Fammerée

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Blue and Green

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Released: Jan 29, 2009

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Blue and Green
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Evora
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Green Man
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Ephemerae live in concert
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Markets of Remorse
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Total Plays: 107,437 / Plays Today: 1See All Featured ►

General Info

Genre: Alternative / Experimental / Lyrical
Location Paris, France; Kauai, HI; Evanston (Chicago), Illinois, US
Profile Views: 78590
Last Login: 2/16/2010
Member Since 5/7/2006
Website fammeree.blogspot.com
Type of Label Major
Bio
.. .. .. .. .................... * * * * * Poet, composer, singer-songwriter, international performing and recording artist Richard Fammerée is founder and director of Pont des Arts Ensemble [www.myspace.com/pontdesartsenemble] and UniVerse of Poetry [www.universeofpoetry.org]. * * .. .. .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * A widely published poet, he is a pioneer of the global renaissance of poetry & music, scoring poems into alternative/contemporary art songs. His album Fammerée & Eurydice, “pansophic and visceral in the same breath,” marries passion and spirituality echoing his book of poems Lessons of Water & Thirst, included in the Poetry Library of Royal Festival Hall, London. Manfred Gordon (Cambridge University) describes this volume as “sensual and psychological, lush in the tradition of French Symbolism.” Collaborations include recordings with poets Li-Young Lee, Rachel Webster and Francesco Levato; Emmy award-winning singer Toni Childs; Grammy winner Frank Myers; and singer-songwriters Anne West, Carrie Ingrisano, Meg Lauterbach and Alana Grier. Three projects have been produced by David Tickle. * * * * * .. .. .. .. .................... .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * In the tradition of troubadours, Fammerée has played the varnish off numerous guitars in numerous countries. He is frequently featured in American and European publications and venues. Highlights include: Amnesty International, The Art Institute of Chicago, ARTÉ Television, National Public Radio, PBS, The Poetry Center of Chicago, Shakespeare & Co. (Paris) and The World Festival of Sacred Music initiated by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. An artist-in-residence at Flatfile Galleries, Richard Fammerée appears in Who’s Who in the World 2000 and is featured on ReVerse with Mark Strand, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Li-Young Lee, Elise Paschen and Lou Reed. He produced and hosted Poetry & Its Music International for the University of Chicago and Northwestern University. * * * * * Recordings of the poetry and music of Richard Fammerée are available on Snocap, Apple iTunes and more than thirty other digital online outlets. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Poète, compositeur, chanteur auteur-compositeur-interprète, performante et internationale enregistrement artiste Richard Fammerée est le fondateur et directeur du Pont des Arts Ensemble [www.myspace.com / pontdesartsensemble] et UniVerse of Poetry [www.universeofpoetry.org]. Un poète largement publié, il est un pionnier de la renaissance globale de la poésie et la musique avec ses chansons art contemporain et “alternative.” Son album Fammerée et Eurydice, "pansophic et viscérale dans le même souffle," épouse la passion et la spiritualité faisant écho à son livre de poèmes Lessons of Water and Thirst, inclus dans la bibliothèque de poésie Royal Festival Hall, Londres. Manfred Gordon (université de Cambridge), ce volume décrit comme "sensuelle et psychologique, luxuriante dans la tradition du symbolisme français." Collaborations avec des enregistrements poètes Li-Young Lee, Rachel Webster and Francesco Levato; Emmy award-winning chanteuse Toni Childs; Grammy winner Frank Myers; et chanteuses-auteurs-compositeurs Anne West, Carrie Ingrisano, Meg Lauterbcah et Alana Grier. Trois projets ont été produit par David Tickle. * * * * * .... .. .. .. .................. .. .. .. .. .. * "Echo and Shadow" by Li-Young Lee [poetry] & Richard Fammerée [music] * * * * * Dans la tradition des troubadours, Fammerée a joué le vernis de nombreuses guitares dans de nombreux pays. Il est souvent en vedette américaine et européenne de publications et de venues. En voici les points saillants: Amnesty International, The Art Institute of Chicago, Arté télévision, National Public Radio, PBS, The Poetry Center of Chicago, Shakespeare & Co. (Paris) et le Festival mondial de musique sacrée initié par Sa Sainteté le Dalaï Lama. Un artiste en résidence à Flatfile Galeries, Richard Fammerée apparaît dans le Who's Who dans le monde 2000 et figure au ReVerse avec Mark Strand, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Li-Young Lee, Elise Paschen et Lou Reed. Il produit et animé “La poésie et sa musique internationale” à l'Université de Chicago et de Northwestern University. * * * * * Les archives de la poésie et la musique de Richard Fammerée sont disponibles sur Snocap, Apple iTunes et plus d'une trentaine d'autres points de vente numérique en ligne. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Members
