Interval

THE BOOK: Interval: Poems Based on Bach’s “Goldberg Variations.”   

PUBLISHED IN: 2015

THE AUTHOR: Alice B Fogel.

THE EDITOR: Tim Schaffner.

THE PUBLISHER: Schaffner Press. http://www.schaffnerpress.com/ PRIZES: Interval won the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature and the New Hampshire Literary Award for Poetry

SUMMARY: From the book jacket: “In this series of poems responding to Johann Sebastian Bach’s spectacular Goldberg Variations, New Hampshire State Poet Laureate [2014-2019] Alice B. Fogel has taken possession of a 274-year-old masterpiece and, with the theme of spirit and embodiment that music—and life itself—evoke, has rendered from it a luminous new “translation.” Bach created the Goldbergs’ 32 sections using nearly all the styles of western European music at the time; Fogel responds in kind with a range of contemporary poetic styles, including narrative, lyric, and experimental, all confined within the 32-line structure she has borrowed from Bach’s 32-bar format. Interval mimics the “baroque” effects of overlapping melodies and harmonies by layering sound, syntax, and sense in multiple voices exploring self, identity, and being. But readers don’t have to be familiar with Bach to appreciate the book. In truth, Bach’s Goldberg Variations took possession of this poet; Interval is the result, and it makes its own music.” (The book includes a longer description of the music as well as the genesis and development of the series of poems.)

THE BACK STORY: At that point, I had written three books of poems, mostly nature-based, and I was looking for a way to surprise myself, both with form and content. I didn’t want to keep hearing my own voice, making the idea of fictional characters or personae seem intriguing to play with, and I thought using musical forms (because I love music so much) would be a good challenge. First I looked at musical traditions from around the world, but I quickly realized it would take a decade to study even one of these to the point where I really could fully integrate it, so there I was back with the old dead white guys. The Goldberg Variations (aside from being by Bach, who just slays me) are a full-length work made of many disparate but linked parts–kind of like a poetry book–so it spoke to me on many levels for this project.

As I wrote, a rule I gave myself was to let it unfold piece by piece and as a whole over a long time. I listened to countless versions of the Goldbergs constantly, wrote countless drafts in my notebook, and did not let myself even type anything up for at least 3 years. I wanted to see how they were developing and what the themes and shapes would be. I never showed any of this to anyone. Overall, it took about five years to become a manuscript.

WHY THIS TITLE?:

Music is a construct of intervals and durations. So is life! These poems explore liminal states of being–intervals between life’s more stable and defined (but not necessarily defining) stages.

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WANT TO READ IT? Well, readers of poetry would be the obvious answer, but the poems contain imagery, musical sound, architectural form, and character sketches, any of which might interest others. Or the book could appeal to those who don’t tend to read poetry but who have an interest in music, or in philosophical explorations of existence itself (spirit and embodiment).

REVIEW COMMENTS: 

Baron Wormser: “[Fogel pays] attention to how one thing becomes another in the sense of transformation. . . . This creates a sort of dance-like, fugue-like quality in her poems where one form or state of being turns into another before our astonished eyes. Hence the musicality and intensity of her work reveal to us through the ministry of language the enormity of what is there in each moment of life—its presence and its subtlety and its force.”

AUTHOR PROFILE:

Here is a somewhat expanded bio. For more, please visit my website, http://www.alicebfogel.com.

Alice B Fogel served as the New Hampshire poet laureate from 2104 through 2019, during which time, among other projects, she initiated a state position for a youth poet laureate, & organized a state-wide traveling exhibition of visual-artwork-and-poetry collaborations.

Since Interval, her latest book is A Doubtful House, which explores in an invented form of language and use of the page what happens to boundaries—psychological, emotional, physical, even syntactical—when people live together for a long time. Her earlier, third, book, Be That Empty, was a national poetry bestseller. She is also the author of Strange Terrain, an 8-step “workshop” on how to appreciate poetry without necessarily “getting” it—which offers inroads to poetry useful for both readers & writers, & which can be used by individuals, book groups, professional development programs, & classrooms (or for poets to give their bewildered family & friends). Nominated for Best of the Web & twelve times for the Pushcart, she has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, & a residency at the Carl Sandberg National Historic Site, & her poems have appeared in many journals & anthologies, including Best American Poetry, Spillway, Hotel Amerika, The Inflectionist, & The Southern Review, from which she won the Guy Owen Award for her poem “Saturn.” Charles Simic has said about her that “her poems shine with intelligence. Brooding and meditative, Fogel is a poet alert to every nuance of the inner life, a true phenomenologist of the soul.”

Alice works one-on-one as an academic support coach for students with learning differences at Landmark College in Putney, VT. An as-yet unpublished manuscript, Nothing But, is a series of meditations on consciousness in which each poem is an “indirect consideration” of a single contemporary abstract expressionist work of art that disrupts our “stream of consciousness” or cognition by confronting us with the supposedly nonrepresentational.

Alice hikes woods & mountains whenever possible, & in recent years has, so far, walked about 1000 miles of the Appalachian Trail.

AUTHOR COMMENTS:

Since I think I covered some of this earlier, I’ll include this link, which leads readers to further discussion of the project. It also give a little description of each Variation’s music and poetic piece. Here is an example. (Some of the voices are non-human.)

http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2015/04/book_notes_alic.html

(Example) Var. 10: Moths. Var. 10 is a fugue with a number of voices—hence, a whole group speaks. Like caterpillars becoming moths (and unfortunately, these rather pompous guys much prefer their more substantial pre-chrysalis selves to the flitty wings resulting from their metamorphosis), the music of a fugue is more procedural than any one defined form.

SAMPLE: 

http://notellmotel.org/poem_single.php?id=277_0_1_0

WHERE TO BUY IT:

Rather than supporting Amazon, please request books at local bookstores; they are almost always willing and able to order them for you. My local NH bookstores would be glad to mail copies to you anywhere in the US: Toadstool Books https://www.toadbooks.com/ or Gibson’s Bookstore https://www.gibsonsbookstore.com/

PRICE: 15.95 paperback

CONTACT THE AUTHOR: visit http://www.alicebfogel.com or write me at alicebfogel@hotmail.com.

NOTE: I’ve done quite a few programs with a professional pianist (usually chosen by the host site) playing some of the Variations which I then follow with the related poems, discussing the music and poems with the audience. It has made for many enjoyable evenings. If anyone is interested,  please let me know.