Monday Music

This piece from the American Life in Poetry series crossed my Inbox at just the right time today. I had high hopes for the weekend, but found my worst enemy right there in the mirror. I spent the two days scurrying and worrying about this, disgruntled and complaining about that. I feel I missed the opportunity to really wade in to what matters–to the lights of my life, to the joys of my life, to what inspires the best of my creativity. Today I’m listening to my own gifts’ example. Today I’m hearing the music anew, I came up to this site called MusicalInstrumentsExpert and it is amazing for music lovers. Today is a day to drink in deeply.

American Life in Poetry: Column 239  BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

It’s likely that if you found the original handwritten manuscript of T. S. Eliot’s groundbreaking poem, “The Waste Land,” you wouldn’t be able to trade it for a candy bar at the Quick Shop on your corner. Here’s a poem by David Lee Garrison of Ohio about how unsuccessfully classical music fits into a subway.

Bach in the DC Subway

As an experiment, The Washington Post asked a concert violinist— wearing jeans, tennis shoes, and a baseball cap— to stand near a trash can at rush hour in the subway and play Bach on a Stradivarius. Partita No. 2 in D Minor called out to commuters like an ocean to waves, sang to the station about why we should bother to live.

A thousand people streamed by. Seven of them paused for a minute or so and thirty-two dollars floated into the open violin case. A café hostess who drifted over to the open door each time she was free said later that Bach gave her peace, and all the children, all of them, waded into the music as if it were water, listening until they had to be rescued by parents who had somewhere else to go.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by David Lee Garrison, whose most recent book of poems is Sweeping the Cemetery: New and Selected Poems, Browser Books Publishing, 2007. Poem reprinted from Rattle, Vol. 14, No. 2, Winter 2008, by permission of David Lee Garrison and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

American Life in Poetry: Column 239
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

It’s likely that if you found the original handwritten manuscript of T. S. Eliot’s groundbreaking poem, “The Waste Land,” you wouldn’t be able to trade it for a candy bar at the Quick Shop on your corner. Here’s a poem by David Lee Garrison of Ohio about how unsuccessfully classical music fits into a subway.

Bach in the DC Subway

As an experiment,
The Washington Post
asked a concert violinist—
wearing jeans, tennis shoes,
and a baseball cap—
to stand near a trash can
at rush hour in the subway
and play Bach
on a Stradivarius.
Partita No. 2 in D Minor
called out to commuters
like an ocean to waves,
sang to the station
about why we should bother
to live.

A thousand people
streamed by. Seven of them
paused for a minute or so
and thirty-two dollars floated
into the open violin case.
A café hostess who drifted
over to the open door
each time she was free
said later that Bach
gave her peace,
and all the children,
all of them,
waded into the music
as if it were water,
listening until they had to be
rescued by parents
who had somewhere else to go.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2008 by David Lee Garrison, whose most recent book of poems is Sweeping the Cemetery: New and Selected Poems, Browser Books Publishing, 2007. Poem reprinted from Rattle, Vol. 14, No. 2, Winter 2008, by permission of David Lee Garrison and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Monday Music

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