direct link: Starfire (33 min)

Happy Solstice! 

It last happened 372 years ago - a rare confluence: a lunar eclipse and winter solstice. In the night (at 3:18am EST), a total lunar eclipse, the full moon passing through the darkest shadow of the earth (and at 6:40am EST), winter solstice, when the northern hemisphere's axial tilt is furthest from the sun, the longest night and darkest day of the year.

The astronomy of the day is worth pondering on.

For the last two years, I have released a poetry album at solstice.

This is so I can offer a little Solstice gift to you (free to download, or listen, as you wish).

To commemorate light in the beautiful loving darkness.
Wishing you joy, love, health, success, wealth.

warm regards,
Brenda

Starfire (33 min)

This album began with the first track, 'Disappearing,' which I wrote in a hammock in the hot, sultry summer. I recorded it a few times, just for fun. Then layered the readings, added music and became intrigued.

Thus began an odyssey of readings, recordings. All tracks, except one, are with music of Jamendo musicians, to whom I am so grateful.

If you wish, you can download any tracks or the whole album.

Mostly I'd like you to enjoy, and to be inspired.

An album of love poetry.

___________________

Disappearing: Brenda Clews, poetry, voice and mix; Matt Samolis, music, a section from: "Trio for Flute, Cymbals, and Glass": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/49419 (with permission)

What Would I Write If I Could Write: for J.P. Brenda Clews, poetry, voice, mix; music, Roger Stephane, 'Lointain,' from his album, "Picasso": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/62258 (with permission)

Drumbeat: Brenda Clews, poetry, voice, mix; music, Chriss Onac, track "TRANSE" from his album, TRIBAL: http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/23954 (with permission)

Glint: Soundtrack for my videopoem, Glint, which is also a videopoem at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D3vTpxfFuU Backgound music is "Madrox, in my head," by Arena of Electronic Music, a Creative Commons license: http://www.jamendo.com/track/477297 (with permission from his band administrator)

Hieroglyphic of Purple Lotuses: Brenda Clews, poetry, voice, mix; music, Ka eN, "Oriental Dreams": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/42617 (with permission)

Starfire in the Night: Brenda Clews, poetry, voice, mix; music, Frank Harper's 'Moon's Eve,' from "Fingerstyle - Set 1": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/62508 (with permission)

What Is Underground Is What Holds Us: Brenda Clews, poetry, voice, mix; music, LaiYouttitham's song, "Alone," from his site: http://www.laizmusic.com/mp3-download.php (with permission)

Salt of the Sea: Brenda Clews, poetry, voice, mix; music, Livio Amato's, 'Dream Opening,' from his album, "Sensitivity": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/62537 (with permission)

My Body Is A Word: for I.B. Brenda Clews, poetry, voice, mix; music, Lena Selyanina's piano solo, 'Summer Morning,' from "Snowstorm Romance": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/73627 (with permission)

Veils To Clothe Venus: Brenda Clews, poetry, reading, mix; music, Buz Hendricks, music: http://www.somewhereoffjazzstreet.com/ (with permission - a section of a track he created for the Venus Suite of Poems - a track at Jamendo).

Ink Ocean: Brenda Clews, poetry, reading, mix; music (mixed by me), Alphacore, 'side_project,' from "Side Project": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/33504, and Extra's, 'The Quickest Vessel to a Distant Future,' from "Water Every Full Moon": http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/45140 (with permissions)
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With special thanks to Robert A. for his invaluable advice on recording.

                                          

Here is the recording I will include in my upcoming album, 'Starfire, a collection of love poems,' which I'll release on Jamendo when it's finished:


direct link to Veils to Clothe Venus with music (2:33min)

Buz Hendricks created an original track for the Suite of Botticelli Venus Poems. I have used a section of the ethereal, jazz-influenced, sensual track he sent me for this particular poem. You can hear the whole piece with poem and music (his mix) at Jamendo.

Veils to Clothe Venus is the 10th track in the album of poetry performance recordings I am working on. Music from a Jamendo musician accompanies each of the readings in the album. While I still have to write the poem for the last track, and the muse can be quirky, I am hoping to have the album available for listening and free download on Jamendo within a few weeks.

In the process of creating a listenable track, I recorded the little poem maybe a dozen times. Since I liked the reading alone and with Buz's music, I offer a shortened voice-only version of the same reading above. The simple, plain, unadorned voice:


direct link to voice-only version of Veils to Clothe Venus (1:48min)


Veils to clothe Botticelli's Venus

A poem arises catching the energy, imparting meaning, hesitant, faltering for words, images, rhythms.

