Thelonious Monk’s Notes in Translation 2

A brief note on translation before I begin. It is a truism in poetry that when a poem is translated from one language to another it becomes a new, although closely related, poem. Some words are untranslatable, others are used differently so that line meaning changes. The issues of rhythm and rhyme are even more complex.  This then is an attempt to express some of his ideas in a different language, but more so it is a riff on Monk’s notes and not an attempt to replicate them.

My father, a New Yorker, although he lived most of his life in California, used to tell me stories about Thelonious Monk. He said Monk would break into people’s upper West side apartments just to play their pianos.  Folks would come home and there he would be creating a sound portrait that spread across the walls and out their windows.  Nothing stopped Monk; he went and got what he needed for his incredible musical voyages.  I grew up hearing Monk’s music fly out of the stereo speaker my father had built. I can’t say I always understood it, but it was always fascinating. After I became an adult I began to understand my father’s passion for Monk’s sound. One of my father’s favorite tunes was Ruby My Dear. 

Reading these transcribed notes, I breathed in music and found myself making rough translations to poetry expressions.  Here then are my quick notes with notations of a very loose translation-

Play the words                                                                                                        Sing their melody

Just because you can’t read music doesn’t mean you can’t hum.

Discrimination is important (which has nothing to do with bigotry and everything to do with thoughtful choices, fresh language nuanced ideas) Pay attention, make thoughtful choices.

If the people are in bathed in the night’s darkness                                                                             turn lights on or light torches or shine flashlights                                                                                                                      or come dawn lift the drapes and open the doors      and let in some sunlight.

Haters hate, what has that got to do with you or me?

We want to speak from the heart and communicate the patterns of the words make the context croon.

If your poem has a chorus let it frame the core and lift it up and not be the crutch the body of the poem limps on.

Any single poem should not speak to everything, but every poem should speak to something. If you aren’t saying anything, have a dance with silence.

Let the white space on page and/or pauses in a poem reading breathe the imagined and related ideas not fixed in the poem.

The poem is word music so let if have tones, colors and rhythm and rock in and through them

Don’t become stiff and stilted with showing off your skill at manipulation but let it flow by showing the openness, sadness, fear, celebration etc. of your heart and spirit

Listen to the poem music of others at least as much if not more than your own, but when it is your time to blow bring your whole self to the task, don’t shy away or become coy.

Desire is intoxicating, leave the reader or listener yearning for just a bit more when you finish a manuscript or close a set.

That vision, this feeling, those desires can be turned into a poem, somebody has already done it or will do it. Your turn to scale that mountain, jump off that cliff, fly. All is possible, it’s just a matter of knowing how.

Don’t look for/find your voice. It’s already in you. Be true to that voice and sing, sing, sing.

A bit more on the man and his music. A brief article of worth  is 5 Monk Moods You Need to Live By

There are many sites with 411 on Monk but this one is really interesting with, of course, opportunities to spend, spend, spend but also links to good listening.

Do you have any tips for those struggling to make music with words or other instruments?