tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post8372677048173186794..comments2024-03-28T12:39:27.400-05:00Comments on One Poet's Notes: Bob Dylan's BeginningEdward Byrnehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09840825927726253150noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-6039028493287905322009-01-09T11:18:00.000-06:002009-01-09T11:18:00.000-06:00I appreciate your note, Jeff. Sounes does write in...I appreciate your note, Jeff. Sounes does write in his book about both Bob Gleason and Ralph Gleason, and they appear in Dylan's biography in the roles you describe. I have made the correction to my typo. Thanks very much.Edward Byrnehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09840825927726253150noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-33185566305675342632009-01-09T10:54:00.000-06:002009-01-09T10:54:00.000-06:00Dylan spent time with Guthrie at the NJ home of Bo...Dylan spent time with Guthrie at the NJ home of Bob and Sidsell Gleason, not Ralph J. Gleason, who was a Berkeley based syndicated music critic. Ralph Gleason befrended and supported Dylan a few years later, but never played a part in the Dylan-Guthrie saga. Jeff Gold/Recordmecca.comJeff Goldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03689377941249643489noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-13013553247192640042009-01-08T12:51:00.000-06:002009-01-08T12:51:00.000-06:00Dear Edward Byrne,I want to thank you for the thou...Dear Edward Byrne,<BR/><BR/>I want to thank you for the thoughtfulness of your Bob Dylan blog entry and send this response.<BR/><BR/>Dylan has been important to me for at least forty-five years. I have heard him perform some thirty-four times, the first time in 1981 in Basel, Switzerland, just before my family and I returned from a Fulbright year in Germany, in Freiburg. One of my first poems, “Song for Bob Dylan,” written in 1971 in the New York area, not long after the Anthony Scaduto biography appeared, was published in Western Humanities Review and finally made it into a collection of mine, The Country I Come From (2002), which many VPR readers will recognize as a phrase from “With God on Our Side.” This short poem was reprinted in fiction writer Ben Hedin’s highly readable and stimulating Studio A: The Bob Dylan Reader, which contains work by a number of poets, fiction writers, and playwrights (incl. Allen Ginsberg, Rick Moody, Sam Shepard, Anne Waldman, Michael McLure, David Wojahn, Joyce Carol Oates), and also appears in my new retrospective collection Bloodroot: Indiana Poems (2009). <BR/><BR/>Over the years, through the release of the excellent songs in his last three CDs of new material, as well as the new Tell Tale Signs in the bootleg series, Bob Dylan’s work has continued to sustain interest and provide inspiration. As you say, his career has had many twists and turns, the 1980s were a low point; but what an important model for anyone who believes in the need to constantly renew yourself as an artist and start off in new directions, even in your sixties, despite the expectations of your audience. Also, he’s quite a model for anyone committed to re-uniting poetry and music. The jazz and poetry CD I released with Indiana Univ. instructor Monika Herzig includes “Girl of the Hill Country,” a response to “Girl of the North Country,” which was Dylan’s response to the folksong “Scarborough Fair.” My poem inspired Monika, a native of the Swabian hill country, to compose the beautiful piece “Hill Country,” which on Imagine – Indiana in Music and Poetry, we pair with my poem. <BR/><BR/>Readers of VPR who live in Indiana might like to know that folksinger-actor Tim Grimm has produced a very successful show titled “Hoosier Dylan,” which includes performances of Bob Dylan songs by Hoosiers Tim Grimm, Jennie DeVoe, The Gordon Bonham Blues Band, Jason Wilber (a fine singer-songwriter who plays guitar for John Prine, Iris Dement, Greg Brown, and others), Stella and Jane, and The White Lightning Boys. I am honored that Tim invited me as Indiana Poet Laureate to read Dylan-related poems between sets. We played to an audience of 350 at the Crump Theatre in Columbus and a sellout crowd of 220 at the Royal Theatre in Danville on Nov. 7 and 8, 2008, and will be at the Ricks Art Center in Greenfield on Jan. 9, 2009. We hope to bring the show to Bloomington in Sept. and to the American Cabaret Theatre in the Athenaeum, Indianapolis, in Oct. as part of my Together Again: Music & Poetry series (http://www.krapfpoetry.com/music_poetry_together.htm). <BR/><BR/>Thanks again for the stimulating commentary on the work of Bob Dylan.