My love for you.

Slowly, through endless revisions,
shaping this love.

Disparate layers emerge, an undercurrent infiltered with strands, approaches, understandings, memories, hopes, desires,
the way the sensual mind composes.

We create ourselves through each other. It's more complete,
who I am with you.

Not a version of reality but a veil of being,
the poem of love that is
a transparent garment we clothe ourselves with,
our metaphors and concepts of a world

which resists
our gaze.

Writing is a deeply
meditative act.

A language of love.

A listening.

From Women In Summer - the process of painting

                                          

Veils To Clothe Botticelli's Venus by Brenda Clews


Music by Buz Hendricks: Somewhere Off Jazz Street.
Buz created beautiful ethereal, jazz-influenced, sensual music for a poem I composed out of my Suite of Botticelli Venus Poems. The original track is at Jamendo. I reworked a portion of that track of music with a new reading of the central poem of the Suite tonight:

Veils to clothe Botticelli's Venus

A poem arises catching the energy, imparting meaning, hesitant, faltering for words, images, rhythms.

My love for you.

Slowly, through endless revisions,
shaping this love.

Disparate layers emerge, an undercurrent infiltered with strands, approaches, understandings, memories, hopes, desires,
the way the sensual mind composes.

We create ourselves through each other. It's more complete,
who I am with you.

Not a version of reality but a veil of being,
the poem of love that is
a transparent garment we clothe ourselves with,
our metaphors and concepts of a world

which resists
our gaze.

Writing is a deeply
meditative act.

A language of love.

A listening.

From Women In Summer - the process of painting

                                          

direct link to video: Theo's 'Art of Form' at SPAZ I O dell'arte

Theo Willemse's sculpture show, 'The Art of Form,' at SPAZ I O dell'arte in Toronto, September, 2010.

Theo Willemse: theowillemse.com

Videoed and edited by Brenda Clews: brendaclews.com

Music by Buz Hendricks: somewhereoffjazzstreet.com
The track is from his song, 'Night Voices,' on "Stories from Midnight Streets": jamendo.com/en/album/25297
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For this video I culled images from nearly 60 clips taken over 2 days - the reception, and the much quieter next day. The show was magnificent and I hope this short video gives a sense of Theo's work in the wonderful gallery at SPAZ I O dell'arte. Besides the basic editing of multiple clips, I added quite a few filters, the latter to better accompany Buz's fabulous music. Enjoy this memento!



                                          

direct link: from the Suite of Botticelli Venus Poems

a love story...

...where Botticelli's Venus, ideal of beauty, the goddess who ushered in the Renaissance, bucks her scallop shell and in pursuit of erotic passion, experiences love in the world with its betrayals, deceptions, rejections... how our hearts of purity suffer like Venus pursuing the intrigues of passion, its tempests, for the love in her life...

...how the poetry of our life is our love...

...this love story interweaves the purity of Botticelli's Venus, and Venus Pandemos of myth, her lover Mars, the story of Psyche and Eros, a personal story, and how we clothe ourselves with shimmering presence,  'translucent robes' of poetry:

beauty, fragile, on the lip of, edges, knowing loss's inevitability, a flower blossoms, scented, fragrant and soft vivid colour of petal drifting away, it can't remain, you knew, Botticelli, and

yet, she is, borne by the Zephyr on the scallop-shell and wrapped in veils of flowers by the Horae

washes of colour, seaspray of roses,

translucent robes

poetry we weave ourselves with

...

Writing is a deeply
meditative act.

A language of love.

A listening.

__

This recording is a collaboration.

I recorded a poem drawn from my manuscript-in-progress, The Suite of Botticelli Venus Poems, and sent it to Buz Hendricks (whose track, 'Because' I had paired with my prosepoem, 'Light Catches Diamonds').

Buz composed a beautiful jazz/orchestral score. I listened in wonder- he is very gifted. He writes: "I started with a piano and just improvised while listening to the poem. The same for all the other tracks, just played to your voice. That's why it was able to ebb and flow with your voice."

I have a videopoem planned for this piece, too.

Buz Hendricks' website: www.somewhereoffjazzstreet.com

Buz on Jamendo: http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/Somewhere_off_Jazz_Street

The cover is a detail of a painting of mine.

From Women In Summer - the process of painting