Thursday 20 October 2022

Jenna Jarvis : part five

How important is music to your poetry?

Call me sophomoric, or call me Manahil Bandukwala’s evil twin. Pop music helps me figure out popular sensibility. Specifically, pop music lyrics attune me to that pop sensibility. What do people like? How do people read, listen, consume? Not to contradict Jarvis Cocker, whose lyric sheets ask audiences to compartmentalize reading and listening, but, when it comes to pop music and karaoke renditions, I and most people I know read the words and listen to the song simultaneously. When Manahil launched MONUMENT, I followed along with my copy. Reading her words and listening to her intonations and pauses stuck the poems in my mind. I dream of doing a karaoke-styled reading with poems scrolling through a display. 

(I really don’t mean anything by contradicting Jarvis Cocker. I have been a Pulp devotee ever since my elementary school teachers banned me from searching for my first name on Google because of Jenna Jameson and suggested that I Google my surname.)

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