PoetryPoetry Workshop The Clarifying Poem
Charlie examines poetry as a way to help clarify one’s thought processes. Confronted with a road trip lasting many weeks, Charlie tries to select the accompanying soundtrack.
For the the full explanation of this exercise, listen to Charlie at the following links: stream or file download.
Below is Charlie’s sample poem.
Selecting Tunes for the Roadtrip
The trick is to anticipate yourself a thousand miles from now on a gravel road in North Dakota or under wide Montana skies. where all you’ll want is to enhance the mood. For this, choose older blues, acoustic bass to suit the two lanes, Asian flute and Native drumming, folk tunes and rare oldies that tell tales familiar, like old friends who lead you back to yourself, to that place you strive for, that place you live for, that place where the music in you
is all you need.
–Charlie Rossiter
rejected middle stanzas
nothing urban except maybe a little mellow Miles
for after sunsets
nothing current that would feel too much
like normal life
nothing cerebral why mess with all those alpha waves
kicked up by the vastness
Back to the vault.