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Tag Archives: music

Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic” Remade to Actually be Ironic

17 Wednesday Jul 2013

Posted by thepoetsbillow in Blog

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Alanis Morissette, Culture, entertainment, ironic, irony, lyrics, music, musical qualities, poem, Poet, reading poetry, revision

 

Alanis Morissette’s 1996 hit “Ironic,” a catchy song that doubles as a true/false quiz for every middle school English teacher in America, is finally ironic.

 

Sisters Eliza and Rachael Hurwitz have righted all of Morissette’s wrongs in a cover called “It’s Finally Ironic,” with lyrics like “He won the lottery, and died the next day/from a severe paper cut from his lottery ticket/It’s a black fly in your chardonnay/that was specifically purchased to repel black flies.”

Check it out at Salon!

 

Poet El Jones on Violence Against Women

16 Tuesday Jul 2013

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ban, chris brown, Culture, education, El Jones, entertainment, halifax, jian ghomeshi, music, nova scotia, petition, poem, Poet, poet laureate, Poetry, poets, protest, Society, violence against women, writers, Writing

El Jones, poet laureate of Halifax and Women’s Studies professor at Acadia University, joins Jian to express a more nuanced take on the controversy that has erupted around a planned Chris Brown concert in the Halifax area.

The Dartmouth, N.S. show is set to feature controversial R&B singer Chris Brown, who pleaded guilty to assaulting his girlfriend, pop star Rihanna, in 2009.

Check out the radio interview on the show Q with Jian Ghomenshi

Listen to this Poets Journey

09 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by thepoetsbillow in Blog

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abusive stepfather, american music award, art, Article, books, celebrities, entertainment, Internet, Lit. Journal, literature, music, online journal, poem, Poet, Poetry, reading, reading poetry, teen motherhood, Writing

Joy Harjo’s ‘Crazy Brave’ Path To Finding Her Voice

In Crazy Brave, Joy Harjo recounts how her early years — an abusive stepfather, the hardships of teen motherhood — suppressed her artistic gifts and nearly broke her. “It was the spirit of poetry,” she writes, “who reached out and found me as I stood there at the doorway between panic and love.”

Joy Harjo has released four CDs, and won a Native American Music Award for Best Female Artist of the Year for her album, Winding Through the Milky Way.

Joy Harjo has released four CDs, and won a Native American Music Award for Best Female Artist of the Year for her album, Winding Through the Milky Way.

View caption Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie

 
 

Poetic Forms Part 7: Blues Poem

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

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art, Article, Blues, books, Internet, Lit. Journal, literature, music, online journal, poem, Poet, Poetry, reading, reading poetry, Writing

One of the most popular forms of American poetry, the blues poem stems from the African American oral tradition and the musical tradition of the blues. A blues poem typically takes on themes such as struggle, despair, and sex. It often (but not necessarily) follows a form, in which a statement is made in the first line, a variation is given in the second line, and an ironic alternative is declared in the third line.

African-American writer Ralph Ellison said that although the blues are often about struggle and depression, they are also full of determination to overcome difficulty “through sheer toughness of spirit.” This resilience in the face of hardship is one of the hallmarks of the blues poem.

Some of the great blues poets include Sterling A. Brown, James Weldon Johnson, and Langston Hughes. The title poem of Hughes’ first book, The Weary Blues, is also an excellent example of a blues poem. It begins:

"Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
          I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
          He did a lazy sway . . . "

Another example is Brown’s poem “Riverbank Blues,” which begins:

"A man git his feet set in a sticky mudbank,
A man git dis yellow water in his blood,
No need for hopin', no need for doin',
Muddy streams keep him fixed for good."

Contemporary poet Kevin Young is continuing the tradition; his most recent book, Jelly Roll, is a collection that draws heavily on the blues tradition. Young is the editor of the recent anthology, Blues Poems.

 

Article from Poets.org

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