THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, March 1, 1970 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Sunday, March 1, 1970 music A subtle singing character GUILD HOUSE 802 Monroe - r By GARY BALDWIN Bob White continually wins over his audiences at the Ark, and Friday night was no excep- tion. White has been a frequent vis- itor to the Ark over the past couple of years, and each time he performs he seems to get a better response. That response has been justified, since White has noticeably improved even since he played last September. White began the evening with a traditional song about s e a 1 hunting, followed soon after by an interesting logging song cal- led "The Jam on Jerry's Rocks," which he sang a cappella. As White sang the Carter family song "Railroadin' on the Great Divide," one was immed- iately aware of the quality of his voice. Though his range is not particularly wide, the tonal qual- ities of it are full and moving. His voice seemed to reach out into the rest of the room and draw you nearer to him. Even through his smooth tones, he was able to project the some- times stark, earthy feeling of Woody Guthrie's nasal sound. On the same song White also demonstrated his ability to pick material that people particul- arly like to sing along on. The inside of the old house (the.lo- cation of the Ark) rang as the audience sang "Railroadin' on the great divide/ Nothing around me but 'the Rockies and sky./ There you will find me as years go by/ Railroadin' on the great divide." Toward the middle of the first set, White was joined by Ann Arbor guitarist, Christopher De Loach. White is a very capable guitarist, but the addition of De Loach gave some songs in- creased dimension, giving more variety to the performance. White showed his versatility as a musician playing autoharp, and picking a pretty fair banjo. He concluded the first set on the light side, doing a talking blues number on the banjo, a children's song "Little Birdie," and finally, the "Tennessee Waltz." The second set was equally as fine as the first, beginning with a song by Main Smith from San Diego called "I'm Your Pal Not Your Man." White also played some nice guitar on a blues song, as De Loach sat out. He followed that with a morbidly humorous song call- er "Sweeny the Barber," about a barber who cut his custom- ers' throats with his razor, tip- ped back the chair, sliding them througha trap door tomthe basement where his wife made meat pie of them. White was equally comfort- able in performing each of his wide range of songs. He is able to perform with or without ac- companiment in the tradition of the Canadian lumberjacks, mov- ing through talking blues just as well. Soft ballads, and hum- orous songs alike, blended per- fectly. Seldom does a folk singer have the ability to present so many different types of songs, still maintaining the coherency White was able to give -his music. Those who went to see White With the hope of reaching en- lightenment, or hearing s o m e great philosophical message were probably very disappoint- ed. Likewise, you' would not be likely to be driven to move- ment. White's music is much more subtle than that. He has taken traditional and (com- posed) folk songs and given them a great deal of character, not unlike Guthrie did when he sang other people's songs. The songs are not always fresh; but his interpretations are. As White sang "Satisfied Mind," one realized that he sings even the most familiar songs with a fullness and sensi- tivity equal to anyone perform- ing folk music today. NOON LUNCHEONS: MONDAY-"What's Happening in ENACT?" Speaker: ED CONNELL, Landscape Architecture TUESDAY-"Kibbutz: Model for American Communes" Speaker: MENACHEN ROSNER, Israel (Director of major Kibbutz Research centers) 11 I, the mini ad 1965 SUPER HAWK. $300, well taken care of miles. Will set to highest offer by Nov. 1. Andy-761-5930 Z2 With maxi power. {Michael!!! (It here) I Homecomings are always better than onel I love ynu! lap FP Read and Use DAILY Classifieds -Daily-Richard Lee Bob White poetry and prose Asmall dose of poetic vision MICHIGAN UNION Services and Recreational facilities will be open at their regular hours during spring recess March 4-8 By MARY RADTKE Coming close to a poet is a freaky thing- everything is a little bit off-balance, as if the pieces of the world were being put together in a different order and all the perspectives distorted. At the Robert Bly-Donald Hall symposium Friday, the concentration of poets both in the audience and behind the microphone was high enough to be tangible; and the result was an unusually intense exposure to the poetic point of view. This was not poetic vision in the popular sense, the one that sees all the world as an image and molds forgotten details