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[02] introduction by norman weinstein |
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Fly Right
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Monday, 26 December 2005 07:53 |
thelonious: a book of monk
volume one
Keep on knocking. Someone is bound to answer. So spoke Monk, and he keeps talking, in and out of character, in John Sinclair's poems. So listen, and you ll discover, beyond Monk's voice, or Sinclair s, the voice of jazz as a culture on the move. These poems, at their best, aren t just referential to the terms of Monk's music. They are poetic enactments of the intelligence count how many times intelligence is struck like a drone note here, Sinclair's take on epistrophy Monk's music exemplified. As Monk's compositions are problems without quick solutions, stories without obvious endings, so these poems have that degree of open/ endedness.
Sinclair is an astute tracker of the gists and piths, brilliant twists and turns, that are at the heart of Monk's achievement. Read the high points of this text who knows, ruby, my dear, monk's mood, epistrophy, well you needn t aloud while Monk's recordings of these numbers move in your mind. Sinclair is faithful to the spirit of Monk in/forming each, yet dares to go his own sweet way. This is obvious in the shape of Sinclair's writing on the page. How can these regularly positioned triadic stanzas be true to Monk's asymmetries and angularities? Sinclair works this by offering words, images, rhythms, from pathways of consciousness not usually taken, stalking dark city alleys round midnight, hearing the gospel truth strains in everyday urban roar.
These poems are an instruction in hearing Monk's music penetratingly. The poet reminds us of Monk's credo: Use notes differently. What poet of vision has ever sought more than to use words differently? And what follows after such novel use of note and word? To say a word is to strike a chord on the keyboard of the imagination, wrote Wittgenstein in Philosophical Investigations. Both Monk and Sinclair hammer chords on imaginal keyboards to wake us up, to startle with the unexpected beauty of the everyday, to compel us to pay attention to city music as the basis for living well, to remind us of
the challenge of invention
with no idea of what might come next,
no pattern to fall back on
This is the thrill of high-wire walking avant garde art so often promises and rarely delivers. Delivered it is here. So much so that it is easy to forgive the areas of Monk's ouevre humor and TinPanAlleyphilia Sinclair doesn t fully address. What matters: Sinclair hears Monk knock at the door of the poet's thoughtful heart, the heart that connects sympathetically to brain instantly. He answered that call. Now it's our turn.
Norman Weinstein
15 October 1994
3.1.687 |
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