Martin Bidney - Podcast Details

Shows

Conversation with a GeographerReflections on Geoffrey Martin and the History of Geographic ThoughtA special episode of examining the life and legacy of Dr. Geoffrey J. Martin, with contributions from (in order of appearance):Ronald Abler, PhD, Professor Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and past Executive Director of the Association of American Geographers (as the organization was named at the time)Douglas Richardson, PhD, past Executive Director of the American Association of GeographersInnes M. Keighren, PhD, Professor at the University of LondonJason E. VanHorn, PhD, Professor at Calvin UniversityKent Mathewson, PhD, Professor Emeritus as Louisiana State UniversityJörn Seemann, PhD, Associate Professor at Ball State UniversityMarcy Bidney, MA, MILS, Associate Director a...2025-04-0346 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 55 - Reimagining Medieval Persian Pub LifeSynopsisThe Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 55 Reimagining Medieval Persian Pub Life Synopsis Pub life in medieval Muslim Persia? But didn’t the Qur’an prohibit wine? Actually, the meaning of the relevant Quranic passages was long and widely debated. Result: Persian pub culture was intense and celebrated with distinguished verse. In this book I focus on a “divan,” a very big “collection,” of pub verse called Eastern Roses, and I show how to position that major work in a cultural context of pub life. J. W. von Goethe, Germany’s greatest poet, was having “writer’s block” in 1814 when suddenly appeared the first-ever trans...2024-06-0329 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 54 - Reimagining Medieval Persian Pub LifeSynopsisThe Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 55 Reimagining Medieval Persian Pub Life Synopsis Pub life in medieval Muslim Persia? But didn’t the Qur’an prohibit wine? Actually, the meaning of the relevant Quranic passages was long and widely debated. Result: Persian pub culture was intense and celebrated with distinguished verse. In this book I focus on a “divan,” a very big “collection,” of pub verse called Eastern Roses, and I show how to position that major work in a cultural context of pub life. J. W. von Goethe, Germany’s greatest poet, was having “writer’s block” in 1814 when suddenly appeared the first-ever trans...2024-06-0326 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 53 - Travel Wordsongs in Egypt, Greece, TurkeySynopsis Episode #53 Egypt, Greece, Turkey Three Historical Legacy Tours At various times I’ve taken “antiquarian” tours of the countries named above, one tour per country, each of our journeys lasting two weeks. The sponsoring firm, “Travel with the Experts,” always offered both American and native-land lecturers on each nation’s history and culture. I wrote a poem a day: 3 x 2 weeks = 6 weeks = 42 days = 42 poems, all written in Greco-Roman poetic meters (stanza patterns, rhythm schemes) widely used in ancient times. I was doing historical research into olden types of wordsong while learning about the histories of ancient cultures. No snapshots, o...2024-05-0221 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 52 - Eighty Odes in Keats-like ModesI celebrated my 80th birthday by writing 80 odes in reply to the 6 masterly ones by Keats and in response, quite often, to his other poetry as well, mainly sonnets. “46. Ode to My Neighborhood” is a kind of jubilant “happy birthday” response to the pleasures of a peaceful, friendly life; it’s in in the Mr. Rogers style. “Reply 37: ‘Ode on Autumn,’ by John Keats,” shows you the paradigm I adopt for my neo-Keatsian tribute book. “37. Ode on Art-writing” introduces an extended venture into “ecphrastic” writing, where I interpret the many works of v...2023-10-3122 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 51- Hybridized SonnetsThe YouTube, like the book, has two parts, each with two subsections. 1a. Poems 12. Id and 22. Bulbous show how to hybridize a traditional sonnet with a new number of beats per line and a new kind of rhythm unit (e.g., three-syllable instead of two). 1b. Poems 13. Dividends and 25. Haste show how hybridized sonnets can be used to write “replies” to random passages in the Qur’an, which I love as part of the Judaeo-Christo-Islamic Tradition. 