When Words Speak Pt 3: Character Shifts

My Fellow Contributors,

Here is the third part of my own going series "When Words Speak". In this episode I go over Character Shifts and how you can use this technique to give your performance a unique feel and energy. 

This week I perform William Carlos Williams poem, "This is Just to Say".

Next episode I will be going over Pacing. 

Undoubtedly Yours,

Bermuda the Man

When Words Speak Part I: America by Allen Ginsberg

My Fellow Contributors,

Below is the first episode of my new video series called "When Words Speak". This series will go over verbal techniques you can use and master in order to effectively convey the meaning of a poem through your performance. 

In this episode I perform "America" by Allen Ginsberg. 

Cheers

Letter To the Leaves: God Does Exist. And It's Spelled W-E

My Fellow Contributors,


One of the books I am reading at this time is Eckhart Tolle's book, The Power of Now. This book was actually recommend to me by Slick a few months ago and I have been devouring it every since. The tagline for the book is, "A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment". I recommend it to everyone who is searching for their own inner voice and presence.

I bring this book up not to discuss philosophies, but because their is a section of the book that I feel resonates with what I have discussed in several of my previous blogs.

Here is the section I want to point at today,

"Don't get stuck on the level of words. A word is no more than a means to and end. It's an abstraction. Not unlike a signpost, it points beyond itself. The word honey isn't honey. You can study and talk about honey for as long as you like, but you won't really know it until you taste it. After you have tasted it, the word becomes less important to you. You won't be attached to it anymore. Similarly, you can talk or think about God continuously for the rest of you life, but does that mean you know or have even glimpsed the reality to which the word points? It really is no more than an obsessive attachment to a signpost, a mental idol....

...If you had a strong aversion to the word God, which is a negative form of attachment, you may be denying not just the word but also the reality to which it points. You would be cutting yourself off from the possibility of experiencing that reality."

 Jack and I were having a conversation after the last open mic. You see he's been writing a bunch of physics poetry lately and asked me if I believed in God. I told him, that I was raised Roman Catholic and my views aren't as simple as whether or not there is a God. I told him that I view organized religion as a medium through which I can find my spiritual enlightenment or presence.

In rebuttal he told me that I had to acknowledge that science is the only universal truth. That God is only used as a weapon against groups and that it is worth not believing in because it is only used for evil. He told me that he was raised christian but has now come to the realization that there is not a God.

I read the passage from The Power of Now after this conversation, and felt that these were a few lines I should have quoted in defense of my position.

The way I see it, God is only a signpost used to get everyone connected to a universal truth. Jack, and other people like him, are asking the wrong question. Its not whether there is a God, but why would a God be created.

I was doing some research for an article on the relationship between business and religion. In my research I came across an article about Karl Marx. He held the view that God was created by men, and was used to keep the laborer in the chains of the capitalist. I agree with Marx in one respect, that God was created (the word and the way its delivered) but rather than a means of oppression it is a means of liberation.

It is a way for all of us to "be on the same page"; to focus our attention on one idea. Rather than getting caught up in the how of religion, we need to get focused on the Now of religion. The feeling that it makes us experience and the sense of freedom, warmth, love, and tenderness it opens us up to feeling.

So don't get caught up in words. Don't get caught up in other peoples opinions or in their religion. Everyone is searching for the universal truth. They are searching for their own god-essence and they are teaching us that we are all connected.

Physics, God, Science or Religion. These are only tools teaching us to transcend.


As Always

Undoubtedly Yours,

Bermuda the Man

Letter To the Leaves: You Don't Need a Masters to Understand This

My Fellow Contributors,

I am graduating in less than a week. I think it is finally sinking in that I will no longer be an English-centered undergrad. This is a bit disheartening but I have a theory. My theory is that I don't need to be an English grad student to further my understanding of Literature. I have this crazy idea that I over these past five years I have been trained to read, analyze and think critically about any piece of literature that is put in front of me.

And it's this idea I want to explore in this blog.

But before I begin I have a question for you.

What added value does reading a book in a classroom give you?

If you take away the other students, many of whom have misinterpreted the text to begin with, and the professor, who if he or she is any good will undoubtedly remain silent and let you struggle through the material on your own, what are you left with?

Yourself and the book.

And this is exactly my point. One thing about English, which sets it apart from other majors is that you don't need someone over your shoulder explaining the importance of this symbol or that. Now it should be noted that of course, someone who is practicing English and reading texts on a daily basis will be better at it than someone who is not putting in as much time. And it does help to have a tour guide. Who helps you to pick out the books you should read, tells you which aspects you should look out for and who provides accountability. Also you need to be trained. You need to have the right tools in order to complete the job.

But after four years of English classes, I don't need a tour guide. I can venture out on my own and find my own enlightenment through books just like countless others. And so can you (and when in doubt claim Reader Response).

So even though I am going to be studying law next year, I am still going to be studying literature and learning and growing as an artist. I may not have a master's at the end of it, or a Ph.d (although a Ph.d in American Literature is on the to-do list), but I will have that knowledge. I will earn those merit badges you get after reading a work from the literary cannon.

This pursuit is further made possible because of the internet. Rather than having to go to a professor to put a particular image in context, a quick Google search and a peruse of the hits will give me the answers I need.

I guess this blog seemingly is just a long-winded denial of the claim that learning stops once you have a degree.

