Wayward & Upward: Stories and Poems

By Rolli, Nnadi Samuel, Finnian Burnett and 31 more

A woman runs from a cult leader.

 

A man watches a crowd carry a baby into the woods.

 

A boy makes a childhood friend who is much older than she appears.

 

The forty pieces in this book unite two creative endeavours at the heart of humanity: making music and telling stories. Each writer took inspiration from one of the ten tracks on the Wayward & Upward album by Spinoza Gambit. This anthology collects one short story and three poems for each track, showcasing the variety of interpretations a single piece of music can evoke.

 

"Metafictional conversations and stand-alone pieces alike shine with creativity, taking thought experiments to a whole other level of engagement. One can read in the presented order or dip in at will and allow the writing to behave like music. With Wayward and Upward, one can listen with the eyes and encounter new voices showcasing the resilience and flexibility of human imagination."

- Michelle Butler Hallett, Winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize, Constant Nobody

 

With a FOREWORD by Jason Hayward (SPINOZA GAMBIT)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Off Topic Publishing
• Release date: Oct 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781777988852

Book preview

Foreword

What comes first, the words or the music? asks the eager interviewer (maybe just your cousin at the summer reunion). It’s a question that probably every songwriter gets at some point. Being primarily an instrumental composer, however, I miss out on this fun discussion a lot. So I’ll indulge a little here.

Just as common a question, but less entertaining, is the perennial where do you get your ideas from? I imagine most creative people have to occasionally stifle exasperation and tolerate this question, but maybe writers even more so than other artists. Yet, if you’re like me and interested in creativity as a phenomenon — and not just being creative — it’s also fun to discuss this nebulous thing called Inspiration.

As far as the interplay of words and music goes, I think this anthology is an instance of a clear answer to both the above questions, and a deliciously rare instance at that.

So, let’s consider this interplay of words and music.

I imagine the first thing that comes to mind for most people is popular song. When you read or hear about contemporary songwriters and collaborative bands – those who write both the words and music – you’ll come across examples of those who lean one way or the other (e.g., ABBA in the case of 'music first’ and Rush in the case of 'lyrics first’). It’s more common that a bit of music, say a guitar riff, or a rhyming couplet, provides the initial spark, each subsequent aspect gradually unfolding and shaping the other aspects in a complex interplay resulting in a full song. It’s like a dance that ultimately (and hopefully) leads to a magical marriage of words and music, whereupon listeners will either rejoice in the union, object outright, or hold their peace (and every reaction in between).

It’s common that this dance is collaborative, rather than danced by a loner. Of course, there have been many exemplary examples of the solo songsmith. And if there was ever an example of the convergent power of music and literature (although perhaps not of the actual singing), it is in the work of Bob Dylan, who won a Nobel Prize in Literature. Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell and Paul Simon have put forth further examples of wonderfully artistic, and dare I say literary, songwriting. I’m sure you can think of others. Each artist would have their own take on the classic questions I’ve mentioned above.

Innumerable song traditions stretch back into the mists of early human history, including oral traditions predating written records, some possibly as long as humans have been able to speak. It is noteworthy that there have been, and still are, traditions where no conceptual separation between the role of words and music (and often including dance) exists because, essentially, these all occur together and provide the basis for some extra-musical activity. However, the interplay between music and literature, while at least as old literature itself, is younger historically.

More recently, common scenarios other than that of either the lone songwriter or of collaborative songwriting partner(s)– i.e., where the words and music emerge together in the songwriting process – are situations where the words clearly come first, if not strictly chronologically, than in some other primary sense. If you consider the realm of classical music (and not just the so-called Western tradition, although that’s what I’ll use to illustrate) – composers have typically relied on the writing of others, not only to create songs (using poetry), but also pieces as diverse as Masses (using liturgical texts), and oratorios and operas (using libretti). Choral music, just on its own, is a vast genre of music, relying on words for crucial source material. Some of it you can even understand.

Closer to the creative foray represented by this anthology, we find plenty of examples of writers being inspired by music, in a more general way. Here I’m imagining Bukowski hunched over his typewriter in a haze of cigarette smoke, his yellowing undershirt stained with red wine, a glass and bottle never beyond easy reach, classical orchestral music surging from the corner turntable, urging him on. Then there’s Kerouac and his bebop and blues; there’s Murakami with his vinyl record collection, 10,000 items strong.