2a. Poems 49. Sophia and 46. Sea-Farewell show hybridized sonnet forms applied to the work of...2023-10-1818 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 50 - "When Two Friends Meet" Synopsis for Episode #50 "WhenTwo Friends Meet" When Two Friends Meet – it was my friend Shahid Alam who suggested the title of our book. Our story, told in poetry and calligraphic art, is that of the mutual friendship we’ve enjoyed for over thirteen years. What has steadily deepened our friendship is the collaboration, the working-together, in which thought and feeling have flourished. Collaboration helped awaken our productivity in art by the shared outlook we have continually renewed by reciprocal visits from 2010 to 2018 and by e-mail correspondence and the exchange of art-presents during this time. In our different but convergent ways...2023-09-1723 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 49 - K.D. Balmont "Sonnets of Sun, Honey, & Moon"Here I “interview” a poet I’ve been reading and researching for decades. Poet K. D. Balmont, a guiding light and major force in the Russian Symbolist movement, offered an encyclopedic view of his intercultural, nature-mystical development in a climactic book of 255 lyrical treasures: Sonnets of Sun, Honey, and Moon: A Song of Worlds (1917). I’ve translated these into verbal artworks in English by keeping his intricate patterns of subtle, firm rhythm and elegant rhyme. But – what may surprise you – I also offer 255 “reply” poems of my own in Balmontian form. In the total book – 510 achievements of wordsong craft – you’ll hear my dialo...2023-09-1516 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 48 – Passover Seder HymnEpisode 48 – Passover Seder Hymn My favorite thing about the Jewish Passover ceremony, or seder, is the After-Dinner Hymns. And my favorite one to sing is “Ki Lo Ya-eh.” I’ll translate the first verse: TO HIM IT IS FITTING, TO HIM IT IS DUE, Mighty, supreme in His majesty. Legions may rightfully sing to You, Sovran alone will You ever be. TO HIM IT IS FITTING, TO HIM IT IS DUE. The 8 verses contain alternate near-synonyms for “legions,” such as “attendants,” “the faithful,” or “disciples,” and the n...2023-04-1106 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer - Episode 47 – Wordsongs for MusicEpisode 47 – Wordsongs for Music Celebrating my 80th birthday (April 21, 1923) with this book, I couldn’t wait to share wordsongs with you, and I put the first one right on the back cover. It’s called “March 1, 2022.” I’ll give you a few more samples of my 100 singable poems. They’re in all sorts of rhythms and rhyme schemes and stanza patterns. (1) 49 Newspaper p. 15 (2) 23 Kintsugi p. 18 (3) 29 Hafeez p. 19 (4) 89 Linoleum p. 21 (5) 11 Come p. 23 (6) 53 Heaven p. 85 (7) 69 Beloving p. 105 2023-04-1114 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartinBidney - The Beloving Imaginer - Episode 46 Poe in Russia, “The Bells”The Beloving Imaginer Episode 46 Poe in Russia, “The Bells” You’ve heard, maybe too often, about what may be “lost in translation,” but my reading tonight is designed to show that translation may also offer huge dividends, windfall profits. That’s what happened when Konstantin Dmitrievich Balmont made a Russian version of Edgar Allan Poe’s experimental poem, “The Bells,” a rendering which I, in turn, translate for you from the Russian. Poe’s inspired design, which so attracted Balmont, was to write a four-part narrative lyric showing how the four stages in the life of a human...2023-03-1311 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-loving Imaginer - Episode 45 Samples from Three BooksThe Be-loving Imaginer Episode 45 Samples from Three Books It’s a joy to offer samples from three of my recent books of poems. From More Four! Four Beats Four Lines, Four Stanzas: 330 Four Wordsongs I offer 4 samples: (18) Jeer, (26) Nose, (103) Psalming, and (201) Sheheḥyananu (You Who Have Kept Us Alive). They contribute to the theme of being a Jewish American. From Asclepiadic Explorer: 99 Poems and 4 Songs I offer two kinds of asclepiads from ancient verse stanza forms. (1) Melody 1 exhibits the “Third Asclepiadic” form, as it was called, and (2) Melody 2 exhibits the “Fourth Asclepiadi...2023-03-1316 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 44 - A Song for SapphoThe Be-loving Imaginer Episode 44 - A Song for Sappho Sappho (ca. 610 BCE to 570 BCE) is the earliest woman poet we know of in Western literature. [Moses’ sister Miriam, called a “prophet” (“neviah”), leads the liberated Jews in a song of triumph in Exodus, but the two verses that she recites cannot be proved to be her own compositions; they may have been excerpted from a psalm by her brother.] 