Lunch With Harold and Jane

Yesterday we had lunch at Spring Street Cafe in Sylva with Harold and Jane Schiffman, who spend summer and fall in their mountaintop home in Robbinsville. Harold has set my Alma poems to music in a cantata titled Alma (see sidebar with cd cover and link to Harold's website) and last year premiered in New York City a song cycle for soprano and piano based on my "Blood Mountain" sequence from Black Shawl. He also composed cello music for the cd of Wake that Spring Street Editions released several years ago.




He's interested in seeing new poems, hoping he hears music rising out of them. I'm hoping so, too. Here is one of the new poems I gave him, in the chapbook Lit by Language, published for this year's Asheville Wordfest. The theme? Azaleas. (If you would like to order a copy of this chapbook, please contact Laura Hope-Gill at laurahopegill@aol.com)






RAPT

for Chris, former student

“Nothing exists I can’t azalea with a glass of water.
Should there be a three month grace azalea for sex?...
I blow smoke at the azalea and write
letters to imaginary lovers, azaleas. "

C.S. Carrier, from Azalea

I too love how azalea
seduces me,
makes me want more of her
coming out, debutante
no matter how many years

she has been resurrected
from mulch. What azalea desires
I can’t fathom, other
than just enough water
to suck, enough
humus to snuggle her roots
into. So, let azalea be,
kindling again atop Gregory Bald.

In the valleys’ front yards,
let her bloom white as doilies,
or Barbie-doll pink.
Let her dare to bloom gypsy magenta.
Don’t make her sell perfume
& cheap whiskey, or be a verb
curing heartburn or hangover.

Azalea bloomed overtime
in my hometown. Sure,
I took her for granted,
but that was before I climbed
Gregory Ridge and
beheld her as flame into
which I could disappear,
turning to ash on the wind.

When azalea blooms now
in our mountains, I dream
about vanishing into her
small throat, my poem
like a proboscis
listening,
listening,
rapt in the sound of azalea.

IVY, SING IVORY

This is an old poem, from WILDWOOD FLOWER. I began it as we drove past the Tuckaseegee River, dogwoods blooming on the ridges, the rapids in the river echoing their wind-blown blossoms. "The church bell rings Easter all morning," but so do the trees and the wildflowers. The redbud outside is blooming now. The landscape is waking us up, saying "Come out, look around, wake up."


Ivy, Sing Ivory

1
Like women, the dogwoods go nowhere
and wait for their season, the sun coming back
like a sea-roving laddie. By May Day

the ground will be white with their fare-thee-wells
no man will heed, his boots grinding
a path through the leaf mold. Such pretty things,
Mama said, touching the ivory lace
of my wedding clothes. What good are they
to me now? Every night I see stars falling,
white petals into the wilderness.

2
The church bell rings Easter
all morning like, clear-broken, ice
and beneath it the almost unmoving water.

3
White water charges the banks
after rain has been heavy.
I hear it wherever I go,
like the swirl of my dress
as I stand up suddenly,
kicking the chair from my path.

4
Leaves rasp underfoot half-a-day’s
climb to the summit. A possum sways
four branches heavenward.
Silver bells,
what sweeter music
than silence? The snail travels
slowly toward water that’s been gone
for centuries, rocked by the tidesong
of wind sweeping leaves back
and forth through the gap.

5
Down to the gristmill I follow the creek swollen
so loud by rain I can’t hear myself
sing ho-a-honey-ho. Lady Luck’s
left me a buckeye to warm
in my pocket all day like an earring
the old woman pulled from her dirty pack
whispering, “Filigree.”
“Gypsies,” my Mama said,
pointing me back to the crochet hook
stuck in a tangle of tiny white stitches.
“It’s too hard,” I cried, throwing down
all my fancywork. Fast as I could
I set out for the top of Bald Ridge,
asking] why can’t I keep walking out of this
endless blue sky into somebody else’s
life, fiddles and red skirt
that tickles the floorboards till
dawn. But I knew I could never go far
from the sound of this creek tumbling down
to the lilies of Cullowhee Valley
that bloom like a garland of lace
on my doorsill. Oh ivy, sing ivory,
rosebud and thorn! If only this afternoon
really were endless alongside the gay Tuckasegee
where now I ask, watching its broken light leaving
me, why can’t this water run smooth as stone?

