Skip to main content

Fado-Masochist

I confess to being a fado-masochist. Fado, the traditional song of profound, passionate, melancholy expression, born in Lisbon's taverns in the old Mouraria district, has found a new voice to keep its traditions alive: Mariza (pictured above).

In the week where we recollect the 250th anniversary of the terrible devastation (100,000 dead, and a giant tsunami) of the Lisbon Earthquake of November, 1755, which helped inspire Kant's ideas of the sublime, the T.S. Review is glad to report that Lisbon has recovered, if it can produce such vibrancy.

Mariza, who performed last evening at the Barbican in London, is a visually striking, engaging, and fiery entertainer, who literally had her audience begging for more.

Her songs, often reinterpreting the fado form for the 21st century, and using the poems of Pessoa, remind poetry how its best course is to utter out from the self, fully integrating with life, without let or hindrance, and yet keeping the shape tradition allows.

With some of the strength and humour and presence of a Belafonte or Piaf, Mariza is that welcome and always unexpected stage presence, where presence itself is redefined in the act of its appearance. Sublime, indeed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".