Brook[lyn] Yung[in]

 ”B. Yung delivers passion filled poetry articulating the purpose of prose” – Natalie Stewart of Floetry.

Brook Yung. Wow. I just need to catch my breath for a second… This young man is amazingly talented! You have NOT seen spoken word poetry until you’ve seen Brook Yung. This 21 year old Brooklyn, New York native is slowly but surely becoming the new face of spoken word poetry and the conscious hip hop scene.

His astounding lyricism and even his face resemble that of the famous EMCEE Nas. It’s refreshing to see our generation produce such wise and fresh new talent.

One of my favorite poems by him is called “Winter’s Here, Summer’s Lost” and is jam-packed with so many awesome metaphors and allusions that I guarantee you will not catch everthing the first time you listen to it. ( I must admit I listened to it about 5 times back to back and I’m almost 100% sure that although I heard something new each time I still did not catch each poetic dagger he threw at me).

When asked on anonymous social quesstionare site Formspring what inspires him he replied “Life. Period.” Short answer, nonetheless very sweet. What better inspiration than the very thing we experience every second that we breathe?

Brook Yung has performed in various famous art showcases such as Brave New Voices, Sundance Film Festival, LA Def Poetry’s AllStar show and many more.

I’m very interested to know what kind of process he goes through when composing his poetry. Maybe I should ask him on Formspring

Spoken Word

If you were to ask me what spoken word was to me, I’d have to say it is like a deep exhale after a rigourous run. Spoken word is like a midnight train racing at the speed of light to a place of wisdom and truth. Spoken word is truth, in fact I’d like to think of it as life’s calculator.

Spoken word has many definitons , but whatever definition the listener generates from their experience holds the most truth.

The art of spoken word was said to be born during the Harlem Renaissance but gained most of its’ popularity in the 1960s during the African-American Civil Rights Movement. The power and passion behind the words said 50 years ago can still easily be experienced through the performances we observe today.

The Last Poets ironically are said to be one of the first spoken word groups. They emerged after the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. They used riveting verse to express their discontent with racism and discrimination against blacks and other minorities.

The Last Poets were composed of seven black and Hispanic drummers and poets. They coined their name from a South African poem by Willie Kgositsile

Believe it or not, my first encounter with spoken word was through a friend’s wall post on Facebook. She had posted a video of an artist named Shihan performing his piece titled “Love Like” where he goes on expressing the types of experiences he hopes to see in his love life.

I had seen overexaggerated images of poets wearing dark circular glasses and black caps on television and in movies but I had never actually taken the craft seriously until that night. That night, I learned that it was not just rhythmically dictated words spoken in a poorly lighted cafe, it was more than that. Spoken word was real, it was raw, and for many it was life.

As an aspiring spoken word artist, I hope to improve in my artistry and also spread the word about spoken word!

One thing I’ve noticed about spoken word that I sort of dislike is that almost every artist attempts the same type of voice intonation. I wonder if this will ever change in the future… hm *thinkingface* anyway, if you are more interested in spoken word I suggest you check out Brave New Voices and Def Jam Poetry for some amazing artists and pieces. Dont be afraid to try something out, I’m sure you’ll be insprired

Dear Music, Thanks for Always Being Around ♪♫♪

Dear Music, I dont remember the first time I heard you and I dont think I have to, but I can imagine what it was like…

I first heard your rhythms while I was still forming in my mother’s womb. You were beating vivaciously through my her heart and by teaching me how to hear you you taught me how to live.

My dear music, everytime I think about you I just cannot get you out of my mind. You have this sweet, sly way of slipping between every subconscious thought causing me to dance inside of my head and sing with my mouth closed, (only when I’m in public though.

Music, you’ve been around since time first began in fact you’ve probably been around even before then.

You remind me of memories I’ve had. Both joyous and depressing, you have a melody to match them all.

You understand me, so I never feel alone. Music, I wonder how you read my emotions, translating them into beats and harmonies so accurately. I wonder if you make the whole world feel this good or are you just this much in love with me?

