MP3 Leigh Herrick - Just War

A blend of contemporary poetics with traditional hand drumming that incorporates everything from hip hop to classical, folk to blues.

20 MP3 Songs
SPOKEN WORD: Poetry, WORLD: World Traditions



Details:
Just War

Leigh Herrick is an award-winning poet recognized at both the local and national level. She is also a hand drummer and has trained intensively with such professional drummers as Layne Redmond and Marcos "Chico" Perez. She is an interdisciplinary artist, and her JUST WAR album exemplifies the purest sense of crossing boundaries between musicianship and poetic performance which she has achieved in both mainstream and academic settings. JUST WAR is a mix of Leigh Herrick's original poetry, underscored with traditional frame drumming and other percussion, as well as a breath of blues, hip hop, and a touch of the avant-garde! Using metaphor and satire through free and formal aspects of verse, this work looks at the intersections between politics and policy, science and nature, and gender, race, and class. The blending of rhythmic drumming within the poetic framework arouses consciousness and changes energy. JUST WAR is the ultimate in minimalist expression, a literal living room recording, created over a one-year period, and reflective of three years of written attention paid to events in the world just prior to, and well after, the attacks of September 11 2001.
Here is an excerpt from the Introduction to the liner notes:

July 4 2004

I have intended many things throughout this work, most of which cannot be discussed in this small space. I must say, however, there is an express attempt to recall the ancient relationship between the poet, spiritual leadership, drumming, and women.
Although this work is about war, I view it as peaceful opposition to the ongoing creation and maintenance of the war attitude.
Through the Many Unnamed I call to that spirit of knowing that would teach us how to live again without lethal weaponry, without perpetual war, perpetual threat, and perpetual attack, in so many ways sadly related to human acceptance of institutionalized aggression.
In the words of poet June Jordan, I would like to consider this work "an obstacle to genocide," knowing what poetry can do, and what certain tellers and makers of history will fail to report.

Leigh Herrick, Poet, from the Introduction to the liner notes for JUST WAR