1 In the original poem I sing here (three sections, four stanzas per section), I express my feelings about her wondrous a...2022-11-0810 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerEpisode 43 - Shakespeare Beat is Back – Rhyme RoyalPlayful Warm-ups (173) It’s time (174) Continued (175) Conclamant (176) From Chaucer to Me (177) Hispanic (178) Chaucer Varied Applications (234) Early Memory (235) Capriccio in Rhyme Royal (236) Psalm 150 in Rhyme Royal (237) What Never Wasn’t There (238) Cup of Kindness (245) In and Out, Give and Take (246) Enigmatic Solitude (247) Quarantine (267) Joyce and Me 2022-09-0925 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerEpisode 42 - The Shakespeare Beat Is Back – Keatsian OdesIn this second episode from my latest book High Five! The William Shakespeare Beat is Back I’ll offer examples of what can happen when you revive the 5-beat line (and ONE, and TWO, and THREE, and FOUR, and FIVE) that the world’s greatest verse writer used in all his plays. Reviving Shakespeare, you also revive Keats, whose six great odes are mostly in iambic pentameter, as well. I wrote a half dozen original odes to emulate those of Keats, and then I wrote another 7 to prove it wasn’t just luck. Here I’ll give you samples from bot...2022-09-0821 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerEpisode 41 - The Shakespeare Beat Is Back – Spanish Folk SongsOf special interest in this collection of 400 original poems in iambic pentameter is a group of 70 dialogues with Spanish folk singers. I selected them to represent the main category groupings in Love and Hate: Spanish Folk Songs (1911), translated into Russian by K. D. Balmont from the collection (1882) by Francisco Rodríguez Marín, Cantos populares españoles. These delightful micro-melodies (3, 4 or 7 lines each) each elicited from me an interpretive sonnet comment (in 5-beat lines). Poem 78: Introduction: Art of Spanish Wordsong 79 Being in Love (6) 80 Being in Love (32) 88 Tenderness (25) 91 Envy (3) 9...2022-09-0718 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 40 - Book of the Heaven Eleven (2)Episode #40 Book of the Heaven Eleven (2) As episode #39 offered samples of my 50 catullics, so episode #40 will present examples of my 50 sapphics, another Greco-Roman poetic form that centers on the repeated use of eleven-syllable pentameters. I’ll read a melodious poem describing changes in light and shadow in a room, and then present a metaphoric use of the sun-god chariot. Varying the sun-theme, I write a sapphic about Ovid’s portrayal of the Phaeton myth as a cautionary allegory of a climate change apocalypse, then I sing an Einstein-influenced poem showing that a raisin, changed to ener...2022-06-3020 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 39 - Book of the Heaven Eleven (1)Episode #39: Book of the Heaven Eleven (1) Roman poet Catullus and Greek poet Sappho both use eleven-syllable lines in their poetic stanzas. In this first part of my Intro I’ll read my translation of a Catullus poem (with my commentary verse employing his rhythm) and a half-dozen examples of what I call “catullics.” I’ll remark on certain references (Goethe’s use of Greek myth, mystical numerology, Persian Sufi interpretation of Noah) which I’ve explained in my accompanying “blogatelles.” The idea is to ease the reader into the melodic flow of catullic wordsong.2022-06-3019 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 38 - The Heart of Giordano BrunoEpisode 38: The Heart of Giordano Bruno Bruno, burned at the stake in 1600 by the Inquisition in Rome for alleged heretical teachings (e.g. the multiplicity of worlds), wrote a book of love sonnets as did his contemporary Shakespeare. In modern sonnets and “replies” in the same verse form to the highlights of Bruno’s The Heroic Enthusiasms, I hope to suggest the delight and inspiration he conveyed to me. To introduce you to the experience of reading the “interview,” I’ll “act out,” with a few comments, the first 5 of our dialogues.2022-06-2821 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 37 - Modern Psalms in Ancient Rhythm (2)Episode 37: Modern Psalms in Ancient Rhythm (2) As the Biblical psalms often elaborate scripture stories, I want to do that, too. Tonight’s reading will feature Abraham, with a couple of short episodes about Jacob, as well – again I’ll read a total of 7 psalms. Distinctive about the scripture narratives in my interpretations will be the use of the Judaeo-Christo-Islamic legacy as my frame of reference. The story of Abraham’s defiance is shared by Hebrew and Islamic writers; the story of his martyrdom by fire (called to a halt by God’s mercy) is Qur’anic but also identical w...2022-06-2322 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 36 - Modern Psalms in Ancient Rhythm (1)Synopsis Episode 36: Modern Psalms in Ancient Rhythm (1) I introduce the reader, first, to ancient psalmodic rhythm by reading (and “conducting”) the opening passages of Psalm 92 (“A Psalm, A Song for the Sabbath Day”) in Hebrew, dramatizing their melodic wordsong achievement. Then, picking up the theme of sabbath, I recite 7 of my modern psalms, all written in the rhythm of my biblical mentor-poems. Kabbalistic and Sufi theme are introduced.2022-06-2317 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 35 - Interviewing Sufi PoetsSynopsis Episode 35: Interviewing Sufi Poets We’ll read sample interviews with 15 Sufi poets 1050- 1650. Each “interview” includes a lyric, a focused verse “reply” by me, and a contextual “blogatelle.” I Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) Love the things of this world: wine Pages 41-43 wine II Anvari (1126-1189) Satire and moral teaching Pages 79-80 satiric-moral teaching III Nizami (1141-1209) Master of the parable Pages 100-103 Tale of Solomon and the Sower IV Attar (1146-1221) Mystical allegory Pages 113-117 Colloquie...2022-02-141h 46

