Böcker av Martin Bidney

As a songwriter, I think about music every day . . . As a poet, I value melody and rhythm and harmony.My adventure in this 2-month verse journal is to unearth an ancient treasure unknown to most poetry lovers, the Greco-Roman "alcaic" stanza form. There had been earlier rediscoveries of this appealing melodic achievement-in Britain, Germany, and Russia-but I don't know of any other poet writing alcaics today. Here you will find 99 new original poems in the old-time rhythm, plus 5 alcaic art songs I've composed, with the sheet music included. You can do all sorts of things in this adaptable stanza: create a memoir episode, a childhood awakening, a tribute to a mentor-friend, a nature sketch, a painting or musical work, a satire, a therapeutic sermonette, a hymn, a psalm. And I'm guessing you'll want to sing the "alcaic revival" music, too.

For 600 years, roughly 1050 to 1650, Persian-writing poets created a renaissance of lyrical expression, a treasury of entertaining and thoughtful wordsong. I've selected 15 poets who amaze me from Joseph von Hammer's encyclopedic German anthology of 1818. I translate 7 poems by each poet, and in my "interviews" I reply to every poem in my own original verse, adding further context in a little "blogatelle." Each poet is a friend to me as well as a mentor. What unites them is an exploratory tradition. All are influenced by Sufi mysticism, an outlook based in Islam but trying to transcend it and all other scriptural religions. Love is the predominant focus: love for God and creation, for heaven and earth, for men and women, for wine and travel, and always for vigorous, mellifluent verse.

MORE FOUR! is a celebration of metric music and rhythmic wordsongLike my sister and our late parents, I'm left-handed. Four are the beats of a march. I love to imagine somebody inventing the rhythm LEFT right, LEFT right. A left-handed violinist and vocalist, I'm fond of march music: ONE two, THREE four! The human heartbeat. And yet there are highly diversified "tunes" you can play with a four-beat line, as I'll show you. Inspired by mentors from Gustav Mahler to Gertrude Stein, by 79 years of living and listening, I'll make my four-beat rhythms do things you never heard before in this festival of original poems!

In my 79 years of life so far I've probably never had a more productive period than the joyful month in autumn I spent creating this collection of 96 poems. As an explorer of rare verse forms and gorgeous rhythms in danger of going extinct, I was beside myself with joy in its creation. I invite you to join me on this spirited journey tuning into the beat, the music, and the flow of an unusual rhythm which proves itself wonderfully versatile and modern.