EVERY GENRE PROJECT - March 14 - Canto a lo poeta
Genre of the Day - Canta a lo poeta
Album of the Day - Leña Gruesa (Thick firewood) by Quelentaro (1969)
March 14, 2024
Joni Mitchell once had some choice words for the discipline of poetry that have reverberated in my head since. Off the bat, it probably will come as a shock that Mitchell would criticize poetry. She’s been quoted as agreeing with Nietzsche on poets, noting his barb “[The poet] muddles his waters so that they might appear deep,” and in a less biting way expressed her thesis that “you can comb [poetry] and comb it for understanding, and it may produce a lot of thoughts, but it doesn't get to the heart of the matter clearly enough for me.” I include this today mostly because today’s genre challenged my own notion of what blurs the line between music and poetry, as Mitchell paints them as categorically different, but today’s genre is poetry set to music. Is that not all sung music to an extent, though? Rap songs are still music even if many are primarily spoken word. I don’t know. I guess it depends on what one’s own interpretations of poetry are.
Today’s genre, canto a lo poeta, is a traditionally orally transmitted genre, featuring spoken poetry set to music. It hails from Chile, and is unfortunately one of the least numerically deep genres I’ve encountered on RYM with only sixteen releases. Makes sense for an orally-transmitted genre, though, that a lot of it hasn’t been set to record. One wonders how many genres fly under the radar because of this exact reason. Nonetheless, the history runs deep as it’s been a practice developed over four hundred years of Spanish colonization of Chile. It covers both the religious: canto a lo divino is the form that developed first and was developed by clergy who aimed to introduce the holy word to native populations via music. However, as it became established as a folk genre, it gained a secular aspect in the form of canto a lo humano.
It’s a genre with great diversity given those unstructured terms, but is instrumentally consistent with guitar being the primary accompaniment. Although it dwindled down to being mostly popular in rural areas of Chile, like many genres in the era of musical preservation since the global folk wave of the mid-20th century, there’s been a resurgence in interest. The genre continues to persist and evolve: if Pinochet couldn’t stomp it out, not much could.
Today’s album starts off on quite the statement with a 17-minute odyssey “Leña Gruesa” setting the tone for the rest of the poems that follow. It’s such a bold move that it almost strikes me as confusing: was this just one poem the group Quelentaro particularly wanted to hammer out? Were they just really feeling this one? Sometimes, though, you really do need ample time to make a statement especially when the genre is verbally-driven. The poet, whose speaking voice is perhaps more impassioned and full-bodied than if he sang—a merit to this genre—rises to urgency throughout the protracted poem with a roar. As the tone of his words intensifies, so too does the accompanying music: sharp stabs of guitar and flute blow in like a looming storm. The song touches mostly on the themes of anger, frustration, and a disadvantaged upbringing, framing poetry as powerful catharsis. It ends on a generous note, though, saying that though the lyrics may be profane to get his point across, the music is “arrullo”—cooing—and that it’s music that kids can fall asleep to. On one hand, the spoken aspect puts force behind thoughts; on the melodic side, music provides the means that musical healing can be passed to the next generation. The rest of the songs I unfortunately did not have the transcriptions to on my flight, but still offer insights into how spoken word can be balanced with at times haunting and striking and at others calm melodies. The intensity of the poets’ voices remain steadfast throughout, unwavering in their goal of elevating poetry in this unique form.