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Short History of the Saxophone
Poetry. African American Studies. Lyrical, sweet, catchy, and cool, SHORT HISTORY OF THE SAXOPHONE has a beat and sound to it that is like music to the ears. The book is designed by Brian Brunius and shaped to resemble a CD case, quite appropriate considering the musical nature of Weatherly's poetry. There is no need for a painting on the cover, for the words are art enough: anything else would feel like extra. The poems can go from Zen simplicity, to being difficult and philosophical. "This latest book of Tom Weatherly's poetry is a welcome addition, as well as a cause for rejoicing, for all those who, like myself, have admired his unique work for decades. For those who may be discovering his always lyrical and insightful voice for the first time, reading his work will make you want to go home and write a poem yourself" David Amram. "Weatherly condenses the wisdom of a life and vast readings into brilliantly compact music that falls like sweat from the brow of a sage hidden in the body of a girl. It's a wise rain that makes this sound in my brain" Andrei Codrescu."
104 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 21, 2010
Short History Of The Saxophone
I read Tom Weatherly's first book, Maumau American Cantos, when in high school during the seventies in Grand Valley's Colleges. It introduced me to someone more interested in the music of language than to 'making sense.' He made sense, but concentrated on music.
It has been about 3 decades since his third book and this, his fourth, published in 2006. He has refined his craft in these poems, to an exquisite, precise use of sonic techniques which indicates a good ear. He deploys consonant and vowel sounds as if notes, syllables as chords. At the heart of his approach is the notion that 'sense' is his personality and does not need learning, save self awareness.
Read his poems aloud, relax into the natural flow. Write his verse and prose poems out phonetically if you need the visual proof of the sound.
There is much of the Imagists in his work, even more of Tom Campion, blues man Jimmy Rogers, MJQ, Bird, Roland Kirk, Paul Desmond, Eddie Jefferson and descendants, and Wallace Stevens. It's as if Tom Campian had been born and reared in Scottsboro, Alabama. Weatherly calls his approach 'eclectic guitar,' but his influences move beyond the blues, bluegrass, country, rock and roll, jazz, and Baroque of youth to embrace sounds from a mixed cultural influence.
'times' is an eloquent limn of his 'jazz' improvisations; it is an improvisation of part of one of his neo traditional renditions of blues
never muted heart
never muted heart
eclectic blues guitar
-------
The jazz improvised 'sax' solo below develops the theme, and sonic and semantic 'melody.'
-------
times
truly alone muley
knows truce death music
never muted heart
knows moody brute hurts
human blues sound blues
© 2006 Thomas Elias Weatherly
short history of the saxophone
I read Tom Weatherly's first book, Maumau American Cantos, when in high school during the seventies in Grand Valley's Colleges. It introduced me to someone more interested in the music of language than to 'making sense.' He made sense, but concentrated on music.
It has been about 3 decades since his third book and this, his fourth, published in 2006. He has refined his craft in these poems, to an exquisite, precise use of sonic techniques which indicates a good ear. He deploys consonant and vowel sounds as if notes, syllables as chords. At the heart of his approach is the notion that 'sense' is his personality and does not need learning, save self awareness.
Read his poems aloud, relax into the natural flow. Write his verse and prose poems out phonetically if you need the visual proof of the sound.
There is much of the Imagists in his work, even more of Tom Campion, blues man Jimmy Rogers, MJQ, Bird, Roland Kirk, Paul Desmond, Eddie Jefferson and descendants, and Wallace Stevens. It's as if Tom Campian had been born and reared in Scottsboro, Alabama. Weatherly calls his approach 'eclectic guitar,' but his influences move beyond the blues, bluegrass, country, rock and roll, jazz, and Baroque of youth to embrace sounds from a mixed cultural influence.
'times' is an eloquent limn of his 'jazz' improvisations; it is an improvisation of part of one of his neo traditional renditions of blues
never muted heart
never muted heart
eclectic blues guitar
-------
The jazz improvised 'sax' solo below develops the theme, and sonic and semantic 'melody.'
