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Poems Part 1


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This is Part 1 of my RPM Challenge submission. I'm using the same description for all 4 partg in case you miss one. Which you might choose too, and I wouldn't blame you! hahaha.
The whole piece was 24 minutes long. It's a whole bunch of short poems that I wrote back in 1976, read one after the other, under which I added ambient sounds, playing some harmonica and banjo and using samples and effects of various types, synths, etc. It's pretty subtle, but rather than upload a low bitrate version of the whole piece I decided to break it into 4 parts. If you want tohear it as I intended, download all 4 parts and create a gapless CD of the 4 tunes in iTunes.
The poems were in 2 small sketchbooks, those typical blank sketchbooks with black covers, around 4"x6". I set myself and exercise at the time to do 4 drawings a day in the book that were around 2x2" square and under each drawing I printed a short poem. One of the books was all naturalistic nature drawings and the other was abstract nature drawings. I drew on every other page and both books were filled and then I put them away and didn't think about them again until recently when I decided to scan the pages and I'd posted some on my facebook wall. The drawings were done with a fairly light pencil and the printing is really small and hard for my eyes to read now so this was one way to make them easier to read. That takes a bit of work to scan all those out of the books and it occurred to me that I could use them to make a long piece for my RPM album.
Since the books were on a shelf for a long time, and I'm a speaker, I called the album Bookshelf Speaker.
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Hits: 603
Comments: 9
Fans: 7
Plays: 31
Downloads: 45
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Uploaded: Mar 01, 2009 - 08:20:04 PM
Last Updated: Mar 01, 2009 - 08:20:04 PM Last Played: Nov 02, 2009 - 01:50:04 PM
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Comments
awigze said 265 days ago (March 1st, 2009)
Jim Bouchard
nature... great idea. Wonderful project.... I really can appreciate the alliteration and how the words are positioned together. the ambient sound did not have to be there to make this a nice work... The emphasis on the word...
inspiring
Check out my latest song called We got to Jive in Blues by (Feter)
Nick_Flash said 265 days ago (March 1st, 2009)
RPM
Well spoken. Do you still write poems like this? It's refreshing to hear something different.

Check out my latest song called Wake Up
Jim Bouchard said 263 days ago (March 3rd, 2009)
Thanks!
I don't write poetry like this anymore, really, though sometimes my song lyrics use some of this type of metaphysical meditation in them. I don't really like the sound of my speaking voice that much and was surprised this came out as well as it did. I literally got the idea and opened the book, enabled the track and hit record. There's only a couple spots where I stumbled.
Check out my latest song called Weather or Not w/awigze
mikkinylund said 264 days ago (March 2nd, 2009)
Interesting: "Didn't even see it!"
A new layer of your creativity, for, at least me. Although I've heard your poetry to many of your songs before, I've never heard your spoken poetry before and had no idea you had this background/experience. This is great, writing poetry is a difficult art, reading poetry yet another challenge. This is of course very personal, and as of such deep, emotional, intelligent, inspiring, etc. and it would be difficult to comment truthfully on it after just two listening. This is also, aside from shining as individual short poems, tied together in an either planned cycle, or perhaps randomly - a bit of history, if only a personal history; still history. The piece where built with the words in mind, and the music helps to build a picture and to emphasize on some of the phrases and/or words. I am going to tie the 4 pieces together and listen to it as a whole piece/composition. Thank you for sharing this with us Jim!
Check out my latest song called Fairyland (Satumaa)
bud said 260 days ago (March 6th, 2009)
Very cool choice for the RPM Challenge
I really liked what you did last year - and this dovetails nicely with it. Well read and finely crafted poems here. The ambient backing is wonderful.
Check out my latest song called eye for you (w/particledots and michael2)
Jim Bouchard said 260 days ago (March 6th, 2009)
wow, thanks!
I guess I was sort of desperate...I was running out of time. RPM was really great for me this year. I got myself distracted by all sorts of other musical things in February, trying to ignore my intention to do RPM, figuring I would just pull something out of the hat at the last minute. but as February neared an end it wasn't coming. And it was a stroke of luck stoked by the RPM deadline that birthed this thing. That said, this needed to be done. And yes, when paired with last year's RPM album, it totally makes sense. Oftentimes I am a singer songwriter, but really I like this type of spoken word a lot.
Check out my latest song called Weather or Not w/awigze
dajama said 260 days ago (March 6th, 2009)
Very impressive
This is truly original and very impressive. The words are really evocative and well-crafted, throwing out images and painterly scenes, underlaid with a hint of the metaphysical - nature and the beyond all intertwined. Very cool. The soundbed really makes it for me, though, cradling the voice in those subtle ambient sounds. Excellent stuff. Your range is impressive, and inspiring. Kudos. Peace.
Check out my latest song called Across the Wire (MJRF)
Estella said 246 days ago (March 20th, 2009)
Jim
First of all, I am impressed. And I'm inspired by your exercise because it's the sort of thing I would do. I would love to see all the drawings and read the poems along side them. Include that in the album!
Check out my latest song called Este Momento
Jim Bouchard said 246 days ago (March 20th, 2009)
thanks!
I started to scan them but since they are in a book it got sort of hard and I only did around 7. I have some of those posted on my Facebook page. Here's the link, friend! http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2005749&id=1569135066
Check out my latest song called Weather or Not w/awigze
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Name: Jim Bouchard
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I have been playing music a long time. When I was growing up my brothers had a band called the Regal Tones which was quite popular in our little town in upstate New York State. They got bitten by the music bug and later went on to found the p... [see more]

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