Review of "Word Troubadours" by PJ Swift and Ellyn Maybe

PJ Swift and Ellyn Maybe, Word Troubadours (2024) 32 pages, poetry, $10.00 PDF; $15.00 Physical book. Order here.

Ellyn Maybe is a spoken word artist I first came across when she was in the Los Angeles area about 15 years ago working in a creative group centered more or less around Beyond Baroque that included the likes of Yvonne de la Vega, Ray Manzarek (formerly of the Doors), and Michael C. Ford who took Beat concepts, wrapped them in a confessional flare with a punk rock graffiti edge, and rapped them - sometimes whimsically, sometimes cooly, sometimes sing-songy - over jazzy soundtracks. This is the first of her works I have encountered as a purely on-the-page experience. This is also a collaboration with PJ Swift.

This creation is titled Word Troubadours and music is therefore an important theme throughout. Music, singing, performing, visual art - this collection is the space where poetry intersects with most other forms of artistic expression. PJ Swift presents the metaphor of poem as a Rave and Ellyn suggests that life is a Musical. I personally would argue against both concepts as being either misconceived or over-romanticised, but each to his/her own. Still, that gives you an idea of the highly unconventional, almost dreamscape of these poems. And I'm always excited by hyper-imagined, nonconventional mentalscapes in poetry.

Ellyn Maybe includes a kind of personal Odyssey with "Ellyn Maybe's Dream" where she travels to Prague - whether only in dream or also in waking life, I'm not sure - and has a transformative experience that involves a gargoyle. 

Some phrases I wrote down that stand out:

"We resist the temptation to crawl into the world/ and pull our psyches over our heads./... We need our exuberance more than our math." - "Cinema Dance" - Ellyn Maybe

"I know how men make women wear armor of all kinds" - "I Heard What Sounded Like A Song", Ellyn Maybe

"Perhaps life is like a multiple choice question my friend/ The answer's in a circle dance with no beginning or end." - "Somewhere in the Sky", Ellyn Maybe

"an era whose burdens/ have granted no choice" - "Creation of Myths" - PJ Swift

"avalanche in the bones of the land" - "Train", Ellyn Maybe

May these Word Troubadours keep on soothing our souls with their songs and stories of our time for the ages to come.

Spoken Word Review: Ellyn and Robbie's "Skywriting With Glitter"

I first met Ellyn Maybe around 2012. She was formidable then; even more so now. Read my review of her "Rodeo For The Sheepish" album for more of those details. So it's been a while. The world has changed a lot since then. Maybe has moved on from Beyond Baroque into a new scene, poetics in general has continued to change, and Spoken Word has gained more respect as an art form that is both poetry and music - its own subset of art.

Accordingly Maybe has upped the ante since "Rodeo For The Sheepish". "Skywriting With Glitter"  features Robbie Fitzsimmons' ethereal music and vocals. In some ways, this album is much simpler and more emotional than "Rodeo". It's like a dream, a whimsical fairy tale a la "The Princess Bride" , The Little Prince", or "The Point".  This is immediately apparent with track titles like "Myth", "What Color is Your Parachute", "The Girl of the Wishing Well", "The Life of a Raindrop", and "Kingdoms in a City Lost to Time". This isn't merely Maybe reading her poetry over Fitzsimmons music, however. Sometimes Fitzsimmons sings haunting lullabies.

Like many lullabies we were sung as children, these whimsical fairy moments have dark underbellies. I can't decide if these are slightly masked emotional introspection or densely weaved commentaries on modern society. At times they could be either or both. The girl in the wishing well nightly "looks history in the eye" and "chews on life a bit". "The Life of a Raindrop" could be a tongue-in-cheek description of recurring depression or angst. "Onset" is clearly about a midlife crisis. "Kiko of Greenville" is an interesting comment about social media. "Anybody" is about the posturing we as humans do to be accepted by those who surround us. But even in its darkest moments, the album never becomes full blown negative. "Kingdoms in a City Lost to Time" proclaims "you are all that you need."

Fitzsimmons' piano and vocals are intrinsic to the overall other-worldly feel of the album. For me, the best track is "Up Is Down". This is lyric poetry at its best, except it is sung. "Dance in moonlight cloud/ forsake the human crowds/ swim into ancient gowns/ underground// there is a light above/stars in the sea of love /reflection in the scope of all you mention"... "Sink into a world of sand/ just like any other man". I could listen to this on repeat some nights.

"Skywriting With Glitter" trumps "Rodeo For The Sheepish" as well as complements it. It's hard to foresee how Ellyn Maybe can improve on her work from here, but I'm eager to find out. And I'm just as eager to become more acquainted with Robbie Fitzsimmons.

Get your copy of "Skywriting With Glitter" at CD Baby.

Spoken Word Review: Michael C. Ford's "Look Each Other in the Ears"

(Originally published on Yahoo! Voices on June 29, 2014)

"Look Each Other In The Ears" is the latest Spoken Word offering by Grammy-nominated poet Michael C. Ford. At 74 years old, Ford has had a long, thrilling career as a poet and all that experience comes to bear on this album.