Given all these forms of interplay and uncountable iterations, it is rare to find examples of writing directly inspired by a particular piece of music. Present readers, therefore, hold a rare form of music-literature collaboration, with clear examples of the music first approach as writers match poems and stories to the tracks of an electronic music album.

Who knows where specific ideas come from a lot of the time?  We do know that, to be creative, we need a lot of inputs, ranging from experience in the given domain – absorbing, learning, experimenting, receiving feedback, etc. – to general life experience we can draw on. Experiencing other art forms can provide inspiration, and, particularly when one’s output is stalled or stale, can be just the thing to fill the creative well, as Julia Cameron terms it in The Artist’s Way. Collaborating with others provides another source of input. Arguably, the results are more creative, more original, when people work together – an idea supported in a lot of creativity research, especially centered in the business world, where innovation is the golden grail of company success, and where it is widely demonstrable that collaboration is the key.

Wayward & Upward would not exist, if I hadn’t sought both new musical and new life experiences, and, more importantly, without collaboration. Until the mid-2000s I had worked mostly in jazz, both as performer and as composer/arranger. To make a long and sordid story short, I went back to music school as a grad student in performance and had to drop out of the program due to mental health issues. I was then feeling lost and searching for a new musical direction. I filled my creative well by listening to various kinds of groove-based music – because I like stuff with a lot of repetition and I like to move to it – including so-called Minimalist classical music and electronic dance music. I moved to South Korea for three years to teach English, and I wrote half the album’s music there and half when I returned to St. John’s, my hometown at the time (and where I grew up). I knew Rich Blenkinsopp, the album’s co-producer, from playing in jazz ensembles together. Beyond the fact that he’s an amicable chap (yes, he’s from Bristol originally, so I can invoke this British-ism), I thought it would be great to work with him because we both have wide, eclectic interests in music, including various electronic sorts, and because he has vast technical expertise in that regard, which I don’t possess (although I’m working on it). Over ten years on, I’m still so happy about the results of our work together and immensely grateful. Moreover, we’ve recently rekindled our collaboration and have some new Spinoza Gambit tracks in the works!  I reached out again in no small part because of the development of this anthology and so, there’s that circle of creativity again, inspiration breeding more inspiration.

On a daily basis I’m grateful to — and grateful for — Marion, who is my life partner and wonderfully supportive of my musical endeavours. You’ll have to ask her exactly how and why this project has come about. I purposely stayed out of the way in its creation, not wanting to exert any input post-music, as it were. But I’m excited that it exists and deeply touched that it has come from Marion’s initiative and curation. I’m honoured that my music can potentially contribute to someone else’s creative well, let alone lead to these direct artistic results. I look forward to reading them all. Together we’ve achieved something special here, as collaboration results in the otherwise impossible.

That’s something to tell your next interviewer.

- Jason Hayward (Spinoza Gambit)

Berlin, September 2022

spinozagambit.com

Prodigal Moon

Prodigal Moon

Marie C Lecrivain

Every time I let myself enter your orbit

the discourse is always the same: I'm glad

to see you, but why are you wasting your life?

I love you, but I don't like you.

Which side do you want: black-eyed

peas, or mashed potatoes?

You never fail to point out to me

why—and when—I went rogue.

I believe it happened the moment

the umbilical cord was cut, and you

could no longer determine my destiny.

The more you tried, the stronger

the force of gravity repulsed between us.

My orbit slowly spiraled outward

from yours. I traveled to a universe

where you couldn't touch me,

and found stars that didn't care

about any other bodies than their own.

Why do I keep coming back? Because

I never really went away. You know,

as I move back into the space you

kept for me, that a mother's love,

even for  an outlier, is better than

an eternity of cosmic indifference.

Prodigal Moon

Viswo Varenya Samal

Silent tale...

that's where my story ends;

Mafia prince, I pull an encore –

escape through the suburbs

jumping the dark alleys

city police giving the chase

shooting in the neon bends

Prodigal Moon, I defy the odds,

the halo of promiscuous stars

dims, clouded by perception

Catch me, only if you can

A black rose someone sends

That someone plays saving grace

befuddles night watchmen

high and dry in the drunk city,

The chaser and the escapee

lost each other, both pretends

Silent tale...

also that's where