Writing – The Philosophy of Contemporary Song

Bob Dylan’s The Philosophy of Modern Song

If Dylan died tomorrow, this book would be a fitting last word.

Rate this:

Frontwomen in Rock

I just created an iTunes playlist titled “Frontwomen in Rock” inspired by Samantha Fish’s recent live performance in Ft. Lauderdale, where she was opening for Kenny Wayne Shepherd. But it’s a very small playlist because I have narrow criteria: So I’m not thinking of your usual frontwomen — singer only, or singer and rhythm orContinue reading “Frontwomen in Rock”

Rate this:

A New Poetic Form: The Hourglass Sestina

I’ve been working with artist, photographer, and documentary filmmaker Lee Fearnside on an illustrated collection of poems titled The Fantastic Bestiary. During the writing process for this collection, I came up with the idea of an abbreviated sestina form that would usually take the approximate shape of an hourglass if centered on the page. ThoseContinue reading “A New Poetic Form: The Hourglass Sestina”

Rate this:

“Laughing with a Mouth of Blood”: St. Vincent’s Gothic Grotesque

Many of St. Vincent’s songs, videos, and stage acts use grotesque scenarios and images to examine the roles we play and the identities we create and embody as well as the anxieties associated with them. They employ “exaggeration, distortion, or unexpected combination” to construct and inhabit subjectivities that are inescapably hybrid and often monstrous: simultaneouslyContinue reading ““Laughing with a Mouth of Blood”: St. Vincent’s Gothic Grotesque”

Rate this:

“There Is No Pure Evil, Nor Pure Good, Only Purity”: William Blake’s and Patti Smith’s Art as Opposition to Societal Boundaries

Patti Smith’s Blakean influence deviates from the infamous excess that has come to define rock; rather, Smith presents the alternative, individualized responses to Romanticism that illuminate the spirituality present in rock singers. . . This chapter investigates the connections between Smith and Blake and thus hopes to remind readers that female artists should be discussedContinue reading ““There Is No Pure Evil, Nor Pure Good, Only Purity”: William Blake’s and Patti Smith’s Art as Opposition to Societal Boundaries”