The Be-Loving Imaginer

PODCAST #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’...

PODCAST #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 Vers...

PODCAST #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 write...

PODCAST #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 he art of st art le. 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 havin...

PODCAST #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...

PODCAST #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...

PODCAST #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 t...

   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 S...

PODCAST #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!...

PODCAST #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-m...

PODCAST #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 marve...

PODCAST #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...

PODCAST #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 Is...

PODCAST #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 sonn...