Music, I know some things about you. I like it when you sing r&b medlies, when you rap and make me hip-hop to the beat, when you rock with your guitar and make me bob my head, when you humm and soothe me right to bed. I still want to know more, so more of your genres I will explore. I want to hear everything you’ve got to offer but I havent done that yet. Here’s a new form of music I really like, its in dubstep — > James Blake — “Limit to Your Love” .

From every appoggiatura, beat, cadenza, degree, exposition, and staccatto sound, I’d just like to say music, thanks for always being around.

Author Investigation: Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)

Emily Dickinson was not a Canadian poet, but she is still a worthy subject of this investigation.

In her hometown of Amherst, Massachusets she was considered an introverted eccentric but nonetheless a prolific writer, though this as many other talents was not fully appreciated until after her death. Her first collection of poetry was published four years after her death by her friends Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Lomis Todd (both well-known American writers). Dickinson composed nearly eight hundred poems but less than a dozen were published in her lifetime.

Dickinson befriended a young attorney by the name of Benjamin Franklin Newton who introduced her to the works of Willams Wordsworth  and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  As a youth, she was also interested in Lydia Maria Child’s “Letters from New York”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Kavanagh”, Charlotte Bronte’s “Jane Eyre”, and also the famous William Shakespeare. All of these authors helped to wet her appetite for poetry and literature.

Emily Dickinson’s unique writing style has given her the title as one of the most original 19th Century American poets. Unlike many conservative poets her rhyming meter and punctuation is unconventional. She is known for using imagery to highlight her different views on the human condition.

Here is a poem of her’s that I really enjoy:

HEART, we will forget him!
You and I, to-night!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me,	5
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! lest while you’re lagging,
I may remember him!

I also love love love this poem. check it out !

! 

Roses are red & violets… aren’t. Yeup. That’s my poem!

I have always acknowledged the fact that poetry can take on many different forms, (spoken word, free verse, prose) but I must admit I still had a preconceived notion of what “real poetry” was or at least what I thought it was supposed to be.

I guess the same rule applies to the way I view art. Life is art and art is life but there are certain pieces I’d see and still think “wow really? I know, but really? THAT’S art??” A little green gecko promoting car insurance instantly pops up in my mind suggesting “It’s so easy a caveman can do it” but then I remind myself that art can be interpreted in many different ways that the glancing eye will not always see or understand.

With that being said, as much as we would like to debate over what is and what is not “real poetry” the fact of the matter is that poetry can be virtually anything.

During the discussion, I found it interesting that many of us have moved past the elementary school notion in which poetry always has to rhyme but instead associated poetry with words that encompassed deeper meaning than what was presented (hmm, impressive *sarcastic shrug*).

I’ve learned that poetry like sounds (shout outs to John Cage) do not always have to mean anything. It’s almost like saying a photograph of an eraser has to have some sort of philosophical reason as to what it is and why it is there. Though it very well might have a “deeper meaning” to it it might not.

Poetry is all about self-expression. Anything can be a poem as long as it is called a poem and I don’t believe there is a clear rule to prevent this from happening (sorry to all of you conservative poetry keeners ).

But wait! If anything can be a poem, what exactly makes a “good” poem? You now the kind that get published and stuff o_O…… I guess that’s one of the aspects of art. It’s quality is always based on the eye or ear of the beholder.

I another blog exploring what makes a poem a poem or not. Check it out! http://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2011/07/thats-not-poetry-notes-toward-a-post-on-poetry-and-ontology-by-jake-adam-york.html

shhhhhhhh op #2 — Maja Ratke Investigation

I instantly saw frogs creeping from lily pad to lily pad in the middle of the night when I pressed the “Play” button for Maja Ratjke’s sound poetry piece.

No, there was no music video featuring mischieviuos frogs escaping their pond late at night on the screen but there sure was one going on in my head.

*thought* maybe that’s why it’s titled “shhhhhhh”.

From this, I discovered that sound does an excellent job of conceptualizing images in our head. This images help us to make sense on the sound we hear and interpret them in our own way.

The loud “ahhhh” sounds she makes sound as if an older frog is telling it’s younger followers to quiet down and escape smoothly. I wonder if she used anything other than her mouth to create the sounds heard in the audio.

Shhhhhhh op # 3  is quite similar, if not the same, to #2. I honeslty cannot tell the difference but maybe some crazy artist guy can.

