National Poetry Month I: Westron Wynde
So I've always had this issue where America celebrates Poetry Month in April while the UK does it in October. Now I used to do it in April, because April really is the cruellest month (if you're an university undergraduate with impending exams) and that used to mostly work out well, except for last year where I had a finals-induced freakout and the poems petered out after Day 26. However, it has occurred to me -
- that I could just have two poetry months!
I've decided I like having themes, so the theme of this new Poetry October is song. There's an odd disjunction in popular opinion between poetry and song, with the former being 'literary' and the latter not so much. Which is unfounded, really, because so much of poetry is about rhythm and musicality, and also in the Middle Ages if you were an awesome poet you expected to get your stuff put to music all the time. Like Chaucer. Chaucer knew his tunes. Also it gives me a lot of editorial leeway, and I am practising my editorship these days.
Today we shall start off small and sweet, with this early 16th-century folk song:
Westron Wynde
Anon.
Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine?
Crist, that my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!
The music from 'Westron Wynde', though likely of secular origin, has been reused in several masses, and also in Igor Stravinsky's cantata of the same name. Here is a YouTube cover by Francesco Barbieri (I'm guessing not the Baroque painter of the same name).
- that I could just have two poetry months!
I've decided I like having themes, so the theme of this new Poetry October is song. There's an odd disjunction in popular opinion between poetry and song, with the former being 'literary' and the latter not so much. Which is unfounded, really, because so much of poetry is about rhythm and musicality, and also in the Middle Ages if you were an awesome poet you expected to get your stuff put to music all the time. Like Chaucer. Chaucer knew his tunes. Also it gives me a lot of editorial leeway, and I am practising my editorship these days.
Today we shall start off small and sweet, with this early 16th-century folk song:
Westron Wynde
Anon.
Westron wynde, when wilt thou blow,
The small raine down can raine?
Crist, that my love were in my armes
And I in my bedde again!
The music from 'Westron Wynde', though likely of secular origin, has been reused in several masses, and also in Igor Stravinsky's cantata of the same name. Here is a YouTube cover by Francesco Barbieri (I'm guessing not the Baroque painter of the same name).