I used to be a frequent visitor to Ashwoods second hand bookshop & records on Pitt Street in Sydney and one day came across a vinyl record of CONRAD AIKEN READS: ‘A Letter From Li PO’, ‘The Blues of Ruby Matrix’, and Selections from ‘Time In The Rock’ (CAEDMON TC 1039). The album’s back cover notes state that ‘The album cover is a reproduction of a painting by the noted English artist EDWARD BURRA, and represents the artist’s conception of ‘The Blues of Ruby Matrix.’ The poems were recorded in New York City on 23 June 1955.
I fondly recall listening to the album, often with friends, hundreds of times in the 1980s, and as the beers were being skolled, subverting the lyrics and creating a parody of sorts, especially Part I & II.
Tried to find a recording of the poem today online but was unsuccessful. If you have a recording of ‘Ruby’ which I can post online, please let me know. The poem can be found in his Selected Poems Oxford University Press publication, which has a forword by Harold Bloom.
Apparently, Conrad Aiken’s poetry is now making a come back according to Tyler Malone of The Los Angeles Times.
Check the poem out!
Resources:
Pennsound: https://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Aiken.php
Conrad Aiken in 1951 reading his poems ‘Hallowe’en’, ‘The Things’, ‘Moratorium’, ‘The temptation’ and ‘The Orchard’ (31.27): https://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Aiken/Aiken-Conrad_Complete-Reading_Lee-Anderson-Papers_WUSTL_06-51.mp3
LA Times: Is It Time To Rediscover Conrad Aiken (Tyler Malone 13 April 2017): https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-conrad-aiken-20170413-story.html
‘Conrad Aiken and Consciousness’: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B91SMcgZ_xuuVEVYTmZ4dkdLNk0/view
No comments:
Post a Comment