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 34 - Pushkin’s Hero, Tatyana LarinaPodcast 34: Pushkin’s Hero, Tatyana Larina In this program, my aim is to introduce the hearer to the hero (now rapidly becoming a gender-neutral term) of Alexander Pushkin’s world-famed novel in verse, Eugene Onegin. In many ways, she earns the laudatory title I’m giving her, and my presentation will help you get acquainted with her background, her cultural context, her family life, her mother’s personality, and her strong, evolving personality and character. My “interview” technique, following each 14-line poem of Pushkin’s...2022-02-061h 50

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 33 - Speaking with the ChinesePODCAST # 33 Speaking with the Chinese Theme: interior conversation. Friedrich Rückert completes in 1833 his 325 “adaptations” of the poems in the earliest collection of Chinese verse that we have, an anonymous work composed by pre-Confucian poets from the 11 th to the 7 th centuries BCE. Rückert, though he learned 44 languages, didn’t know any more Chinese than I do. But he did have the recently discovered Latin prose translation published by Lacharme, a Jesuit priest, in 1733. I call my recital of English translations of Rücke...2022-01-281h 37

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 32 - Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, A. TolstoyPodcast Synopsis: The Be-loving Imaginer Episode 32: Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, A. Tolstoy This video podcast presentation for Binghamton University Lyceum, via Zoom, focuses on my new genre of poetry writing, the “Verse Interview Book.” From the section called “Russian Loves” in my book Six Dialogic Poetry Chapbooks, available from Amazon, I’ve selected verse interviews with four classic Russian poets: Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, A. Tolstoy. Here’s my procedure: I’ll read a poem in Russian, then act out my transla...2022-01-251h 13

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 31 - THREE PARABLES ABOUT JESUSPODCAST #31: THREE PARABLES ABOUT JESUS My latest book, Persian Poetic Renaissance: 15 Sufi Poets in “Verse Interviews” contains 3 parables about Jesus that are delightful, highly original poetic masterworks. The poets are Nizami (on Jesus and the Dead Dog), Goethe (on Jesus, Peter, and the Horseshoe), and Attar (on Jesus and the Soup Pot). For context I may add: greatly respected as a teacher and prophet, Jesus in the Qur’an is called Messiah and said to have been born of a virgin. By each of the 15 poets I chose to translate for this book (from Joseph Hammer’s German encyclopedic...2021-12-2818 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 30 - Owed to OmarFor years I’ve loved to recite Omar Khayyam (1048-113 as translated by the master Victorian wordsong writer Edward FitzGerald. “Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent / Doctor and sage…” I owe the Persian poet two things: (1) a gently melancholy but likeable skepticism which at the same time says ‘Enjoy the moment!” and (2) a beautiful verse form with rhyme patter AABA. Pp. 14-15 show how I tried to “improve” the Omar four-line stanza. P. 17 show how I started to interbreed the Omar stanza with model-quatrains I learned from the ancient Greeks and Romans. The beauty of form and the c...2021-11-1738 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 29 - Three Bisexual ImaginersThe three bisexually oriented books I’ll recite from today are landmark achievements in world culture, and I’ve written books in “interview” style to con-verse with them. Virgil (70-19 BCE) wrote Eclogues, ten one-act verse plays about Roman country life. All his shepherd-farmers are startlingly cultured people, poets and musicians who speak often about music and whose main form of entertainment is to arrange contests in lyrical composition, singing, and reciting. I’ll read the Second Eclogue, which is a soliloquy of mainly homoerotic love lament. And I’ll read parts 1-3 of my “reply” lyric for context. [I tr...2021-11-0442 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Be-Loving