings at the event - of poems by, amongst others,
> Hopkins, Lawrence and Dylan Thomas - are of course tremendous. He
> finishes with Lawrence's "Bavarian Gentians".
>
> It is generally weird to hear Americans reading Hill's verses,
> although I don't think they do too badly. Nobody - Hill included -
> seems to pause between poems, or between separate sections of the same
> poem.
>
> Dominic
>
> On 7/30/06, Eileen Abrahams <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: "Eileen Abrahams" <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: "Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and
>> poetics" <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 19:53:36 -0500
>> Subject: Re: Half-cocked podcast
>> Dominic,
>>
>> I'm writing a dissertation on Hill, and it includes pitch analyses of
>> various people reading Hill. It also happens that Ricks is on my
>> commiittee; so, I'd love to get a hold of Ricks reading Hill. Where
>> did you
>> listen to Rick's reading, and does there exist an available recording?
>>
>> Thanks-
>> Eileen
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/29/06, Dominic Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >
>> > I've just been listening to Christopher Ricks trying to read the early
>> > poems of Geoffrey Hill. He was quite surprisingly bad at it - tin ear
>> > for rhythm possibly, a strange defect in such an admirer of Dylan...
>> >
>> > Anyway, I've had a go at reading some of my own poems, and turning
>> > them into a podcast for the delectation of that vanishingly small
>> > percentage of the global population who both own iPods and like to
>> > download poetry broadcasts to listen on them. Half Cocks 1-5, plus a
>> > bit of me pretending to be Squarepusher, form the first broadcast
>> > available by pointing your podcast-consuming appliance at
>> > http://codepoetics.com/poetix/?feed=rss2
>> >
>> > Alternatively, you can just grab the audio file from
>> > http://codepoetics.com/half_cocks/half_cocks_1-5.m4a
>> >
>> > Dominic
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Eileen Abrahams
>> Ph.D. Candidate
>> Editorial Fellow
>> Texas Studies in Literature and Language
>> The University of Texas at Austin
>>
>> It is the precise detail of word or rhythm, which carries the ethical
>> burden; it is technique, rightly understood, which provides the true
>> point
>> of departure for inspiration.
>> ---Geoffrey Hill
>>
>
>
--
Lorsque le ciel s'obscurcissait, ta victoire toujours, lampe des signes! La chair moins nue de se savoir écrite et partagée. (When the sky darkened, always your victory, lamp of signs! The flesh less naked for knowing itself written and shared out.) - Claude Esteban d.10 Avril 2006
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