Your Cup of Tea?
Zinta Aistars | Portage, MI United States | 04/02/2008
(3 out of 5 stars)
"The trouble with poetry side-by-side with music ... is that you have to really like both the poetry and the music. If one or the other doesn't quite jingle your bell, that pretty much closes that door unjingled. I listened to Midnight Tea on my car stereo (I do my best listening on the road), and the poetry didn't quite jingle for me... and neither did the music. But I kept listening. And I listened yet again after I had read the poetry book from which the recorded poems are hand-picked: Driving with Dante by Brian Michael Tracy. With that kind of repetition, some of this began to, well, jingle.
See, I'm the kind of poet and poetry aficionado that I have to see my words on paper to fully appreciate them. Don't get me wrong: I attend more poetry readings than any sane person I know. Or insane, for that matter. I'm crazed with the versed stuff. But if I find literary art worthy of deep and lengthy immersion, I need paper. I need typeface. I need ink. When I have that as compost, good things grow, and I can enjoy a reading even if not particularly well read. Which brings me to an important point to make: writing poetry requires one skill set. Reading poetry requires an entirely different skill set. Tragically, very few poets can read their own work. If I relied on readings alone to sell me on poetry ... I'd be strictly into prose.
Now that these important points have been made, I can explain more easily why, even though Midnight Tea did appeal to me more on the third and fourth and subsequent sips, I know that after writing this review, I will probably set that CD aside. Reading the book of poetry helped. Quite a lot. I found myself listening for some of my favorite lines from some of my favorite Tracy poems (see my review on Driving with Dante). Poetry is different from prose stories, because repetition doesn't spoil the ending for you; it actually increases the anticipation. In that sense, a recording works. But, sigh, I did not find the poet to be among the best at reading poetry. His voice, pleasant as it was, tended to drone a bit, as if just this side of bored, without much inflection to give life to the lines. I was left unmoved.
But what really made this a bust for me was something that is purely subjective. The music. I stress subjective, because for those who enjoy folksy tunes, or a country twang, well, shoot, you may just skip the poetry and go straight to the tunes. Because their level of quality really is fine. Even better than fine. Renee Safier has an excellent voice, and if the music had been a different sort (you're talking to a fan of jazz here, and classical, and R & B, maybe a little soft rock), I'd be taking many more sips of this dark tea. Andy Hill has a good croon going, too, with a bit of grit to add color. But you bring in that folksy twang, and I'm sorry, but my ears start to curl in on themselves and I just have to pass. Okay, so I did enjoy Bob Dylan's "Forever Young," although even that rendition got a little twangy for me, and I heard a touch of Jerry Garcia in there, too, alongside Tracy's poetic tribute to the artist.
So there you have it, the challenge of the poet who wants to be not only read, but heard. The recording of poetry makes a great deal of good sense to me. I hope many more try. Kudos to Tracy and his musical friends. If you like poetry, and this type of music suits you, have a listen. Just because this isn't my cup of tea--doesn't mean it can't be yours.
~Zinta Aistars for The Smoking Poet, Spring 2008
"
Track Listings (17) - Disc #1