Imaginer Episode 28 - Shi-Jing, or Book of SongssShi-Jing, or Book of Songs – China’s earliest verse anthology, 11th to 7th centuries BCE, with all poets anonymous, was translated into Latin by an 18th century French Jesuit priest, a prose text lost, then rediscovered, reprinted in Germany in 1830. It became the source text for an 1833 version by German’s greatest translator-poet, Friedrich Rückert, who learned 44 languages. Chinese wasn’t among them, but Rückert, in his poem “The Spirits of the Songs: A Prelude” shows the spirits of the songs beginning for rebirth in a new language and assuring him of assistance (read final stanza, p. 56). My approach in t...2021-10-1322 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 27 Peaceful - “Marseillaise”Here I sing for you a new national anthem I’ve written for the French people, and to help everyone celebrate Bastille Day in a tranquil and loving mood. A member of the French parliament, some decades back, called for an anthem that would be less bloody and vengeful than the “Marseillaise” by Rouget de Lisle, and I promptly wrote such a hymn of peace. In this presentation I sing the older version, first stanza, then I recite the English translation I made of my new “Marseillaise de la pai...2021-07-0907 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 26 - Interfaith WordsongsInterfaith Wordsongs: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Poems [$12.50] Wednesday, June16: 12-1 (Rain Date: Thursday, June 17), Lyceum. Location: Cutler Gardens, 840 Upper Front St, Binghamton, NY. Presenter: Poet Martin Bidney, Professor Emeritus, English, BU. “Jews, Christians, and Muslims all consider Abraham the founder of their One God religions. The poets I love most from all three intertwining traditions overleap conventional boundaries in the search for an all-enveloping worldview centered on what matters most to the human heart. 'God,' or Ultimate Being, is ultimately unknowable, but if It is the force that imagined our pluriverse, It se...2021-06-2848 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 25 - Supplement Poems for "Onegin"PODCAST #25 SUPPLEMENT POEMS FOR “ONEGIN” In Podcast #24 I recited the first few dialogic exchanges of sonnets between Pushkin’s verse novel “Eugene Onegin,” and me, the translator and collocutor. Here I’d like to supplement our book-long con-verse-ation or interview with additional lyrics, mainly by Pushkin, which I added to clarify crucial moments in the Russian poet’s text. I’ll begin my sampling with an introductory lyric, “Collocutor’s Preface” (26-27) that will convey my mood when beginning the innovative interview project, modeled upon my earlier exchange of sonnets with those of Shakespeare in my book “Shakespair” a...2021-05-1231 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 24 - Pushkin's Onegin with RepliesSynopsis for Podcast 22 Pushkin's Onegin with Replies Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837) is Russia’s most beloved poet. Eugene Onegin, called by Pushkin a “novel in verse,” is Russia’s favorite narrative poem and her most influential novel. The narrative – about what was widely called a “superfluous man” – sets a context for the works by Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov that were to follow. From Lord Byron, Pushkin borrowed a clever device: the use of a casual narrator who becomes a fascinating character in the story. Tchaikovsky made Onegin into a great tragic opera, but he had to leave out the entertaining characte...2021-04-2123 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 23 - The Joys of Poetic Meter, Part 2The Joys of Poetic Meter, Part 2: Martin Bidney, a poet, translator, scholar, and critic who has published 33 volumes of verse, here offers on a zoom YouTube the first presentation in a two-part mini-course, "The Joys of Poetic Meter." The course, as a whole, explores the rhythmic forms of lines and stanzas from poems of the last 3000 years, including ancient Hebrew, Greek, Roman, British Renaissance, and modern German, plus poems he has written in varied beat-schemes. Readings dramatize the joy the wordsongs give, and discussions are lively.2021-03-221h 25

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 22 - The Joys of Poetic Meter, Part IThe Joys of Poetic Meter, Part I: Martin Bidney, a poet, translator, scholar, and critic who has published 33 volumes of verse, here offers on a zoom YouTube the first presentation in a two-part mini-course, "The Joys of Poetic Meter." The course, as a whole, explores the rhythmic forms of lines and stanzas from poems of the last 3000 years, including ancient Hebrew, Greek, Roman, British Renaissance, and modern French, plus poems he has written in varied beat-schemes. Readings dramatize the joy the wordsongs give, and discussions are lively.2021-03-151h 39

