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Explore poems read by the two authors in conversation with each other, then follow your own fish to unlock your own creativity, and share it with us.
Hello. This is Deborah Bockelschmidt here with my friend and neighbor Sue Boudreau, your hosts for Follow A Fish. This is our last pair of episodes for Follow A Fish, so we are indulging ourselves by sharing some poems of our own that are favorites. Yesterday, we heard Sue's very moving poem, Punch a hole in the sky, dad. And today, I will read Leonardo Frees the Birds.
Deborah:Through the early morning market strides, the long limbed Leonardo. At his heels, that curly headed scalawags lie, who ducks behind a mound of plums to steal a bunch of cherries. Leonardo aims a playful blow at his companion, then feels inside his pouch for a few small coins that may appease the fuming vendor. Farther on, he buys a loaf of warm wheat bread to stay the young one's endless hunger. Where has he gone?
Deborah:Ah, there, of course. He joins him at the stall of the cellar of birds, tears him a hunk of pun. Finishing their bread, they take in all the captured songbirds. Some, in mute despair, have folded into themselves, while others call and flutter in distress. The summer air is brilliant with their cries, their tweets, and trills.
Deborah:Though some are silent, others fill the square with overlapping currents of chirps, a spill of song. A tall cage her holds a flurry of larks with softly scalloped russet and ivory quills. A male bobs closer to them near the bars, tilting his head and lifting up his crest, fixing anxious eyes on Leonardo. A pair of goldfinches stolen from their nest is hushed, pale beaks in red masks closed except for sharp wheats now and then, their wings at rest. Four copper breasted robins, each one kept in its own cage, whistle plaintively.
Deborah:One beats its wings, unable to accept the strange, unyielding bars. The other three are motionless. A blackbird, fluffed and bald, open mouthed, is breathing rapidly, eyes round with fear. Leonardo feels all their tiny hearts trembling as if he held the captives in his hands. He hears the calls unvoiced, the pent song waiting like a bell unstruck.
Deborah:He feels upwelling in his chest the power, the yearning ache of flight withheld. From his purse, he empties what is left, a pile of random coins into the palm of the birdman, a thin and weathered fellow dressed in leather jerkin and straw hat, whose qualms don't give him pause, for this has happened before, who rolls his eyes and reaches for his long carrying pole. He threads the loops of cord that serve as handles for the smaller pens onto the rod, the robins in their fore on one side, all of them restless now, against the finches and the blackbird on the other. It helps the boy to raise the load and then adjust the weight to balance on his shoulders So Lai can sense each movement of the birds. Leonardo lifts the larks in their big enclosure.
Deborah:'Grazie,' he says. We will return the cages and your bowl.' Boy and man pass through the Porta Romana and then turn to follow the well worn path along the span of Indagliaccio, seeking a quiet place beyond the busy docks where reedy plants grow undisturbed and branches interlace high above a blur of leaves and sun. Here they set the cages, turned to face the edge of the canal. Then one by one, they slowly tip them on their backs and slide the wooden floors up, up, and it is done. The skylarks are the first.
Deborah:Seem to find courage in numbers, Understanding, too, they right themselves and burst from the open side. The restive Robin vanishes in a blink. The two less active ones hold back, but only for another blink. They flash into the blue. The finches, wary of what might be in store, stay huddled in the farthest corner until Leonardo reaches through the open floor and gently unfolds them, draws them past the sill, one in each hand, and then uncurls his fingers.
Deborah:For just a breath, they lie unmoving, still. But in the very next, the pair of singers have merged with sunlight as two rainbow sparks. The round eyed blackbird, who is last to linger, hops toward the opening, gives his dark wings a single quick affirming shake, and then flies free in joyous swooping arcs. Leonardo meets Salai's bright face with his own golden smile, lays his right hand upon his shoulder as they trace the fine drawn filigree of the birds in flight, disappearing now over the water into the leafy branches and the light.
Sue:Wow. There were some parts that I found particularly lovely. I'm looking at some in mute despair have folded into themselves and that feels like such a beautiful depiction of what it feels like to be that sad. And then I loved a spill of song. Not a beautiful, alliterative thing to say.
Sue:Again, absolutely takes me right there. I loved a black bird, fluffed and bald, open mouthed, as breathing rapidly, eyes round with fear. And the escalating description you give of the bird's despair climaxes here, and it just makes me feel completely horrified. The pent up song, waiting like a bell unstruck. Very beautiful idea.
