page three
From Cacaphony
To Harmony
•/BY STEVIE DANIELS
human conununity. He said
Mike Greene, Eric Gregory
and Gibbons Ruark read
cplections from their poetry
last Friday night at.Fairago.
THie audience received great
diversity of presentation,
technique and subject matter.
Mike Greene read from his
book, “The Ancients,” ac-
compsnied by an ensemble
which served as an extension
of the intensity in his verse.
The lines of Greene’s poetry
that were distinquishable
from the instruments seemed
to convey an idea of “man” as
a destructive, misguided race
set against nature. He spoke of
man coming to the island and
turning it into a concrete cave.
A dichotomy between “them”
and “us” was set up in the
later part of the prelude.
Although he argued against
the destructive nature of man
the method he chose to do so
gave evidence to that ob
jection. The cacophony of the
piano and drums over
whelmed his voice even
though it too was loud and ac
cusing. In selections from
“Personal Interests” he
stated that “men are
meaningless substance”
which contradicts the intense
anger he directed at man’s in
sensitivity to nature. Greene’s
reading lacked any af
firmation of existence except
that of his own due to the
audience’s intense awareness
of his poetry.
In a much more reserved
manner, Eric Gregory fol
lowed Greene. He read also
with intensity but in a dif
ferent degree. Gregory’s
verse assumed a definite shar
ed knowledge among the au
dience. He made allusions to
Cretan mythology, the muse
of tragic poetry, Melpomene,
and to ancient Rome. He
achieved an integration of
modern sensibilities with the
past and other cultures. His
technique was rhythmic and
emphasized thought more
than image. I would like to
point out a most effective in
stance of synaesthesia, a
device often I'^'ed by poets and
Symbolists: “the taste of rain
upon my back.”
In his last poem which cen
tered on friendship, Gregory
set up an interesting con
tradiction between nature and
that “starry nights say I
shodd be without my frien
ds.” The poe moved back and
forth between the joys of frien-
d^ip and the barriers of
alienation from those friends.
He reiterated his first com
ment at the end fy saying
starlight is ancient yet friends
are new.
Gibbons R uark, a previous
resident of Laurinburg,
followed Gregory who had
been a sedate contrast to the
opening of the reading. R uark
slowed the pace of the evening
with his humor and the con
fidence of experience before
audiences. His first 2 poems
were love poems-the former
in the subjunctive tense which
I found interesting due to the
fact that its use is largely
disappearing from the English
language. He used traditional
techniques of rhyme and terza
rima saying that he knew it
was “old-fashioned” but he
“couldn’t help it.” He used
synaesthia very effectively in
his poem, “Lecturing My
Dau^ters” and “Screech Owl
Lament for Edward Thomas.”
The later poem referred to the
death of Edward Thomas af
ter which there was “a silence
so deep you could breath it.”
Th« poem, “Night Fishing”
has been highly acclaimed
and rightly so. It is a true in
tegration of actual experien
ce, imagery, tradition and
universality of life and death.
The poem was based on a
yearly ritual from his boyhood
of blue-fishing on the coast of
South Carolina with his father.
It explores through careful
images the meaning of this
event for him, his father and
further, to the listener. The
last line, “our lines tangled
and our tackle lost” completes
and extends his thought most
effectively.
“Listening to Music in the
House of Friends” brought
together the dual joy of love
and beautiful music. Frien
dship and music fuse in the
course of the poem into a “per
fect silence that does not reign
long after imperfect music en
ds.”
Ruark had opened his
reading with comments about
his pessimistic temperament
but he proved to this reviewer
WEEKENDS ARE MORE FUN
WHEN YOU SHOP ACROSS
THE STREET FOR
BEER, WINES, COCKTAILS
IKjiilfartuSfwpe
"K’sjmger
fddiigood”
9
THUR SDAY, NOV. 8,1973
and the audience (judging by
their response) that he was
also optimistic and af
firmative of life. He revealed
this not just in his humor
(which is not always a sign of
(which is not always a sign
of joy) but in his ability to in-
and yet move it beyond the
personal. His sincere attempt
to join with the audience in
to join with the audience in
some kind of shared experi
ence by explaining his techni
que and some criticisms of his
work also gave evidence to his
positive character. The night
as a whole was a combination
of many contraries; young
and developed talent, rhythm
sfnd dissonance, and joy and
cynicism.
Review
BY LEE VAN ZANDT
Usually, the Springs
Traveling Art Show is the
favorite and most well
received visiting show to come
to St. Andrews. This year,
however, in relation to
previous years, the entire
show was a great disap
pointment. The show, com
posed of 33 works, out of a field
of 757, represents a certain
amount of talent found in the
Carolinas, yet this talent that
is shown is more of a creative
talent than an artistic talent.
Even though knowledge of the
use of varied media is shown
there is no real representation
of true artistic and
imaginative talent. Previous
shows have shown much more
refined and finished works,
whereas the work in this
years show seems to be much
more amateurish.
The show was judged by
James Monte, curator of New
York’s Whitney Museum oi
American Art, who awarded
the $1,000 purchase prize to
Dr. Joan Gregory for a small,
abstract tissue collage of a
seashore. Granted, collage
technique is difficult but it
seems to me that there were
other works of art in the show
which were much more deser
ving of first place, illustrating
a more imaginative attitude
towards art.
In recent years the Springs
Mill show has been known to
represent the top talent
around this area, and out of a
field of 757,1 wonder what the
other 724 entries looked like?..
THE LANCE
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