<BR/><BR/>Sincerely,<BR/><BR/>Norbert Krapf<BR/>Indiana Poet LaureateEdward Byrnehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09840825927726253150noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-48996399593573795612008-03-27T10:13:00.000-05:002008-03-27T10:13:00.000-05:00Wow, what a thoughtful and provocative essay.Since...Wow, what a thoughtful and provocative essay.<BR/><BR/>Since you are clearly a fan, I thought I'd introduce you to my new novel, BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, which I think you'd enjoy.<BR/><BR/>It's a murder-mystery. But not just any rock superstar is knocking on heaven's door. The murdered rock legend is none other than Bob Dorian, an enigmatic, obtuse, inscrutable, well, you get the picture...<BR/><BR/>Suspects? Tons of them. The only problem is they're all characters in Bob's songs. <BR/><BR/>You can get a copy on Amazon.com or go "behind the tracks" at www.bloodonthetracksnovel.com to learn more about the book.THOMAS GRASTYhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04436787409030343216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-5512499061502937632008-03-24T12:26:00.000-05:002008-03-24T12:26:00.000-05:00A letter to Bob Dylan:You're the band-aid baby on ...A letter to Bob Dylan:<BR/>You're the band-aid baby on a open wound<BR/>You're the gum in the dam hole fix<BR/>You're the one for sorrow last, can now pass<BR/>You're the one<BR/>You're the one<BR/>Bob Dylan, you're the one<BR/>My four year old grandson, climbs up the stool, to the music making tunes<BR/>His grandmother says from across the room "who you going with Benny Biscut who you going to play, which tune"?<BR/>"Bob Dylan" pause once, pause twice, takes a deep breath, "Love Bob Dylan" he says letting out his breath.<BR/>Love Bob Dylan<BR/>Bob is love<BR/>Benny said it best<BR/>Love Bob Dylan<BR/>Bob Dylan<BR/>Bob Dylan<BR/>Bob Dylan<BR/>Just love Bob Dylan<BR/><BR/>first poem to Bob<BR/>from Nancy BjorkAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-52256965418009112132008-03-21T15:36:00.000-05:002008-03-21T15:36:00.000-05:00Somewhere in the middle of this blog post is a son...Somewhere in the middle of <A HREF="http://opusforty.blogspot.com/2008/02/persistence-of-memory.html" REL="nofollow">this blog post </A>is a song I wrote about Bob Dylan sometime in the 70s.Tad Richardshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15138111543341593946noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-13126405438739990762008-03-19T10:20:00.000-05:002008-03-19T10:20:00.000-05:00In 1974 I saw Bob Dylan and The Band in Washington...In 1974 I saw Bob Dylan and The Band in Washington, D.C. I had given up my young adulthood to motherhood and I was out of the loop about resistance. The day after the concert I went and bought every Bob Dylan album I could find. Thus began my appreciation for Dyland and yes, The Band, an adoring adultation which continues to this day. Perhaps the only concert that equals it was seeing Luciano Pavarotti and the National Symphony Orchestra in l992 with my father who was then 82 years old. Nothing beats witnessing live performance, it lives on and on, except perhaps poetry.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-29404397348600140172008-03-19T08:51:00.000-05:002008-03-19T08:51:00.000-05:00Ed,Thanks for writing this. Sometimes, I feel ver...Ed,<BR/>Thanks for writing this. Sometimes, I feel very old as I look back on those days when Bob Dylan was just starting out and then I listen to some of his early music and even those later albums and I feel very young. Good music and good poetry can do that for us: transport us back in time. I enjoyed this blog post very much: from the retelling of the meetings with Woody Guthrie to the discussion of Dylan’s responses to poetry. Again, thanks for writing and for posting it.<BR/>--PalmerH. Palmer Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05257624271695727621noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-746549356331646438.post-7742078240632730902008-03-19T07:22:00.000-05:002008-03-19T07:22:00.000-05:00I am and always will be in love with Dylan's first...I am and always will be in love with Dylan's first album. As a child of hippies (I was born in 1969) Bob Dylan was always there, but my real discovery of him, the one which came to independently, was while I was a young guy in the army, trying to find some lace for my writing. I took a lot of cues from Dylan, and continue to find new things every time I listen.<BR/><BR/>A marvelous post. Thank ou for sharing it.Justin Evanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12161484350184865575noreply@blogger.com