A long long time ago, and for many millennia, poetry was presented in community gatherings, spoken with music and delivered with a musical cadence as a telling ofnsideways and deepways news. For a couple of decades I did my best to follow in this tradition—in a tiny crowded stone building in a Yosemite meadow, in bars, pubs, concert halls, festivals, libraries, and environmental benefits. I prefer to write spoken poems because they become a more immediate collaboration. Spoken words create an environment, and the audience complete the form, as communication passes between musicians, words, and listeners. This practice seems the most human and necessary thing I’m able to do.
In the Middle of the Night of the Road of My Life I Found Myself in a Tangled Wood
This is a CD on out of round records; Patti Trimble lyric spoken poems; Peter Whitehead on homemade instruments.
Hello Heaven!
Also on out of round records: a recording of poems from Arabic Sicily 840-1100, translations and by Patti Trimble, Ramzi Harrabi, and Muqdad Farrajulah; music by Ramzi Harrabi, Abdel Kabir Ghazout.
On Studio Work with Richard Pousette-Dart (click the time-line at 1:32)
Whitney Museum panel symposium celebrating the 100th birthday of draftsman, sculptor and painter Richard Pousette-Dart with speakers Jennifer Powell, Senior Curator, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; Barbara Rose, art historian and critic; Patti Trimble, poet and former studio assistant; Adam Weinberg, Director Whitney Museum; Christopher Wool, artist and former student.
The Penelope Poems
This performance was performed and recorded at the San Francisco Commonwealth Club, and also in the lovely garden of Sonoma County’s Women’s Library, The Sitting Room.
Penelope retells the Odyssey as she might. Text by Patti Trimble with additional words from J. Joyce, Homer, Ovid, Hesiod, J. Butler, V. Woolf, L. Cohen, and others. Performed by Patti Trimble, composer/performer Peter Whitehead, vocalist Julia Norton, and poet Maya Khosla.