Questions? Comments? -K. E. Dennis
Poetry of Ireland (Irish poets writing in English)
Between the Jigs and the Reels
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Carrying the Songs
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O, I don't give a hoot anymore about it being bad form to follow up one's own posts: it's
deja vu all over again in s.c.i., w/ the endlessly reiterated
racist drivel reminding me
of when I first decided to launch a poetry thread.
I think I'll try that again.
On 10/5/2008 2:51 PM, I wrote:
...the Carolina Chocolate Drops, 3 phenomenally talented young
musicians who are reviving the stringband trad'n of the Piedmont region
of the Carolinas - that heartland of the hybridsation of the Scots-Irish
fiddle trad'n w/ African-American banjo & dance styles (which includes
bluegrass).I can't help drawing the attn of our resident fiddlers (Michael McC, are
you out there?) esp. to this gorgeous jig, w/ Rhiannon Gibbens on the fiddle:
Snowden's Jig [2 audio files]:
http://ia311208.us.archive.org/1/items/ccd2008-07-27.flac16/ccd2008-07-27t09_64kb.mp3
http://whitneyhl.googlepages.com/carolinachocolatedrops-snowdenJig.mp3
[snips]
As a coda, I offer this by Moya Cannon:
Between a jig and a reel
what is there?
Only one beat
escaped from a ribcage.
Tunes are migratory
and fly from heart to heart
intimating
that there’s a pattern
to life’s pulls and draws.
Because what matters to us most
can seldom be told in words
the heart’s moods are better charted
in its own language -
the rhythm of Cooley’s accordion
which could open the heart of a stone,
John Doherty’s dark reels
and the tune that the sea taught him,
the high parts of the road and the underworlds
which only music and love can brave
to bring us back to our senses
and on beyond.