The City of Győr honors Harold!

From the Mozart Cafe we walked a short distance to the City Hall where Harold was presented with an official citation of appreciation by the city of Győr. We were ushered into what appeared to be a conference room with a stunning batik-looking mural hanging on one of the walls. I never found out the medium in which it was created, but its vision of the city of Gyor was so much more engaging than other such examples of civic art. Győr's roots can be traced at least to the Celtic invasions in the 5th century B.C., if not to the Bronze Age; digging deeper into the murky past, some sources suggest that Győr may have been settled as early as the 3rd millennium B.C. when the Celts were moving into Hungary. This mural captures the colorful and tumultuous history of the city.




Harold holding the citation given to him by the Minister of Culture, a gracious man who gave his speech in Hungarian, which was then translated by one of his young women assistants. We all smiled when she referred to Alma as "the Apple Cantata." Alma, of course, means "apple" in Hungarian, and I like thinking of this cantata in that way.







Harold, David Zsolt Kiraly, and moi.(David's family name is Kiraly which means "king" in Hungarian) David is a composer, having written ballets in particular. but he is also the president of the Kiraly Music Network (KMN), an organization he founded to connect foreign (mainly American) composers and Hungarian orchestras.

The Mozart Cafe

At noon we met Harold and his wife, the pianist Jane Perry-Camp, at one of their favorite establishments--The Mozart Cafe. Only, no Mozart was filling the coffee house. It sounded like either American pop or country music. Oh well, the pastries on their shelves were to die for, and we spent a good while deciding which ones we wanted. We decided the appropriate choice was the Alma (apple) pastry, with delicious nuts and ground seeds (maybe coriander?) in it, along with espresso, brought with tiny bowls of whipped cream. Harold was happy with it all.



So was Jane!



And then Judy, Connie, and Szidi arrived.



Here is Szidónia Juhász, , fluent in English, who has done so much to facilitate Harold's projects in Hungary, translating liner notes, as well as my own poems for the Gyor program to follow in the evening. Szidi lives in Budapest. She and the Schiffmans have become close friends over the years. She has promised to record my poems in Hungarian.

Arriving in Győr for Harold's "Alma"

(
harold schiffman-composer.com)


As those of you who have been reading my blog know, we traveled to Hungary for a special celebration, the European premiere of my dear friend Harold Schiffman's Alma cantata, based on poems from my collection WILDWOOD FLOWER. Coinciding with his 80th birth year, Harold Schiffman's cantata Alma (2002) was to receive, in Győr, Hungary, its European première in a performance by the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hungarian National Chorus, Mátyás Antal (for whom the work was written) conducting. The première was scheduled as part of the orchestra's regular subscription series. Mátyás Antal's recording of Alma (North/South Recordings), released in 2004, has drawn high critical praise.



Harold and his wife, the pianist Jane Perry-Camp, live in Robbinsville for part of the year and early on fell in love with mountain music and culture. Harold is a Greensboro native, with strong ties to my alma mater, UNCG. His settings of my poems give me goose-bumps each time I hear them, and I had goose-bumps big time when I heard the magnificent presentation of this canta on the evening of Thursday, 16 October 2008 in Győr's János Richter Hall.

First we had to get to Győr, however. And this was not easy. The train station in Budpest was confusing, and since few of the people working there knew English and we knew no Hungarian, Jim had written in Hungarian our request for tickets, always a good idea when traveling a country where the language is a mystery. Finally we found the Vienna Express, which made one stop along the way--in Győr---and settled in for the ride. I love riding trains. I even began a poem while we traveled through the Hungarian countryside.


Now the Vienna train picks up speed
and suddenly haybales large as my father's
rush by. Then gone as quickly
as now it seems he was. Verges
clustered with glowing leaves, faster
and faster, the villages strewn over
hillsides like seed pods, the ongoing
fields of corn weathered by now into
dun-colored tapestries....