Sue:And then the yearning ache of flight withheld was a beautiful way of saying, encapsulating what it must be like from a bird's perspective to be imprisoned. And then the relief, you know, that you kind of set this up so that you're kind of wondering, because I actually had somehow not read the title properly. So I didn't realize quite what was coming. And so I kind of liked that denouement to be like, oh, he's gonna set them free. How cool is that?
Sue:The round eyed blackbird who is last to linger hops toward the opening, gives his dark wings a single quick affirming shake, then flies free in joyous swooping arcs. And I just love that. It's like if I'm feeling depressed, I wanna read that line again. And then finally, the lovely final rhyme, a satisfying landing for this swooping and soaring story poem. The fine drawn filigree of the birds in flight disappearing now over the water into the leafy branches and the light.
Deborah:I'm just wondering, is this a true story? Well, it's my made up version of what actually did happen. I learned from the PBS fairly recent documentary about Leonardo da Vinci called Just Leonardo, that he actually did make it a practice during this one period of his life when he was living in Milan to go and free the birds periodically from the bird seller at the market.
Sue:Do you know what they used them for? Were they for pets or in France they ate songbirds?
Deborah:Oh, god. I thought it was mostly pet songbirds.
Sue:Who would last for two days and then just die, because you wouldn't be able to feed them properly. Right. I mean that's a real problem with exotic pets today as well. I mean on TikTok you'll see people who have got a pet cougar or something Or a pet golden lion tamarind or something. It's just those poor animals, they don't last if you don't know what you're doing with them.
Deborah:Totally out of their element. Even in zoos it's hard to keep them alive.
Sue:Right, right. So it's based on this sort of idea that Leonardo did actually free birds, and so you just fleshed it out. And so who is Salai?
Deborah:Salai was his apprentice. He came into the studio as a very young boy, I think about 10 years old, and Leonardo was quite taken with him. Later on, when he grew up, well, at least he was probably a young man of 18 or so, they became lovers, and they were together for years and years.
Sue:I kind of wondered about that, because it seemed like such an incredibly beautiful, almost symbolic thing that he was doing for Salai. You picked this as your favorite poem for our final episode, and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about why you did that, why it became your favorite. I guess I feel good about it,
Deborah:and it it's a longer one, as you can hear. So it doesn't get very much airtime because it's too long for most readings, so I kind of jump on the chance when I have it.
Sue:But actually, the length of it is not a problem at all, because it's a narrative poem, the story in it keeps keeps me engaged and interested.
Deborah:Oh, that's good.
Sue:Yeah, yeah. You said that there were parts of it that you felt really good about. Could you enlarge on that a little bit?
Deborah:I guess I just feel good about it as a whole. It was kind of a challenge to write. It took a long time, but I was really, really into it. I didn't want to do anything else during the time when I was writing it.
Sue:So did the idea come to you when you saw the documentary on KQED or something?
Deborah:Yeah. There was an Italian scholar who was speaking about Leonardo Frees Birds, and they actually went back and listened again and slowed it down and copied down every Italian word. I mean, was being translated on screen as I watched, but I wanted to really understand it in Italian, so I kind of went with that as my one source.
Sue:Okay. And then you said it took you a long time, so to say a little Did bit more about you revise it? Did you write it first? How did it
Deborah:Well, because I chose to write in Tebsaturima, which is this old Italian form that Dante developed. It's iambic pentameter, at least in English, that's what it is. And it has kind of an intricate braiding rhyme scheme.
Sue:Oh! I had not picked that up Okay, at yeah. So you like that kind of discipline, the form?
Deborah:I do. It was really fun to get into it and feel how it works and to enjoy the braid as it went along.
Sue:That's an interesting point. The idea of imposing a structure seems sort of counterintuitive, but it can actually increase creativity.
Deborah:Yeah, it can. I think that your subconscious, of course, pushes you toward remarkable language. But formal verse pushes you too, because you can't just put any old thing in that line. It has to come out a certain way, and you get some interesting choices as a result of that.
Sue:Yeah, like stuff you might not normally have thought of, but because you've got that constraint, and I know it's kind of a weird leap, but I think I talked to you earlier about I'm doing a ceramics course right now, and we were told to make pinch pots. And then we have been embellishing them, and we've been taught how to do all these different things, and we've had specific assignments. And it took some of the stress away from thinking, oh, I've got to be just crazily creative in this vacuum. And it just made it for a much more satisfying and less intimidating experience while learning something about the craft. Right.
