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Transcript

Sestina in the Dark · Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_02: You are listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_02: Please visit online at backwardmutters.substack.com.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: There you can subscribe via your favorite podcast player and read the newsletter.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_02: Through several online rabbit room adjacent groups,
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: I've gotten to hear author and illustrator Ken Preeb read his stories and poems,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: watch his puppet master skills, as well as opine on music.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Excellent taste, by the way.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_02: Several years ago,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_02: during an online poetry open mic,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: I got to hear Ken read someone's poem in the voice of Gollum, J.R.R.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: Tolkien's character from The Hobbit in Lord of the Rings.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was excellent.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_02: I love character voices, and I would love to be able to do what Ken does.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: A couple of years later,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: during the November Poema Day Challenge,
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_02: which is a daily poetry writing challenge coinciding
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_02: with National Novel Writing Month, there was a prompt to write a form poem.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: And for kicks and giggles, I thought I'd write a sestina.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: A sestina is a six-lined,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: six-stanza poem that interlocks the last word of each line and
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: then employs those same six words in a three-line envoy at the end.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Curious about a sestina?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: You can have a look at the link in the liner notes and it'll tell you more.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: The poem that came out was a poem taking up the voice and experience of Gollum.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: On a whim, I asked if Ken would consider reading and recording it for me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: Which, being the kind and gracious person Ken is, he did.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: It was an early Christmas present for me.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_02: So for the eeriness of the weekend and the beginning of November, it's Novpad again.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: Here's Ken reading the Sestina, which I wrote and which I always hear in Ken's voice.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: And now you can too.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm grateful to Ken for allowing me to share his recording.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: If you'd like to learn more about Ken's illustrations and writing,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: there are links to his work in the episode Liners Notes.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And now, here's Ken Priebe reading in the best Gollum voice, Sestina in the Dark.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was a present.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: This little film.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: A birthday gift.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: A golden ring.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: It was a gift.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: It did not cost.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: It came to me.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't lost.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: The precious thing that I had found.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: It wanted me.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: To me, it's bound.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: It was my purpose.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was bound to possess this dainty golden ring.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was far better that it was found.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Without it, I would have nothing.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Why should a pretty such stay lost?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: Digger found it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: It did not cost.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: He wouldn't give it.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: He paid the cost.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: This price was dear, for I was bound to pay with life.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: You'd not be lost.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: You keep it close, my precious ring.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Our precious column.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: We want this thing.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: When we hold it, we are found.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: We did not know what Baggins found, how much it paid, or what it cost.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's in its pockets?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: What thing?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: He asks us, Precious.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: How will he be bound to let him go?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: But with our ring, we'll trick him, Precious.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Leave him lost!
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Lost!
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Precious!
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: How precious!
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Lost!
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Where have you gone?
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: You must be found.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Where is our present, our birthday ring?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Thief!
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thief!
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: He knows the cost!
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Balance!
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Thief!
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: He must be bound, who stole Precious, who did this thing?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: This atom, atom,
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: this ringed thing that drove us deep made thin now lost in riddles dark
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: when now we're bound.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: He wants it, Precious.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: He'll seek till found.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Who makes us pay?
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Who makes it cost if he should find our ring?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: But we are bound.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: It is our ring, our Precious.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to the Backward Mutters poetry podcast.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.
• 4:43
  [music]