Further to last week’s post in which I mentioned about intending to record a poem for the Belfast Poetry Jukebox, I did indeed record one of my poems. I found the quietest time to make the recording was at midnight and the quietest place was in my walk-in wardrobe with its door closed. The street I live on is perpetually busy so around midnight is the point at which there can be 5 minutes of silence without a car or van driving past.

Then my parents visited this weekend and I asked them to set my combi boiler to do heat as well as hot water. In doing so I scuppered any chance of making a recording with as-close-to-silent level of background noise as possible. Downstairs the freezer has a perpetual hum. Upstairs the combi boiler constantly hums. There is nowhere I can record where one of those hums does not appear on the recording. Applying a noise reduction filter works to a degree, but tends to deaden the vibrancy of the sound.

We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky,

and lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye.
(from Stories of the Street by Leonard Cohen on AZ Lyrics)

So I'm going to try taking my recording out onto the street at midnight! I'll be away from the humming and, if I don't read too loudly, I shouldn't wake the neighbours! Of course, Sod's law says it'll be raining so that'd scupper a silent background noise, but maybe the circumstances will come together :)

Chasing the Poet

I was watching the ITV quiz show, The Chase last night and a question came up about a poem often read at weddings. The poem was i carry your heart with me and the question was who wrote it. The three options were T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, and E. E. Cummings. I knew it wasn't by Eliot and, not recognising the poem, I guessed at Yeats since he seemed more like a wedding poem kind of guy. The answer turned out to be E. E. Cummings.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
(from i carry your heart with me (i carry it in) by E. E. Cummings, from the Poetry Magazine website )

The contestant answered Yeats and the Chaser answered Cummings. The Chaser said that he knew it was Cummings by the lower case i as the first word in the title. Which made me ponder, if I was a contestant facing that question and unable to see the text, I'd be discriminated against for not being able to see a clue that I'd have known for sure meant Cummings wrote the poem. Oh well ... I'll face that obstacle if I ever get on The Chase :)

#RecordingPoetry #CombiBoilers #TheChase #EECummiongs