Sue:And I guess, in a weird way, it's not too dissimilar, and I think I should probably overcome my reluctance to do more traditional forms of poetry or more structured forms of poetry because it actually might be really an interesting challenge.
Deborah:You might really enjoy it, and I I think you wouldn't have any trouble with it, Sue, because you're already using meter. I mean, you're conscious of rhythm, and you already are using rhyme. And I think it wouldn't be that hard to move to the next level there. I mean, I'm not saying your poems would get better because of that, because they don't need to get better. But you might just really enjoy it.
Deborah:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I've also enjoyed, over time, letting each poem dictate its own form. And sometimes the form is reversed. Sometimes it's not a form.
Deborah:But each poem does seem to have its own spirit. And this one wanted to be in Tensoriuma partly because of the Italian setting, but partly just because of the language that was coming to me as I wrote about it. And other poems may dictate their own forms. That's kind of a tenet that the Victorian poets had, that they would let the also the Verlib poets. The what?
Deborah:The free verse poets in France, the symbolists, they would let each poem dictate the shape that it wanted. It wasn't a free verse in the sense that we write it now, but it was freely chosen in the moment by the poet for the particular poem.
Sue:And I mean, there's also the very pleasurable, much more light hearted, sort of limerick kind of Yeah. Form, and there are some other ones which are really fun to read as well as to write. So, no, I'm definitely much more sold on the idea than I was at the start. Because hanging out with you and talking about poetry has given me so much more insight. I really appreciate that.
Sue:I was wondering, is this, this is a great example of a narrative poem as well as being of a particular form. Were there some you've told us a little bit about how you set about writing this. What are some other narrative poems you'd like to recommend to readers?
Deborah:Well, a couple of really famous ones. One that we still read a lot now is The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.
Sue:Oh my gosh, that is just amazing! It is! And there is a version that is illustrated by Gustave Dore's Woodcuts.
Deborah:Yes, gorgeous. Yeah, get your hands on that. You can find it online actually.
Sue:Oh, that I'll put a link in the show notes, but it's just almost life changing. Yeah. And I think that it had some tremendous subconscious subtext in it
Deborah:as Oh, I think so too, yeah.
Sue:And you also talked about E. B. Browning, Aurora Lee. Tell us about that.
Deborah:Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote this. Well, she's most well known for her sonnets from the Portuguese. But this Aurora Lei is a very long it's actually a novel in verse form, in blank verse. So it's iambic pentameter. It doesn't rhyme.
Deborah:But it is brilliant, and it is just fascinating. It's the story of a poet. Aurora Leis, the poet. It takes us from her very early childhood into her adulthood. And there are all kinds of interesting narrative twists and turns, love affairs and marriages that end before they've begun, and fallen women, and the role of women in society, the reception of women poets, criticism of poetry, all kinds of things.
Deborah:It's just brilliantly done.
Sue:So let me reread your beautiful poem, Leonardo Frees the Birds. Through the early morning market strides the long limbed Leonardo. At his heels, that curly headed scalawag, Solai, who ducks behind a mound of plums to steal a bunch of cherries. Leonardo aims a playful blow at his companion, then feels inside his pocket for a few small coins that may appease the fuming vendor. Farther on, he buys a loaf of warm wheat bread to stay the young one's endless hunger.
Sue:Where's he gone? Ah, there. Of course. He joins him at the stall of the cellar of birds and tears him a hunk of pan. Finishing their bread, they take in all the captured song words.
Sue:Some, in mute despair, have folded into themselves, while others call and flutter in distress. The summer air is brilliant with their cries, their tweets and trills, though some are silent. Others fill the square with overlapping currents of chirps, a spill of song. A tall cage holds a flurry of larks with softly scalloped russet and ivory quills. A male bobs closer to them near the bars, tilting his head and lifting up his crest, fixing anxious eyes on Leonardo.
Sue:A pair of gold frint finches stolen from their nest is hushed, pale beaks in red masks closed except for sharp wheats now and then, their wings at rest. Four copper breasted robins, each one kept in its own cage, whistled plaintively. One beats its wings, unable to accept the strange, unyielding bars. The other three are motionless. A blackbird fluffed and bald, open mouthed, is breathing rapidly, eyes round with fear.