into the paths of imag- ination. This is something else - a way of enjoy- ing ideas that does not analyze or qualify, does not break them into parts that are small and human, but instead takes them whole and celebrates their more than human hugeness. The topic of the symposium was the Spanish poets and their superiority to American poets, but the discussion centered around Groddeck's distinction between "poetry that brings us news of the human mind" and "poetry that brings as news of the universe." Early plays used real gods as characters, Bly argued, but with Shakespeare came a human- izing influence that replaced the gods with kings who were higher than most men but con- siderably lower than gods. This narrowing pro- cess continued through Ibsen, who wrote about the middle class - "no kings, no upper class, just middle class, just you and me" - down to moderns like Miller who focus on "one ord- inary guy." At the same time this narrowing process was focusing more minutely on man and the human mind, Bly continued, a second tradition in poetry was appearing, a return to ideas of the universe, as exemplified by Goethe, Wordsworth, Blake, and Yeats. This is the direction in which, American poetry is slowly moving, Bly feels, and he pointed to Gary Snyder and Galway Kinnell as hopeful signs. Bly does not doubt that this, direction is the right one and has a few devastating remarks to make about Robert Lowell and the New York Review of Books who persist in upholding the "boring," intellectual "poetry of the human mind." He read a poem by Lowell with a flat, dis- gusted voice and commented, "No gods in it, no microbes in it, no worms, no crocodiles- nothing but this damn obsession with his cor- onaries." Hall offered a clarification of the "poetry of the human mind" saying, "we have to get out of the ego self and into the anonymous self and the universe. We have to let the wind blow through our mind - 'not I, not I; but, the wind.' " But the poetry which brings "news of the universe" -is of a higher order. The Spanish poets, Bly said, work with the universe and with things that are bigger than man much more readily than American poets do. The question of why this is so he threw out to his audience and the tone of response showed how closely his argument was being followed andaccepted. Concensus was that the faculty of the Spanish poets rests on the Catholic and Moorish tradi- tions of the country. "They have these wierd images of Jesus and the Virgin Mary," Bly said, "and that deep old Arab mystery tradition." He marvelled over an Arab poem, "The bird of sleep was about to build a nest in my eyes, and then he saw my eyelashes and flew away -he knew all about nets." "Think of it," he said, "he has concentration right down to the eyelashes. That's fantastic." He also read from the haikus of the Japanese poet Issa, praising their ability to "zero in on an object." Bly made the point remorselessly, "It never occurs to western poets that a fly could be ask- ing for mercy-They're too ego-bound." And so the symposium went-a celebration of the wholeness of an idea. The idea could be challenged, I suppose, by Robert Lowell. or any- one else with a fondness for intellectual, man- centered "poetry of the human mind." But that would be to fragment and to qualify-to pare away its sweeping scope and its hugeness. And none of the poets in the audience seemed in- clined to do that. III 4,i 'p r DAILY OFFICIAL BULLETIN The Daily Official Bulletin is an official publication of the Univer- sity of Michigan. Notices should be sent in TYPEWRITTEN f o r m to Room 3528 L. S. A B 1d g ., before 2 p.m., of the day preceding pub- lication and by 2 p.m. Friday for Saturday and Sunday. Items ap- pear once only. Student organiza- tion notices a r e not accepted for publication. F o r more inforna- tion, phone 764-4270. MONDAY, MARCH 2j Day Calendar Physics Colloq.: R. Diebold, Argonne Nat'l Lab., "High Energy Photoproduc- tion Experiments" P&A Colloq. Rm., 4:0O p.m. Geography Lecture: Dr. J. Schaake, M.I.T., "The Urban Runoff Process" Rackham Amph., 8:00 p.m. Placement Service GENERAL DIVISION 3200 S.A.B. Interviews at General Division, can 763-1363 for appointments. WEEK OF MARCH 9-13 Vista Reps., 3524 all week, no appts, nee. (Continued on Page 8) FOX EASTRNThEATRj RTO FORXVIL18GE 375 No. MAPLE RD.-769-1300 ENDS TUESDAY Mon.-Fri.-7:10 & 9:05 Sat. & Sun.-1:30-3:20 5:..7:10-9.'05 I I Next: "z Starting Next:ZMarch 64 Al f, EUGENE ORMANDY, Conductor. Beethoven Program: Symphony No. 1 in C ma- jor, Op. 21; Fantasia in C minor for Piano, Chorus, Soloists, and Orchestra; with RUDOLF SERKIN; BENITA VALENTE; MARY BURGESS; JON HUMPHREY; LESLIE GUINN; and THE UNIVERSITY CHORAL UNION-SMALL CHORUS. 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