A Week in Eek
Ken Waldman
Nomadic Press
2000
14 tracks
There are narrow-minded people who will not appreciate the charm of A Week in Eek and indeed may dismiss it outright. I have met them. They are the folk music crowd who protest that they don't want their songs sullied by poetry. They are the literary snobs who say performance with music in some way diminishes the quality of poetry. Like many performers of spoken word, Ken Waldman proves them wrong.
A Week in Eek has a certain rustic charm, a sometimes complementary and sometimes conflicting mix of literacy and homeliness, a quirkiness some will love and some will hate. I must confess that I enjoy old-time fiddle music, spoken word performed in interesting ways, and quirkiness for its own sake. Ken Waldman, "Alaska's Fiddling Poet" as he calls himself, fills the bill in all respects.This is one of the more quirky releases I have received. Waldman plays old-time fiddle that is neither the hillbilly style of the American east nor the Canadian maritime style currently so popular but is something uniquely his own. It reminds me most of the barn-dance fiddlers I heard as a child in Western Canada. Andrea Cooper's accompaniment on flute and banjo adds to the down-home folky feel of the music. Waldman's voice weaves in and out of the music, bringing his highly personal view of Alaska to poetic life.
Purists, fiddle or folk, may feel that this release is not strong (or even not very good) musically. They may be correct. At times, it's best to be neither a purist nor a perfectionist. Waldman's performance of these traditional tunes is warm and comfortable, like listening to someone's grandfather play on the back porch some summer's night. This, rather than precision, is exactly what is needed to support the familiar feel of Waldman's poems.
If I appear to be defending Waldman, perhaps I am. I have seen all too many cultural snobs decry just such performance as Waldman's as being somehow inferior. It is not. In fact, Waldman's performance does not need defending. More than defending him, I am perhaps using him as a step up to my soapbox where I might speak out against academic elitism, cliques, and cultural snobs. Our true culture lives not with them but in the parlours and cafes and barrooms of our nation, whether Canada or the United States. It always has.
Ken Waldman's poetry suggests a broad range of influences, from Black Mountain and the Beats to Robert Service, and probably more than a smattering of more academic literary poets. The poetry itself is simple and to the point. He tells the stories of the real people he meets in his travels through Alaska. Sometimes he speaks in the free-verse colloquial style of the American storyteller. Other times he slips into a rhythmic style more like the Empire doggerel of Kipling or Service. Always, he has a story to tell and he tells it simple and unornamented by literary gewgaws.
Waldman's reading, much like his poetry, varies widely from performance to performance. His "A Week in Eek" is read flat, almost as book-bound literary poets read at poetry readings, but with emotion. Several of the poems on this release are read this way, but "Juneau Vets" and others swing like Pierre Berton reading Service, carried forward by the rhythm and drama in Waldman's voice. Although written as a longish poem, "Poetry Reading, Brevig Mission" is told like a Garrison Keillor prose story. In one instance, "Cluck Old Hen," Waldman even attempts singing. Having heard him, I can assure you this was a daring act.
For those of us who enjoy reading lyrics, or in this case poems, the jewel case insert doubles as a poetry book. Another quirky feature is that one poem, "Old-Time Fiddle Lesson," is also printed on the CD label. There's a good chance it may reflect not just Waldman's philosophy of fiddle but of life. Here it is:
Old-Time Fiddle Lesson
To learn,lock yourself
and your fiddle in your room
all winter, and practice
until you play with a twisty
heartfelt rhythmic punch
that approaches trance:
fiddling is not technical
repetition anyone can master--
it's the sound you make
once you know in the blood
you clog with your fingers
while that old devil music
dances inside that box.
from Fiddle Tunes Nomadic Press
A Week in Eek is different. It's interesting and it's fun. I believe it may also turn out to be an important cultural artifact, at least in the Alaskan places (including the small village of Eek) to which it makes reference.
Ken Waldman doesn't have a web site of his own, but entering his name in a search engine will yield a variety of articles about him, his performances, and his literary publications. Read my review of Ken Waldman's second release Burnt Down House at Sound Bytes.
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