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 21 - Valentine's SpecialPODCAST #21: VALENTINE’S SPECIAL Originally planned as video collage 9.4, this presentation became Episode #21 of “Martin Bidney, The Be-loving Imaginer” for two compelling reasons. (1) The Valentine’s Day presentation is the most joyous love song I have written. (2) “Love” is pre-eminently the mood of my “Be-loving Imaginer” offerings. Here is a poem that my Valentine’s Day song performance stimulated: 327 Song of Love I wrote a love song, and a pleasure sweet Could feel when singing this to a computer! Be blest, kind Muse of Tech, who are my tutor – You as my Vale...2021-02-1205 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 20 - WORDSONGS OF JEWISH TRADITIONPODCAST #20: WORDSONGS OF JEWISH TRADITION In this interview book I converse with the commentator (and at times with the original author) who together produced a new, 3-volume version of the Tanya, an 18th century spiritual handbook, so that the modern reader can place the mystical thinking in a wide context of Hasidic anecdotes and legends. Schneur Zalman, the original author, provided what amounts to a runway for the modern interpreter, the late Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, can launch us on a tour of the many parables he knows and retells with wonderful charm and often witty humor. I write wordsongs in...2021-01-2934 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 19 - VIRGIL’S ECLOGUES WITH VERSE REPLIESPODCAST #19: VIRGIL’S ECLOGUES WITH VERSE REPLIES On the back cover I write, summing up the global importance of this ancient Roman work: “One of the major bisexual imaginings in world literature, the Eclogues of Virgil are ancient Roman musical masterworks, rivaling the Sonnets of Shakespeare. Every wordsong in the group of ten is a one-act play, and every character is a music lover. Love and Death are always with us, to enjoy and to suffer, but word music is the great transcender: Art redeems Life. Since the works in this collection are rather longer than those I’ve worked...2020-11-2317 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerMartin Bidney - The Beloving Imaginer Episode 18 - INDIAN, PERSIAN, ARABIAN POEMSPODCAST #17: INDIAN, PERSIAN, ARABIAN POEMS I have an astonishing opportunity to acquaint you with Indian, Persian, and Arabian poems in perfectly crafted versions, thanks to the mid-19th-century German translator, scholar, and poet Friedrich Rückert, who learned 44 languages, including Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabian. In talk-show interview style, I offer English versions of Rückert’s poetic treasures, each one followed by a “reply” poem of my own in closely similar style. To show how enlivening the interaction can be, let me start with Dialogue 64, The Dream Form. In Dialogue 65 Guidance in Love you’ll hear a dial...2020-10-1331 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerPODCAST #16, A MUSIC LOVER’S ARTPODCAST #16, A MUSIC LOVER’S ART This book is filled with poems about classical and folk music I love. Let’s begin with Mozart, a composer everyone loves because his music is so packed with great tunes, and his personality is youthfully impulsive. Try “The ‘trumpet concerto’” (312). Beethoven equals him in popularity, and I join in, translating Nikolai Zabolotsky’s “Beethoven” (314) and offering a “reply” to the great “Ode to Joy” in my brief lyric, “Beethoven’s Ninth” (318). I could hardly choose from the many I’ve done on Bach: a sample...2020-02-0639 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerFREESTYLE CHAT 2020 EPISODE 1: “RICH BEING”Today’s freestyle chat has 4 parts, all stemming from Roger Brooks’ book The Power of Being Rich: 10 Essential Principles to Manifest What You Already Have. As dialogic interpreter, my bold beginning is to suggest that Roger’s admirable volume might equally well be titled The Power of Rich Being. Roger wants to show people how to conceive and advance a practical enterprise by starting with a feeling of abundant Being, fullness of Being, plenitude of Being. It starts with confidence, which is nothing more than faith – faith in yourself. Gratitude for your gifts is both starting point and end result.2020-01-1929 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerANGELUS, GUIDE TO GOD WITHIN | EPISODE 15PODCAST #15: ANGELUS, GUIDE TO GOD WITHIN by Martin Bidney Angelus Silesius, the Silesian Angel, was the name Johannes Scheffler took when he converted from the Lutheran to the Catholic Church. But as witty mystic poet, he aims to bring his imagining Heart to oneness with ULTIMATE BEING, THE GOD BEHIND THE NAMES and