To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last

[sovay]

My poem "Every Night and All" has been accepted by Nightmare Magazine. It is a poem of plague as much as the underworld; the title comes from the refrain of the "Lyke-Wake Dirge," which I learned as a child from the singing of Buffy Sainte-Marie. It has threaded through my work ever since. (It plays a fleeting but central role in "The Boatman's Cure.") Years later I discovered she was singing a variation on the classical arrangement by Benjamin Britten, but as much as I admire the eerie lilt of Peter Pears' famously dry white tenor, less like the living waking the dead than one ghost calling another down, the old sistrum jangle behind Sainte-Marie terrified me in childhood and no amount of strings and horns can change that even now.

Comments

[ashlyme]

Dear God, it's the first time I've ever heard this (or *any* Buffy Sainte-Marie) and it's chilled me - in good ways. I had goosepimples just listening. That vibrato. Her voice sounds as old as the land. Thank you for the introduction. <3 (I love the way you write of voices like wine. Apparently I have a glass of Peter Pears in front of me as I type. )

[ashlyme]

PS: I said it on FB, but it bears repeating - congratulations!

[sovay]

PS: I said it on FB, but it bears repeating - congratulations!

Thank you! I really am pleased; I have not sold this market poetry before.

[davidgillon]

Ah, double congratulations needed then!

[sovay]

Ah, double congratulations needed then!

Thank you and thank you!

[sovay]

I had goosepimples just listening. That vibrato. Her voice sounds as old as the land. Thank you for the introduction.

You're welcome! Yes. She does sound like the earth. You believe she knows what's under it.

(I love the way you write of voices like wine. Apparently I have a glass of Peter Pears in front of me as I type.)

Hee! Tell him I say hi.

[ashlyme]

*She does sound like the earth. You believe she knows what's under it.*

If you'd played this to me without telling me who it was, I'd have assumed an older Briton, rather than a young indigenous Canadian. I've met geology I could imagine sounding like this. *shivers*

*Hee! Tell him I said hi.*

He says hello back. I'm probably going to the same hell as Kenneth Williams for this, but Mr Pears tastes quite nice.

(Must investigate some Britten.)