The Nov. 11, 2020 New York Times has a review of "African American Poetry," as compiled by Kevin Young, currently poetry editor at The New Yorker and soon to become director of the Smithsonian's African American Museum in Washington D.C. At present, Young also heads the New York Public Library's research center on Black culture.
Young's new anthology, at about 1,110 pages, is a roundup of poetry by African Americans over the past 250 years and, among other things, attempts to save some Black poets from obscurity.
The Times review, by Parul Sehgal, was very positive. Among other things, he said, it reads like a form of history.
What jumped out at me, however, was what might be viewed as a definition of poetry by Sehgal. To wit: "Whatever the style, whatever the shape of the vessel, the particular holding power of the poem is clear. More efficiently than almost any other form, a poem can convey a feeling of simultaneity; the past can saturate the present, the future can rear up behind us, a mood can tip between lament and praise song."
I am far from an expert on poetry -- in fact quite the reverse -- but that definition rang some bells for me because I have been attempting to write the libretto for an operetta that would be done in a neo-Baroque style. Among other things, that involves writing lyrics, generally in rhyme, for individual songs, or arias. This is in contrast to most contemporary operas which generally employ continuous music with voices coming in and out, albeit sometimes for extended periods, but generally not singing anything that can stand alone as "a song."
In the Baroque style, which emphasizes the vocal capabilities of singers first and foremost, the lyrics need to be kept very short. That means packing as much meaning or as many ideas as possible into very few words to achieve a result somewhat similar to that described by Shegal above.
Readers interested in the operetta project can check out this page on my author's website.
No comments:
Post a Comment