We got up bright and early next morning to explore the small city, which as the following photos make abundantly clear, is both charming and beautiful.



(Jim checking out the beer prices at a restaurant!)



(If you look carefully through the trees you can see a statue of a man astride a beast part horse, part fish!



(Morning sun over the city)



(I want a writer's studio here, where I can look out of all those windows, watching everything going on, and never writing another word! Who would need to? Welcome, writer's block! I'd have the city of Gyor to observe all day long.)



The colors of the buildings in Győr captivated me.









And so did the color of the paprikas!

Arriving in Gyor for Harold's "Alma"

(Go to haroldschiffman-composer.com for information on how to obtain a copy of "Alma.")

As those of you who have been reading my blog know, we traveled to Hungary for a special celebration, the European premiere of my dear friend Harold Schiffman's Alma cantata, based on poems from my collection WILDWOOD FLOWER. Coinciding with his 80th birth year, Harold Schiffman's cantata Alma (2002) was to receive, in Győr, Hungary, its European première in a performance by the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hungarian National Chorus, Mátyás Antal (for whom the work was written) conducting. The première was scheduled as part of the orchestra's regular subscription series. Mátyás Antal's recording of Alma (North/South Recordings), released in 2004, has drawn high critical praise.



Harold and his wife Jane live in Robbinsville for part of the year and early on fell in love with mountain music and culture. Harold is a Greensboro native, with strong ties to my alma mater, UNCG. His settings of my poems give me goose-bumps each time I hear them, and I had goose-bumps big time when I heard the magnificent presentation of this canta on the evening of Thursday, 16 October 2008 in Győr's János Richter Hall.

First we had to get to Gyor, however. And this was not easy. The train station in Budpest was confusing, and since few of the people working there knew English and we knew no Hungarian, Jim had written in Hungarian our request for tickets, always a good idea when traveling a country where the language is a mystery. Finally we found the Vienna Express, which made one stop--in Gyor---and settled in for the ride. I love riding trains. I even began a poem while we traveled through the Hungarian countryside.



Yes, that's corn! And field after field of it passed by our window.

We got up bright and early next morning to explore the small city, which as the following photos make abundantly clear, is both charming and beautiful.



(Jim checking out the beer prices at a restaurant!)



(If you look carefully through the trees you can see a statue of a man astride a beast part horse, part fish!



(Morning sun over the city)



(I want a writer's studio here, where I can look out of all those windows, watching everything going on, and never writing another word! Who would need to? Welcome, writer's block! I'd have the city of Gyor to observe all day long.)



The colors of the buildings in this small city captivated me.








And so did the color of the paprikas!

Off to Hungary!

On Tuesday I head to Hungary for the European premiere of Harold Shiffman's wonderful Alma Cantata that is based on poems from WILDWOOD FLOWER. The American Premiere took place at FSU in 2006; these photos are from that event. Harold's website, haroldschffman-composer.com, will give you a definitive glimpse into this important composer's life and work. I will return on October 22.



(Harold and I discuss our collaboration before the premiere of "Alma.")



Onstage after the performance with mezzo-soprano Nadine Cheek Whitney and Harold Schiffman)



(At the reception afterward with Nadine, Harold, and conductor Alexander Jimenez. )


From Harold's website:
Coinciding with his 80th birth year, Harold Schiffman's cantata Alma (2002) will receive, in Győr, Hungary, its European première in a performance by the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hungarian National Chorus, Mátyás Antal (for whom the work was written) conducting. The première is scheduled as part of the orchestra's regular subscription series. Mátyás Antal's recording of Alma (North/South Recordings), released in 2004, has drawn high critical praise.

The concert will take place the evening of Thursday, 16 October 2008 in Győr's János Richter Hall.



Streets in the center of the old city of Győr,* which
are but a short walk from the János Richter Hall.
Győr, Hungary (16 September 2007)
Photograph by Szidónia Juhász