formulations. His poetry book, “Cherubinischer Wandersmann,” could be translated Companion Angel. Living in a century of religious wars, he wants, through introspection, to find harmony. Mystic = Greek myein = to close the eyes. Looking inward, Angelus finds the oneness of t...2019-12-1627 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerInterviewing Sufi Poet Rumi | Episode 14PODCAST #14: INTERVIEWING SUFI POET RUMI by Martin Bidney Intro: Rumi = Pre-eminent Sufi Mystic Poet, thirteenth century. I translate him from Tholuck’s German, and I interview him, offering verse replies. Dialogue 49 = Inclusion: all religions are one. Dialogue 46 = Inclusion: all spirits are one. I Rumi teaches through Surprise. Dialogue 53. The saint turns hell to heaven, as Milton’s Satan did in Paradise Lost. Both of these reside within the human spirit. “The mind is its own...2019-11-2848 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerSufi Lyrics in the Egyptian Desert | Episode 13PODCAST #13: SUFI LYRICS IN THE EGYPTIAN DESERT by Martin Bidney My month-long spiritual pilgrimage at the Sekem desert farming settlement in 2011 was guided by Sufi mentors in the Religion of Love. I Poet Omar as my Sufi mentor. Medieval Sufi Omar’s most famous quatrain, from his Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Victorian interpreter Edward FitzGerald, begins, “A book of Verses underneath the Bough.” This world-famed four-line love song introduced me to the SUFI RELIGION OF LOVE. I emulate the “Book of Verses” love song in...2019-11-0734 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerRussian Loves | Episode 12PODCAST #12: RUSSIAN LOVES by Martin Bidney Wordsong is like music generally – it transforms whatever it touches. When I select a poetic mentor to teach me word music, I reshape what I’ve heard, and then my reshaped self replies with a new music – always new because engendered by what I’ve just heard. Nineteenth-century poets Alexander Pushkin, Michael Lermontov, and Athanasius Fet – lyrical writers in the Romantic tradition – are three of my Russian poetic mentors, friends, collaborators, comrades, guides, teachers, examples – and interviewees. In talk-show format, I’ll translate...2019-10-1737 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerTaxi Drivers | Episode 11PODCAST #11, TAXI DRIVERS by Martin Bidney Taxi Drivers – a topic made from an eye problem – and a way of making friends for the be-loving imaginer. Art is at the heart of startle. I like to consider each of my taxi driver interview lyrics a mini-drama with an outcome of startling power, occasioned by either a sudden change of perspective toward the end, or else simply by the surprise of having a moment of life turned into a wordsong to be remembered and resung. In poem 2, “She growled, and loudly,” we start with a c...2019-10-1528 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerGumilev, World Traveler | Episode 10PODCAST #10: GUMILEV, WORLD TRAVELER by Martin Bidney Nikolay Gumilev (1886-1921) was Russia’s pre-eminent traveler poet. He has even said that his sponsor, his supernatural patroness, was the “Muse of distant travel,” the Goddess of Journeying. His journeys were adventures in self-discovery. TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, RISK, & SELF-DISCOVERY could be the motto of his life-work. Is it a surprise that, working in the literary department of the Soviet bureaucracy to translate, compile, and publish major poems of world literature, he should focus on translating England’s greatest poem of travel, adventure...2019-09-2644 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerJews and Christians in the Qur'an | Episode 09PODCAST #9: JEWS AND CHRISTIANS IN THE QUR’AN by Martin Bidney The Be-loving Imaginer, seeking to be the scripture he sings, is delighted to discover ways that a love for already be-loved scriptures can be startlingly expanded. The Qur’an is chiefly a storybook, where you encounter participants in the stories of the Jewish and Christian scriptures. The Qur’an shows you these people in new episodes and adventures. I’ll focus on the new perspectives I love the most. I’ll be using as sourcebooks my A Unifying Light and East-W...2019-09-0938 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerAncient Wordsong Forms | Episode 08PODCAST #8: ANCIENT WORDSONG FORMS by Martin Bidney Today the Be-loving Imaginer finds new things to be-love: the virtually extinct rhythm patterns and stanza forms of ancient Greek lyrical poems, also used with enthusiasm by Roman poets. Some of these forms were briefly and beautifully resurrected in late 18thand early 19th century Germany by Klopstock, Hölderlin, Goethe, and Schiller. But even this partial revival was never picked up by