Piety by Benjamin Goodman

PIETY

By Benjamin Goodman ‘17

d inspired by pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s own original composition ‘Pavane Variée’

first a reflection then the rain came to fill up the pinch pots we’d fired the night before * upon attempted repetitions of this exercise: toppling vases harvesting early I’ve found my way to a time when the Act was simple (a scale playable on the black keys alone) double-jointed with three willing Parties (the Son the Father et cetera) * when I enter the concert hall the rosewood

knotted with heritage a sort of priestly inundation occurs perhaps the result of the night’s dichromatic motif the forbidden idol center-stage the way it bleats * it takes courage to uproot a tree full of goldfinches the instrument shudders as clemency knocks off the lid and they scamper out * these chords in my throat I can’t touch but let quill

d

Notes on the poem: This work is inspired primarily by Hamelin’s Pavane Variée, though the line “(a scale playable on the black keys alone)” is a direct quote from the program regarding the pentatonicism in Debussy’s Images Book II. Ben Goodman is majoring in English and Creative Writing (Poetry specifically) as well as Visual Art. His musical interests are eclectic. He has a weekly radio show on WPRB on Saturdays from 6-8PM called “Transgenre,” and he plays bass guitar casually. This concert was the first he has been to at Princeton and he was challenged by the idea of writing about classical music, something he knows very little about. He chose this concert because his roommate, a pianist, recommended it. As fate would have it, he came to a performance with a newly composed work, a piece with many influences and eclectic idioms, which turned out to be an excellent match for Ben’s background and interests.