Epitaph to Moonlight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHk_mnez4S4&feature=related

This piece, Epitaph to Moonlight, is amazing. The angelic sounds communicate something beautiful and mysterious which makes it seductively creepy. The sudden crescendos in the middle and towards the end of the piece are both frightening and magnetic. It’s almost as if you are being hypnotized by the ghosts of carolers in an abandonned park in the middle of a frigid winter night (at least that is what it looked like in my head).

Welp, with all of this imagery fluttering around in my imagination,  I want to find out what the actual intention of the piece is just to see how far from the meaning I am.

*searchesupthemeaningof’epitaph’onwww.dictionary.com*

…because I don’t know what the heck it means. Oh look! I just discovered that an epitaph is a “commemorative inscription on a tomb or mortuary monument about the person buried at that site or a brief poem or other writing in praise of a deceased person”. I guess I wasn’t as far off as I thought.

Maybe R. Murray Schaffer’s (the composer) intention was to sort off say a “farewell to the evening” as it “died” and dawn approached..? *shrugs* nonetheless, it is a pretty cool slice of sound.

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0003133

I HV DRM Investigation

http://www.cliftonmeador.com/ihvdrm.htm

I’d like to refer to John Cage when he says that “sounds do not always have to mean anything, sometimes they are just sounds” and that’s excatly what this seems like to me, just sounds.

Clifton Meador took Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous ” I Have a Dream” speech and emptied it of all words leaving it with muttles, fumbles, and the raving of the ecstatic, supportive crowd.

I’d like to contradict my intial statement and say that I do believe that there is some significance to these sounds. We do not remember or even hear the speech verbatim but we are still knowledgable of the general idea and its lasting impact on the world. We are also able to see Dr. King in a more humanistic light focusing more on where he fumbled with words than where he was exhibited strength in them. Nonetheless, the imapct of his strong moments are still reflected by the reactions of the crowd.

I wonder if the sound artist who composed this piece had specific intent in this piece. Maybe there is a deeper meaning behind it or maybe it is “just sound.”

Christian Bok Investigation

Christian Bok is the author of Eunoia (which I learned means “beautiful thinking”)  and a well-known sound poet in our city (Toronto). He is also a very talented visual artist. Here is his laser print collage titled “Ubu”.

 My research shows that he holds the world record for the fastest rendition of “Ursonate” by Kurt Schwitters which as we have seen in class is not at all easy.  The complex nature of his projects reveal the genius of his character. From what I have heard about him, he’s a little on the loopy side but that kind of thing works when you are going against the grain and being creative, so I respect that. I wonder where he gets all of his crazy ideas from and what he plans to do after his Xenotext project where he in attempting to translate a poem into DNA and into a bacterium that will “outlive humanity”… insane right? He’s still cool though.

http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Bok.php

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bok/bok-pub.html

Jaap Blonk Investigation

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Jaap+Blonk

http://www.jaapblonk.com/Pages/biography.html

Jaap Blonk’s name is extremely cool.

Jaap Blonk. Jaap Blonk. Jaap Blonk. Jaap Blonk. Jaap Blonk. Jaap Blonk. Jaap Blonk.

Okay I should stop myself now :$. Jaap Blonk (hehe).

His name alone sounds like sound art! (maybe I should have done something like that for my project) at any rate, let me talk about what I learned about this guy.

Well, he’s from Holland so I guess he’s Hollish? If that’s a word. Okay I’m having too much fun here.

Jaappy Japp (hehe) is quite multitalented as a composer, poet and a fantastic performer even though he dropped out of his mathematics and musicology courses in university. I guess you could say he became his own source of learning and used his voice to discover and create new and exciting sounds.

Jaap did this for about 20 years and in 2006 his revived studies in mathematics tickled his fancy about the potential algorithms had in aiding the composition of music, visual art and poetry (nerds for the win!).

I’ve seen him perform and I’ve got to say he is pretty good at what he does. Jaappy Jaap is like an artsy version of Frankenstein or something; the brain of a super genius, the stature of a soldier, and the creativity of a child named Tokyo Jones.

I would love to see him perfom live. Hopefully he’ll come to Toronto soon but until then, I’ll just watch him on Youtube. Take a look..!