Sue:Leonardo feels all their tiny hearts trembling as if he held the captives in his hands. He hears the calls unvoiced, the pent up song waiting like a bell unstruck. He feels upwelling in his chest the power, the yearning ache of flight withheld. From his purse, he empties what is left, a pile of random coins into the palm of the birdman, a thin and weathered fellow dressed in leather jerkin and straw hat, whose qualms don't give him paws, for this has happened before, who rolls his eyes and reaches for his long carrying pole. He threads the loops of cord that serve as handles for the smaller pens onto the rod, the robins in their fore on one side, all of them restless now against the finches and the blackbird on the other, and helps the boy to raise the load and then adjust the weight to balance on his shoulders.
Sue:Salai can sense each movement of the birds. Leonardo lifts the larks in their big enclosure. Grazi, he says. We will return the cages and your pole. Boy and man pass through the Pota Romana, then turn to follow the well worn path along the span of the Navagiliasio, seeking a quiet place beyond the busy docks where reedy plants grow undisturbed and branches interlace high above a blur of leaves and sun.
Sue:Here they set the cages turned to face the edge of the canal. Then, one by one, they slowly tip them on their backs and slide their wooden floors up, up, and it is done. The skylarks are the first, seeming to find courage in numbers, understanding too that they right themselves and burst from the open side. The rest of Robin vanishes in a blink. The two less active ones hold back, but only for another blink.
Sue:They flash into the blue. The finches, wary of what might be in store, stay huddled in the furthest corner until Leonardo reaches through the open floor and gently unfolds them, draws them past the sill, one in each hand, then uncurls his finger for just a breath. They lie unmoving still, but in the very next, a pair of singers have merged with sunlight as two rainbow sparks. The round eyed blackbird who is last to linger, hops towards the opening, giving his dark wings a single quick affirming shake, then flies free in joyous swooping arcs. Leonardo meets Salai's bright face with his own golden smile, lays his right hand upon his shoulder as they trace the fine drawn filigree of the birds in flight, disappearing now over the water into the leafy branches and the light.
Deborah:Thank you, Sue. So shall I give the prompt? I say try Telsarema. It is iambic pentameter, rhyming ABA, b c b c d c, etcetera. If you wish, you can cheat like I did and not separate it into three line stanzas.
Deborah:And since English is one of the harder languages to rhyme, much harder than Italian, feel free to use near rhymes.
Sue:And I think you said earlier that there are poetry rhyming websites and dictionaries. Websites online, yeah, absolutely. Or obviously you could just get AI to write it for you.
Deborah:Yeah, you could.
Sue:Well, thank you, Deborah. That's a really interesting prompt and I'm motivated to give it a try. It sounds interesting. I kind of like the idea of the interweaving rhymes. Well, this is it.
Sue:This is the final episode of Follow A Fish poetry podcasts. I'm moving back to England, and I'm busy with the move and will be starting a new chapter. I plan to continue podcasting, and the Curiosity Cat site will host this and other projects. My next is likely to be what's it like jobs podcast, where I'll be interviewing people doing all kinds of different jobs, mostly because I'm curious about very different lives and what the best and worst aspects are, say, of being a plumber or a firefighter are, why people chose the jobs they did, and what they would like the public and job seekers to know. I also want to highlight the kind of quiet heroism that is behind so many of the jobs that kind of allow us to live a civilized and safe life.
Sue:I also am interested in things like, what does your house cleaner think about, like being friends with you. Because when I was younger, I remember kind of thinking I had to be friendly with people who came to do work for me. And after a while it occurred to me, maybe they just want to get on with their jobs. What kind of passenger do flight attendants like and who not so much, and so on. So I hope you'll join me for these episodes that will drop in the fall once I'm installed in Abingdon, which is about five miles south of Oxford.
Sue:It's been a total pleasure chatting with Deborah about poetry, sharing poems back and forth, hearing her read my stuff, and engaging deeply with the beautiful words she writes. It's given me a whole new appreciation for poetry, and I have learned so much about how to produce a podcast from skip scripting, scheduling, editing, and the whole text deep learning curve to host and distribute them. Our theme music is Emile Pessard's Andalus played by Deborah Schmidt on flute, accompanied by Brian Baker on piano. Production and editing are done by me, Sue Boudreaux, in El Sabrante, California. And thank you so much for listening.