-------
times
truly alone muley
knows truce death music
never muted heart
knows moody brute hurts
human blues sound blues
© 2006 Thomas Elias Weatherly
short history of the saxophone
January 22, 2022
musick
bluesy subtle bluest
thence beauty blooms
sunlit bluets centre
whence brutal musics
humans vent as blues
*
ain't software
it's hardwired
and human fat
formats itself
datum by datum
sensuously fit
*
allen
props noted
trope ponds
poop trends
despot porn
*
babe ruth
rare july
*
barre lizzy hates
negro beast rages
bebop naked blues
black snaky mojos
plays white woman
*
blatherskite
genius exiles selves
belief tropes travel
beyond seeing toward
metric unseen cached
within elvish screed
*
bluets
listeria
spring beauty
*
chaos aglow earth earth
begat night bore heaven
night begat
sleep dream ammon wills
fates death doves giddy
destruction dodona oaks
the nemesis leaves sigh
and discord godly ennui
sires helen
the discord aegis greek
begat guilt troas aglow
*
cliche
eternal truth
halflie trace
*
cloud
cloud moult
float aloft
flood these woods
these flood plain woods
*
cobalt
thomas speech beyond
screed modern solace
mental cosmic truths
speaks solemn frolic
goblin proofs evolve
*
cpr
breath
compressions
did not help mama
live in herself longer
alive in herself
last kiss not save and selfish
*
cracked
crick bottom
cricket-cricket
*
de lights
spook lights the bottom
spook lights in de bottom
cap'n cottonmouf
moon lights mouf
moon light mouf
cottoneyes laugh
cottonmouf aint mean
ol' cottonmouf aint mean
spook lights moan
*
dear zan and gene
the ears can hear
the print on page
signs and symbols
thomas dead alive
nearby or distant
*
divine
created
humane
reacted
god made
man-made
*
dna
upgrade
sapient
humane
aped creator
*
elias built
model poems
skies unlit
hotly vocal
*
enter crete adept
erect word temple
poppy petal fumes
unset tunes never
better hd's flesh
*
face
the facts
your own face
a fiction actually
you shake a fist at
fake
or foolish
loss of faith
the lesson few
follow to a feud
*
fishes
theirs fit
people fidget
taught theirs fulfil
wishes lies & fitful dreams
*
fools sages gases
staff feuds elias
lying muses laugh
stage giddy human
drama class tabus
*
forty-five
in the time that she
tries to tame me shy
one more team showoff
flies teem she sashays
reeks of tampa shit
*
glory
tom weatherly seems been born
fulla redeye and corny
jokes as stale as mornin' mouf
on a grade b porno sound stage
all forlorn hope shootin' blanks
he's horny for you cheap peach
corn silk on his breath and moon
shine on you clingstone poontang
*
gravestones
no daisies
shaggy mane
mushrooms
*
hd
if my mother a lesbian
she'd love my father
marry never leave him childless
*
he a believer
teaches honor
honest speech
reckons deeds
complex ideas
simple ideals
sacred belief
aloof sapient
amebae humane
*
honeymoon weather
aria of wheedle wing
winnowing fan malaria
weather storms the wind eye
melissa moore measure
immune a moon spoor
aloof moot white seafoam
woman moth in green wine
melissa honey
*
human never knows
brute tuber tribe
dirty truth
underground roots
every dying bloom
*
hunk
muscle
tucked
inside
buicks
*
klaus likes boats
beast bites sleek
sulky looks
*
labor day 1975
we don't let the water
fall and not write something in
to honor the occasion
we work in as a language
our politics science ethics
with which we harness powers
like falls paterson fall foul
we got up read poems
each ripple the great noise
*
le chaos incandescent
engendra la nuit
la nuit engendra
sommeil rêve
mort destin
destruction
nemesis
et discorde
et la discorde
engendra la coulpe
*
la terre la terre
accoucha du ciel
ammon prescrit
des colombes étourdies
dodone les chênes
les feuillages soupirent
l'ennui divin
produit hélène
l'égide grecque
la troade incandescente
*
legendary
lines about
enlightened
doubt elias
known aloof
renew aloud
lewd renown
*
levantine
olive oil
to anoint
royal
and prophet
light
the shack
enlighten
the palace
*
liner notes
hawk keens
funky days
as funkey days
foxy ways ground
cover
*
liturgy
holy proper
appropriate
prissy mode
magisterium
imagines by
gamic magic
giddy flesh
begets jeez
jealous god
*
look away
robert scott
backbone ridge
times forget
live judge
dead witness
antique grudge
rebel war
red badge
traitors wear
*
lucy homer / dear
mammy buried near
bliss in grove street graveyard
new england new haven
*
o p e n
p a g e
e g o s
n e s t
*
ought to be
tough about
beauty boot
*
poetics
cagey moves avail
verse maker waken
whole world labia
oasis tasty
snaky music plays
*
privy prose
appropriate
poems prove
*
troy
olive oil
not helen
*
vain die
a divine
i invade
naive id
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August 31, 2014what a weird mysterious little book! i keep coming back to it and rereading it because what he's doing with sound is so interesting.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews