Whole Life Magazine

October/November 2014

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Elizabeth Cantwell T he title alone may be enough to make you curious about this slender volume of poems, but just wait until you start reading. Start anywhere. I began at the beginning: "And in the space inside your head, between your eyes and your ears, an entire planet throbs," writes Elizabeth Cantwell. That's from "A Hot, Close Sun Turning Your Temples Into Ash." Do you begin to see why you'll want to read every poem in this book? Some are more traditional in style, some wander off, but her imagery is twenty-fi rst century superb. On the nights you're thinking the tiger might get you, this might not be the best soporifi c. The "layers of contemporary anxiety" (as the jacket says) are already too intimate. But come back to this book, because you'll un- derstand (perhaps all too well) the rag- ged edge of her unconventionally de- picted vision. (Black Lawrence Press) —Abigail Lewis Nights I Let the Tiger Get You BOOKS art & soul F ollowing the Ninth is a history-packed paean to Bee- thoven's Symphony No. 9 in D Minor. In this dramatic composition, passion and violence resolve in the fi nal movement—the section commonly referred to as "Ode to Joy"—with a chorus singing words adapted from an 18th-cen- tury poem of the same name. A brilliant musical masterpiece created by a nearly deaf composer in the 19th century, "the Ninth" became a kind of anthem to the human spirit. This documentary skillfully interweaves historical footage with expert commentary in the present, detailing pivotal mo- ments of human struggle that have adopted the powerful composition: for example, the Tiananmen Square demonstra- tion and massacre; at the Brandenburg Gate when the Berlin Wall came down; in Chile during the U.S.-backed overthrow of Salvador Allende. The fi lm connects the dots among human events of revolution and transformation, all of which have em- braced this music as their battle cry. As one conductor noted, it's really an ode to freedom. So popular is it in Japan that at the hol- idays there may be 100 different choral groups performing it, in some cases with a 5,000-voice chorus. The Ninth Symphony is beautiful and stirring, but it's also vi- olent, making it an almost perfect refl ection of human struggle and hope. Although the composer was totally deaf by the time the symphony was fi rst performed, the rest of the world has continued to listen to, and be inspired by it. This illuminating documentary will enable you to appreciate it from not just a musical, but also historical perspective. You'll never hear it the same way again. —AL Following the Ninth In the Footsteps of Beethoven's Final Symphony Written and directed by Kerry Candaele FILM 32 wholelifetimesmagazine.com

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