Anglo poets, and that’s why I made it a major career project to become an archeologist of ancient meters, of neglected but extremely att...2019-08-2833 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerRückert the Modern Sufi | Episode 07 PODCAST #7: RÜCKERT THE MODERN SUFI by Martin Bidney Friedrich Rückert (1788-1866) knew 44 languages and translated poetry and scripture from many, including Arabic and Sanskrit. His spiritual diary, Wisdom of the Brahman: A Didactic Poem in Fragments (1835-1836) is a guidebook fashioned by what I would call a modern western Sufi pilgrim. His outlook often parallels that of medieval Sufi mystical expositor Ibn Arabi. Using opener-poems I wrote (in my God the All-Imaginer) to sum up the earlier writer’s thoughts, I’ll show applications of the wisdom in the later Ge...2019-08-1844 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerSolomon the Lover | Episode 06PODCAST #6: SOLOMON THE LOVER | be the scripture you sing by Martin Bidney As a be-loving imaginer I get from today’s mentor, King Solomon, world-class chances to love and imagine. As one who wants to be the scripture he sings, I get to re-sing an actual biblical scripture, the “Song of Songs” that Solomon wrote. Note how startling is the first six-liner of my singable rewrite of this Bible book! The whole song is about physical love; no god is ever mentioned. Solomon wrote the best-known love song in the world – also lik...2019-08-0739 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerBisexual Hafiz | Episode 05PODCAST #5: BISEXUAL HAFIZ | be the scripture you sing by Martin Bidney The Be-loving Imaginer interviews Hafiz, one of the world’s great poets, greatly treasured in his homeland, Persia, or Iran. As shown in my opener to the book Poems of Wine and Tavern Romance (p. ix), 14th century Sufi pub poet Muhammad Shemseddin Hafiz and his translator, Joseph von Hammer, have become my two newest teacher-mentors. Poem 8, opening 2 lines, had a momentous effect on the future history of European, indeed of world, literature. Hafiz wrote: “I, if the youth from Shir...2019-08-0744 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerGoethe and Hafiz | Episode 04PODCAST #4: GOETHE AND HAFIZ | be the scripture you sing by Martin Bidney As be-loving imaginer I have no greater mentor-friend than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, author of Faust and Germany’s number one poet. How did he set me an example in both life and art? When he read the 1814 edition of Hafiz’ Divan (or Collection) newly translated (for the first time into any European language!) by the marvelously talented scholar-poet Joseph von Hammer, Goethe decided this medieval Persian Muslim pub poet was his “twin brother” and worked for five years until at last his...2019-07-1730 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerRilke: Love and Conflict | Episode 03PODCAST #3: RILKE: LOVE AND CONFLICT | be the scripture you sing by Martin Bidney Rainer Maria Rilke, greatest 20th century poet writing in German, enters the imaginal worlds of Buddhism, Islam, and the ancient Greeks in a be-loving way, seeking to embody the traditions he sings of. When I “interview” him in my book Rilke’s Melodic and Metrical Art Vol I, I seek to create a word music of empathy in “replying” to Rilke as my mentor, friend, teacher, and dialogue partner. In dialogue 178 where we discuss the concluding poem in Rilke’s two...2019-07-1748 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerHow the Qur'an Teaches Me Poetry Writing | Episode 02PODCAST #2: HOW THE QUR’AN TEACHES ME POETRY WRITING | be the scripture you sing My Talk Show Poetry Exchanges with Passages from the Qur’an by Martin Bidney “Be-loving imaginers” can travel into any scripture of the world with the aim of immersion and then enjoy an invigorated emergence to write, in word songs, what they’ve learned. In 9 dialogue exchanges with quoted selections from the Islamic holy book (colloquies published in my East-West Poetry, SUNY Press, now available from Amazon), I show how the Qur’an is my tutor in both form and content...2019-07-1737 min

The Be-Loving ImaginerBisexual Shakespeare | Episode 01PODCAST #1: BISEXUAL SHAKESPEARE | be the scripture you sing My Talk Show Verse Interview with the Narrator of the Sonnets by Martin Bidney As “be-loving imaginer,” I like to dialogue with poets by building a bridge that starts where my chosen mentor-poet lives. I do this by entering the poetic form the mentor-friend loves best. Naturally I con-verse with the fictive narrator of Shakespeare’s sonnets (14-line poems) in the beautiful stanza form he can teach me, and I try to emulate my teacher in a gentle rivalry. Shakespeare, like prophets of older times, left u...2019-07-0638 min