Poetry

DUNYI ZHAO: TO THE LOTUS FLOWER

Zhou Dunyi was one of the famous chinese poets in historic times. (1017-1073) who wrote an elegant poem about his love for the lotus flower. The lotus flower is famous for the so called "lotus-effect": liquids just pearl away from its surface without leaving dust or dirt behind. So the flower growth out of muddy, swampy surroundings and still is presteen clean and beautiful. So this poem is a metaphore for human life: even if you deal with hard and difficult circumstances, you can shine and be an nice person. The poem is recited by Ting Ma.

ROBERT GRAVES: FRIDAY NIGHT

Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, critic, and classicist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works. Graves's poems have never been out of print. He also wrote novels such as I, Claudius, King Jesus, The Golden Fleece and Count Belisarius. Graves was awarded the 1934 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for both I, Claudius and Claudius the God. I set two of his uncountable numerous poems to music: Friday Night + Always. Friday night is read by Ray Treacy

ROBERT GRAVES: ALWAYS

One more poem of this great writer, put to music during early 2012. Always is recited by Micheál Matthaess.

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: SPRING AND ALL

William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, closely associated with modernism and imagism. In 1915 Williams began to associate with a group of New York artists and writers known as "The Others." Founded by the poet Alfred Kreymborg and the artist Man Ray. A few years later, Williams published one of his books of poetry, Spring and All, which contained the classic poems "By the road to the contagious hospital“ which is recited here. In 1922, the year before Williams published Spring and All, T.S. Eliot published The Waste Land which became a literary sensation and overshadowed Williams's very different brand of poetic Modernism. The poet and critic Randall Jarrell said of his poetry, "William Carlos Williams is as magically observant and mimetic as a good novelist. He reproduces the details of what he sees with surprising freshness, clarity, and economy; and he sees just as extraordinarily, sometimes, the forms of this earth, the spirit moving behind the letters. His quick transparent lines have the nervous and contracted strength, move as jerkily and intently as a bird“.

This poem is read by Theaadora Nikolova, american musician.

YVETTE COETZEE: DIE PLAAS

Yvette Coetzee: she is living in Berlin (Germany) and working as an actress, writer, director and poetess. She comes from Pretoria (South Africa) and spend quite a part of her childhood on her grandparents farm in Namibia. She is writing a lot about the impressions from that time, and so she wrote the poem "Die Plaas" (The Farm) in africaans. Click -> this to see one of her agent´s profile or see her website at www.yvettecoetzee.de.

The Poem is recited by the author herself: Yvette Coetzee.

WOLFGANG TUPEIT: TWENTYEIGHT FINGERS

The artist Anish Kapoor is creating objects, that seem to come from a differend world: enormous installations, created by the use of avariety of materials, very often colored in intense and still soft toned colors. – Wolfgang Tupeit visited his exhibition in the Haus der Kunst in Munic, Germany in 2008. – He handed me some notes about his impressions from that surreal ecperience. I put those to music ... and ... well. The result is the track called Twentyeight Fingers.

This spontanous form of poetry is read by Micheál Matthaess.

OLGA MANJI: PAN IM PARK

In Greek religion and mythology, Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs. He has the hindquarters, legs, and horns of a goat, in the same manner as a faun or satyr. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, and wooded glens; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. This poem is inspired by an sculpture of this enigmatic charater which is located in the baroque gardens of Schloss Schwetzingen, Germany.

The Poem is recited by Gerhard Piske, german actor and director.