moon traveller herald

[Note 2010-02-26-1] “I was carrying with me a little instrument from the ‘60s” – said Sanders in Experimenting with Sappho’s poetry . The device Sanders describes could well be a Dübreq Stylophone , an early portable electronic synthesizer. In ‘’1968: A History in Verse [ p.209 ] he recalls buying just such an instrument in Montreal on Sept 15, 1968. He indicates this as the beginning of the Electronic Bard System effort.

Extra Extra: Ed Sanders’ Investigative Poetry available again - [EBSAddendum 1] - Edward Sanders’ Investigative Poetry has had a slowly percolating influence since its publication by City Lights in 1976. Over the years, Sanders has taught poetry, and this book was a mainstay of his method. It certainly influenced blues poet John Sinclair, as he began to versify on the lives of the blues saints in Fattening Frogs for Snakes [Surregional Press, 2002] – a versified history of blues. Sanders work as a poet and teacher has continued to focus on using poetry to tell history, to tell of real events, to urge the poet to do the gumshoe investigators’ legwork to’ get that story.’ You may recognize that these traits put it outside the mainstream of currently dominant trends in poetry. Example is found everyday on Garrisson Keiller’s PBS poetry reading – it’s nice but there are always words about feelings but nothing ever happens. Sanders might admit to that the investigative style is out of the ...

Sanders: I had broken up the first version of the Fugs in 1969 - I did a couple of solo records for Warners – Sanders Truckstop and Beer Cans on the Moon - then I decided I was going to fade from music - and didn’t really pay any attention to anything musical for five years. I was at Naropa Institute in 1977 - and I was teaching a course in Investigative Poetry. I had been experimenting with Sappho’s poetry - I was carrying with me a little instrument from the ‘60s – a little electronic synthesizer that weighed about a couple of pounds. Just a small synthesizer with a stylus that you made the notes with - and I had it hooked up to the old Fugs’ warm-up amp - the VibraChamp amp - which is a beautiful 1966 Fender. And Allen Ginsberg came into the room, and I sang him a version of Sappho’s Hymn to Aphrodite. And he said it was really nice and ‘why didn’t I do it like that at my reading that night?’ @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ And I had never ever-ever thought of ...

In the day, Ed Sanders’ notes on futurist performance modes of investigative poets were a resonant signal – Achilles meets RoboCop! He presented the picture of a modern troubadour wired for total full-metal cyberpoet attack. There was some useful irony after all in the idea that the work of the technology infused artist Jimi Hendrix could be used to dissemble or baffle at least the technology infused uber society of the Johnson-Nixon era military complex. Witness Hendrix’s rendition of the StarSpangled Banner. The electronic music components a’ brew in the mid-‘70s – with synthesizers on chips and associated circuitry on the shelves at Radio Shack - could carry the poetry forward. These considerations came to Sanders as he ratcheted down a rock music career, to focus on poetics. In Investigative Poetry he writes: “Poets will, in the new few years, be able to affix “tone rows” or tangible tone triggers on, say, their forearms, or knees, or thrill nodes, so that during a poem, merely by...

Around 1975 Ed Sanders included some observations on ‘the public performances of investigative poets’ as part of a lecture prepared for sessions at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado. The lecture , which called on poets to “again assume responsibility for the description of history,” became the basis for Investigative Poetry, City Lights, 1976, and a signpost for Sanders’ subsequent work – a steady stream of sidereal poetry marked recently by a four volume verse history of 20th Century America . Educated in Greek at NYU [1964], Sanders saw special lyric possibilities in combining investigation, poetry, and electronic musical instruments.

Among the formative influences in the development of western music are some that arise out of the world of the Ancient Greeks, the myth and the epic. Western literature also springs from this same font. Bards sang or talk-chanted the national epic poems describing the gods as they strummed lyres – and ‘poetry and music [were] one in execution.’ It is thought that preludes and interludes played on the lyre were part of the presentation. The term for ‘instrument’ was ‘katharsis’ taken now in English to stand for ‘relieve of emotion.’ Reed-pipes also became part of the act, especially among the Dionysian crew that followed the paths of the vineyards. “Lyric poems were so called from their being sung to the lyre.” http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/846778

When I was a managing editor on a monthly in the 1980s I had folders for every month. I embellished this one for Christmas. It shows the advent month coming full speed from off stage and emblematic train going round the tree [or tries to show said]. That train is coming! Happy Christmas, happy world! - J.V. Just a panthering train cross the swells of the carpet Through oriental valleys and their piled paisley sockets Through skyscraper wrappings the apple spanked harlotty papers and things to returnto your feet. - Christmas Locomotive , 1967 Note: Traveller visitors will notice a few broken links. We got rid of our dial up when we got rid of our landline, and Netcom closed down the original site. I thought the Web was forever. Have back up for those pics and stories, but good luck finding them, Jack.