Because, at least for me, the most important thing college taught me wasn't anything in a book. But how to get knowledge out of a book and convey that clearly and confidently.

The books will always be there. Just be driven enough to read them. Stay on top of yourself. There is no reason why you can't have the knowledge people go to grad school for. No reason why you can't understand civil war poetry. No reason why you can continue your love for literature and pursue other interests.

English is not physics (although many of us would have you believe that). It's just a few lines on a page which put pictures in your head.

So I challenge you to go out there read valuable books and teach yourself the wisdom in words.


As Always

Undoubtedly Yours,

Bermuda the Man

Letter To the Leaves: Bald is Beautiful

My Fellow Contributors,

You will be happy to know that I have completed 50 frames of my novel. However now that I am at this point it is clear that I am not ready to wrap up the first draft quite yet. I don't want to limit the narratives running through my novel so I am going to keep writing frames until I have fully resolved the conflicts I have created.

This week I want to shed some light on the type of person I am in the hopes that you might better appreciate the message I am trying to convey to you, my Fellow Contributors, with this magazine and my blogs. And being that this blog is my soapbox, I wanted to give you a personal story so that the next time you are feeling down, you have something to read that leaves you saying someone is here with me and understands what I am going through.

When I was two  years old I was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder called Alopecia Areata Universalis. This disorder changes the body's immune system and causes the victim's hair to fall out all over their body. I don't have hair on my arms, legs, head or face. I don't even have hair in my ears or nose. There is nothing medically wrong with me other than that my hair doesn't grow.

Growing up was interesting to say the least. You can imagine what a challenge facing my classmates in elementary and middle school was with patches of hair missing (It wasn't until 8th grade that I decided to shave my head and go bald. My hair has not grown back since). I can still remember all the questions everyone would ask me:

Are you sick?

Did you know you look like Powder?

Do you have cancer?


It wasn't until I went to college that I discovered the one thing that had made me feel like an outcast, was what made me beautiful, unique...Bermuda.

Being bald is what gives me character.


My loving Mom deserves a lot of credit (and thanks and love) because she took the time to educated my teachers and classmates about my disorder. She supported me and told me that just because someone is different doesn't make them bad or ugly or any less deserving of respect.

And when Nick, Slick,  Jack and I started this magazine it was this ideal that became the re-bar of our foundation. That different is not bad or any less deserving of respect.

Being different is building the HOOVER DAM.

Bering different is landing on the MOON.

Being different is ending SEGREGATION.

Being different is accepting GAY MARRIAGE

Being different is electing a CATHOLIC or BLACK for president.

Being different makes AMERICA great.


Not being able to grow hair on my arms, legs, head and face has made me more aware of the inner uniqueness each of us possess with our voice.

There is a story behind each of us. A story waiting for words to express it.

I dare you to share yours.




As Always

Undoubtedly Yours,

Bermuda the Man






P.S.

If you know anyone with Alopecia Areata or you yourself have it, please email me at

Bermuda.Editor@gmail.com

I would love to answer  your questions and provide support in anyway I can.

For more information on Alopecia Areata please click the following link, NAAF

"I Sound My Barbaric Yawp..." In Free Verse, of Course

Folks,

This week I read a lot of Civil War poetry. As some of you might know, this is kind of my area of expertise – I’m a big fan of Whitman, Melville, Crane, and all those guys (and gals, of course; I love me some Emily). The reason I bring this up, though, is that I’ve spent most of my time studying the poetry of the latter half of the Civil War – more specifically, post-Whitman free verse; however, much of the poetry I’ve studied over the last week was the poetry from the first half of the Civil War. This was a switch for me, and the first thing I noticed was the use of form.

Poetry from the first half of the Civil War often appears to be written in what could be called “borrowed verse.” Early American poetry and the poetry leading up to 1865 was almost exclusively written in sonnet form or other forms of traditional British verse. Many of the canonized poets such as Longfellow, Bryant, and Emerson employed British verse into their poems – the subject matter of the poetry, in addition to the mirroring of the form, sort of echoes the thoughts and sentiments of the British romantics. The transcendentalists are especially guilty of this. In this regard, it appears that the American poets of the early 19^th century were finding their poetic sea legs, so to speak; the poetic tradition had not yet taken a uniquely American turn in terms of form.  

Whitman, however, changes things on many levels. Whitman may not have been the first to ever experiment with free verse, but I think it is safe to say that he is definitely the front runner, if not the forefather. Whitman’s revolution in poetic form begs the question of what exactly is the role of the form of free verse. Prior to the breakthrough in this poetic form, traditional forms were used for specific purposes: epithalamion was used for weddings; sonnets were used to express love; villanelles conjure up musical festivity, and so on. Free verse opens up a wide variety of possibilities, in that the tradition is not grounded in formal purpose, per se.

Since 1865, we have seen free verse grow into a widely popular mode, if not the mode, of American expressivism in the contemporary poetic tradition. Free verse is a playground of sorts, I suppose, in that there are no latent fetters in the form. An interesting question arises out of this freedom. What is the purpose of the form of free verse? If traditional poetic forms are dictated by occasion or thematic intent, then what are these things for free verse? Let me know your thoughts. If free verse seems appropriate for the form of your response, please use this form. If you want to leave a comment in Rhyme Royal, though, that’d be awesome.   

Until Next Time,

J