‘Bodacious Reading Series: Bob’s Not Responding
I read at Bodacious last month. Ten minutes, six poems. My final one is you-tubed below on ‘Bob’s Not Responding’ (lyrics included). My other five may incarnate elsewhere.
‘Bodacious’ is a new reading series in North Vancouver, BC. Kim Seary and Yvette Dudley-Neuman host This reading series. November’s reading will be ‘Limbo,’ a new play by Leslie Stark.
‘Poetry, Story, Song & Surprises’… was on Sat., Oct. 29th, 2016… to be continued monthly for playwrights and occasionally for poets’/songwriters’ right to play!
Who’s Who?
We gathered at the Bodacious Reading Series as actors, singers, playwrights, poets, songwriters, and authors of short stories, novels, and creative non-fiction.
Joan’s reading ‘Bob’s Not Responding’ was one of twelve readings spoken or sung on this Bodacious Reading Series night.
Artists included Sara Vickruck, Patricia Donahue, Rachelle Tomm, Cullene Bryant, Liliya Valis with Enrico Renz on guitar, Fran Bourassa, Beth Coleman, Una Bruhns, Linda Carson, Natasha Boskic and Lyndsay Wills.
Some playfulness:
Bob’s Not Responding (on Bob Dylan’s acceptance of the Nobel Prize)
(Robert Allen Zimmerman aka pop music guru)
Bob hadn’t responded until recently:
(“Amazing! Incredible!…It’s hard to believe.”)
Bob rarely explains
60 yrs of epic ballads, rock n’ blues, social unrest
Fickle friendships, wars-of-word protests, going electric…
But keeps on putting his work out there ‘like a rollin’ stone’
‘The times are a’changin’, and nothin’s ‘blowin’ in the wind’
There was no answer to the ‘knock, knock, knockin’ on Bob’s door.
(Til two weeks later, heavens!)
Now, ‘he knows how it feels’:
‘I’m not sleepy and there ain’t no place I’m goin’ to
(“I’ll go…to the Nobels…if at all possible”)
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirling ship
My senses have been stripped…’
Maybe that’s it; he was stripped, (“Speechless…
“Everything worth doing takes time
(Like the) 100 bad songs before you write one good one.”)
‘Well, it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe
Even you don’t know by now’
(“The academics, they ought to know. I don’t have an opinion.”)
‘And it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, babe ‘
(How, I’m gonna spend 1.4 mill US dollars)
‘But I wish there was somethin’ you would, do or say
To try and make me change my mind and stay
We never did too much talking anyway’
(“I’ll let other people decide…I’m not really qualified.”)
‘Don’t think twice, it’s all right.’
PS, Bob, thanks for tracking us Boomers and
For making rhyming truly great again, amen.
‘To be honest, I appreciate and respect the versatility of this great artist, who kept creating and evolving through turbulent times.’ ~Joan Boxall, poet/singer creator of ‘Bob’s Not Responding’
Bob Dylan, quoted from an interview and from song references on the honour of winning the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/oct/29/im-speechless-says-nobel-winner-bob-dylan-as-he-breaks-his-two-week-silence
- “Blowin’ in the Wind” (1963)
- “The Times They Are a Changin” (1964)
- “Mr. Tambourine Man” (1965)
- “Knock, Knock, Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door” (1973)
- “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” (1963)
- “Like A Rolling Stone” (1965)
Joan Boxall reading/singing at Bodacious Reading Series, October 29, 2016…to listen in, tune in to youtube link below…first words are ‘Bob’s Not Res…’ and you hear ‘ponding’!!