Ford often reminisces about the by-gone days of Los Angeles and that makes his poetry very location-specific. Not having ever been to L.A. made it difficult to conjure the images he clearly means to draw upon. But the spirit of the poems is clear. These are dark meditations on the negative aspects of "progress" and suburban squalor. Ford certainly has the deep-seated anger and discontent common to contemporary poets. We are taken along through the L.A. of his youth and its deterioration through time in a way that is both very straight-forward and layered with multiple meanings. He rails against the loss of orange groves and the building of cookie-cutter housing developments, the growing disrespect for the arts and poetry in particular, and against his own profession as a Spoken Word artist. In one poem, he goes on a trip to Mars to escape modern American life only to find Mars has its own version which causes him to de-evolve - an interesting commentary on how Ford sees the world. My favorite line on the album is in the fourth track, "I Don't Wanna Go (Said The Suicide)":

"We stand on the bridge with John Berryman; but we relinquish our inclination to jump and it has nothing to do with religion; it is simply, as we grow older we discover there's not that much left to kill!"

The second half continues with the themes of environmental destruction and general decay but takes on a decidedly more political element. The eighth track, "(Autobiography of) An American Bomb", is unsettling but not as jarring as the Christmas jingle turned into "Halliburton's cashing in" in the next track, "Wartime Carol (Bringing The War Back Home)". The final track, "Float Of Drive (Triple Bypass)" seems to attempt to transcend the grimy negativity of the rest of the album by introducing rain. Rain makes music wherever it falls, no matter how miserable the surroundings. This is an effective metaphor for poets. As the track progresses, however, we feel that transcendence ultimately fails until we come to the final word: "over". This is pronounced in such a way as to suggest that, finally, Ford is over it all.

All this darkness is well counter-balanced by the music on the album. This music was mainly made by the surviving members of The Doors - John Densmore, Robby Krieger, and Ray Manzarek. In fact, it is one of the last recordings made by Ray Manzarek prior to his death on May 20, 2013. To support Ford's clear, enunciated performance, these men went back to their jazz roots. They were accompanied on various tracks by a full list of musicians and vocalists. Most notable of these were those who wrote the choruses and bridges: Tommy Jordan of the band Geggy Tah with Harlan Steinberger. There is even a moment of delicious scatting. The result is a light, airy, funky vibe that carries the heaviness of the lyrics perfectly.

All in all, this is a highly relevant, if slightly harrowing, album that will age very well, I think - like fine wine. There is unlikely to be a more accurate expression of the times we are currently living in. It has been an honor to listen to and review this CD (which is also available as an mp3 download).

Learn more about Michael C. Ford.

Buy "Look Each Other In The Ears" on Amazon.

Legal Disclosure: the author received a review copy or a preview of a product, service, or topic mentioned in that message. http://cmp.ly/1

Spoken Word Review: Ellyn Maybe's "Rodeo for the Sheepish"

(Originally published on Yahoo! Voices on April 16, 2012)

A friend of mine said I was brave. But we all know there's a thin line between brave and stupid, and sometimes it's hard to know the difference. When Ellyn Maybe 'liked' my Facebook page, without thinking, I offered to review her latest work "Rodeo For The Sheepish." Never mind that she is a giant in the world of poetry. And never mind that she has worked with the likes of Viggo Mortenson, performed at the Glastonbury Festival (the same year as U2), has her own band, The Ellyn Maybe Band, and eats little known poets like me for breakfast (in terms of accomplishments). Brave or stupid?

One thing I came armed with to this endeavor was a similar love of poetry and music. While much of the world sees them as the same (often using the same word for both in language), the U.S. seems singular in its need to debate the point. Are they the same? If not, which is the superior art form and why? Does it somehow degrade one or the other to suggest they are the same? There is a growing legion of poets and musicians who are answering by putting music and poetry together. Musicians provide the score of either original music or cover tunes to which poets read their work. The results can vary considerably.

Ellyn Maybe teamed up with Harlan Steinberger for musical composition and Tommy Jordan of Geggy Tah for vocals for her latest answer to that debate. The end result: "Rodeo For The Sheepish." I'll cut to the chase by saying straight out this is the best of the attempts to marry poetry and music I have heard thus far.

At first, the music strikes one as 1980s pop updated for a new generation. Listen more and it grows. All true art has the ability to grow and never stop. I soon found myself choreographing for it in my mind. What better compliment is there than that? And Maybe's poetry is a deceptively light tripping through 20th Century pop culture and bent social order. She describes with painful accuracy what it is like to be a woman in today's world and what it is like to be an artist.

For me, it really gets going in the second half of the album. Tracks like "Silvia Plath," "Room Part Two," and "People" make me come back again and again. There is a magic in those tracks - a witty turn of phrase and a compelling sense of rhythm in both the poetry and the music that reverberates through the soul. By far my favorite track, however, is "Being An Artist." It is humorous, both self-deprecating and self-glorifying at once, and an overwhelming chronicle of truth. The music is contagious, joyous, begs to be danced to. Who can resist drums like those?

When I first listened to the album, I felt a sense of disappointment. But like all truly good and challenging work, it grew on me into something fabulously unique and wonderful. The world is just a tiny little bit more joyous because this album was made.

Are music and poetry the same, or at least equal? I think Ellyn Maybe's "Rodeo For The Sheepish" answers a resounding yes! As for brave or stupid, maybe the not knowing is part of what makes life a work of art in and of itself.

Buy the CD/mp3 on Amazon.
Find Ellyn Maybe on FaceBook.

Legal Disclosure: the author received a review copy or a preview of a product, service, or topic mentioned in that message. http://cmp.ly/1