Fans of the band Lonesome Brothers might describe guitarist Jim Armenti’s playing as somewhat poetic. Armenti’s mastery of the fretboard incorporates a sense of both lyricism and meter.
So, it probably comes as no surprise that Armenti also actually has been delving into actual poetry his entire life. This passion has led to the publication of a new book of the musician’s poems, accompanied by photos by local photographer Dave Madeloni, called “Sun on the Muddy.”
They both will be present at an event featuring the new book at 6:30 p.m. on April 17 at Sip 413 (90 Maple St. in the Florence section of Northampton). Of course, the event will also feature some of Armenti’s music.
Armenti answered a few questions about his journey into poetry and the new book, which grew from a project of trying to write a poem each day.
Q: What inspired you to write a poem every day, when did it start, and how long did this go on?
A: When COVID started, I received an invitation from a painter/friend to respond with writing to her daily paintings on small metal plates which she sent in emails. I was awake at 4 a.m., so the first thing I did after coffee was to look at the image and write a poem. Sometimes she sent groups, and I wrote more than one poem a day for about two years. Nearly 800 poems.
Q: Did you think of putting out a book when you were doing it, or did that just happen later on?
A: We had a show in Concord, Massachusetts, at an art museum, so the project was in the Gazette, and my neighbor Dan Lombardo read it and commented to me at the local transfer station. He was the special collections librarian at Jones Library for a few decades, and he said he would like to curate the poems. He is the one who found a memoir within all of the poems, and that became the book which he proposed to Levellers Press, and which they published.
Q: Have you always written poetry? Or is this a new venture? When did you first decide to write poems or any words without music?
A: I have written poems my entire life but for some reason didn’t credit them as writing per se. Among other things I wrote a series in college under the name Treetop Kenny. I often have written poems for birthdays, births, marriage etc. and have lost most, but not all. I think the songs stuck more simply because they have a place to be, i.e., performance and CDs.
Q: Do you find writing poetry different from writing song lyrics? If so, what’s the difference for you?
A: For me they are not the same either in form or style. I write songs in song/lyric form, nearly always using some common, repeated rhyme scheme and grouped as verse/chorus/bridge, etc. The poems in the book are mostly free verse. In song, I like narratives, not always, but often. This is also true in poetry, I like a poem to get somewhere, and I like them to be relatively clear in point of view. Even my songs seem to not give up their source but still make a point. Song lyrics are bound to an external beat, and the poems make their own.
Q: Speaking of songs, do you usually write music first or lyrics first? And why?
A: I am a juggler with songwriting. The elements of song: melody, groove, lyrics have to come together, but I generally go at all three at once until tone, subject and voice have found something. The idea, the words and the point of view.
Q: In the poems there seems to be a focus on a lot of physical objects. What is it about physical objects or the physical world that inspires you to write – as opposed to more abstract concepts that some poets get into?
A: That’s a great question. About the only time I give up on a song is when the abstraction persists, and I can’t find the idea a place in the physical world. Ideas are abstractions and there are no songs or poems without an idea, but the ideas need the bricks of words, and ideas supported by more ideas is philosophy, which I love, but is not a poem or a song. Analogy is the weakest form of argument in Western philosophy, but analogy allows the movement of the sun to be rebirth, in a song or poem.
Q: Where does the title of the book come from?
Q: “Sun on the Muddy” is the title of a song on my solo CD, “The Poetry of Longing.” It’s a song that I made to copy a joyful tune my father would make when we spontaneously would be going to the drive-in or for ice cream. His song was called ‘Leave the dishes in the sink’. My song is about taking the day off and playing frivolously and uselessly in the swamp.
Q: How did Dave get involved in the project? And how did you decide what photos to use or to pair with certain poems?
A: My original collaboration didn’t work out, and we had the book deal, and in thinking about illustrations I recalled my old Grimms’ fairy tale book which had mysterious line drawings between the stories. I had been seeing Dave Madeloni’s photos and liking them on Facebook through the same period I was writing and suggested to Dave that he might collaborate in the book, and he agreed. We met with Dan L. and Dan selected and arranged the placement of the photos in the book.
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