.. .. Richard Fammerée (poet, singer-songwriter, composer, guitarist & multi-instrumentalist, US/France) & Pont des Arts Ensemble [www,myspace.com/pontdesartsensemble] * * * * * I could not sleep while you slept. Any little animal might have sheltered in your body; and I kept leaves from your eyes and things from your hair until your lips revived, bending back my fingers to the lessons of water and thirst. Fires that night digested the wet, and when their long viridian became your arms and a delirium became our legs, threads relinquished us, and we were not puppeted by earth, and we were not puppeted by heaven. We became larger than form and texture and scent-- something like clouds-- and fear was driven from the manger of our bellies, and anger's thin lips could not diminish us. We ate everything that was red, and everything red was delicious. My sap was greening your milky body, then your legs slapped. They slapped into fins and you arced and my chin and ear separated, and silver and more silver and silver again, I quivered behind you. [Ephemerae © 2008 Richard Fammerée] * * * * * www.myspace.com/fammereepoet * * * * * www.myspace.com/fammereelive .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Influences
.. .. I am pregnant and I am not embarassed, and I refuse to defend myself before the disappointed. My babies have not been fathered by the patriarchy, but they are not bastards. I am not busy in commerce-- I am not a landlord or collector or provider, but they will never be abandoned. I am going to live in a forest where moss bathes my toes and makes slippers for trees and pillows of stones; I am going to deny concrete and its fumes; I am going to swim every swell of my heart; for it is good for my babies. I am going to learn not to worry. I am going to learn to listen to my fingers and dismember every gate which does not allow the seeds of wind and rain and light. I am so pregnant I cannot see my feet, but my path leads me. When a poem comes through me, I embrace its vortex and adore its apparitions and whisper every word of its appendages into song. And when voices will no longer echo from the bones of my back, sleep will make me a baby in a belly again. ["Pregnant" © 2008 Richard Fammerée] .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..
Sounds Like
If we were one God, we would feed each other everything; and everything would eat us, and we would never die. My tongues would serpent in your temple where water becomes blood; and the pink imprint of our lips would be a talisman above the bed. We would not need to protect our skin from light; we would not need to protect our skin from skin; and nothing red would be unclean at the mouth of the Tigris. I know what the dark book teaches, but the garden is within us all. I am a green man, and I am my messiah now. I am not embarrassed, I am not afraid, I am not alone. I cannot lose anything, for nothing is mine. And I will never be hungry, for everything is mine. Where, then, is the throne of heaven? I know what the dark book teaches, but the garden is within us all. If we were one God, we would not appease fathers of don't. We would kiss the tips of each other, for lips are the spout of the fountain and eyes, the light of the fountain. Nipples are ready to blossom, and a rose is a mouth of the mother. I am a finger, and you are a finger. Our hand is a leaf, our leaf, a wing, and leaves and wings will cathedral us again. ["Green Man" © 2008 Richard Fammerée] .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. There is a room in a wall, and the wall is mud, and the mud, crenelated and pink. There is a bed and cold-water sink and two pillows. One window is pomegranate, the other pregnant. They whisper over our bed from the starry book of the dead a story of two inseparable children. In this Genesis all that is delicious is delicious, and the serpent pleads, Feed me, free me from a lonely perfection of leaves. Apples tremble redder and redder to rot if they touch the earth before they are tasted. The left eye of the moon prepares your belly; the seiche of your rose invites stingers and noses and eyes closed. I am a wafer at your lips. You are the tree of life kicking blanket and sheet to the foot of the bed. You are the book of life Hebrews undress and spread upon velvet, caress with a silver finger and silk and knots of silk. You are a chalice raised high as my arms can hold you, jeweled in front and smooth in back. You are never unclean. Before you bathe you are not unclean. When you bleed, you are not unclean. Inside you I am transubstantiated into blood and the breath of blood. What church can refute this miracle? Wood smoke and wick smoke twist into a nest. Flesh separates like young bread, Accipite et bibite ex eo omnes. Hic est enim Calix Sanguinis Mei. Your lips are the seperation of light, and I am the vigil between. We rattle in our sandcastle, two tongues, two lungs, two lungs, two rattles in one hand. If I were king and this were my quadrant of desert, I would elevate each toe and cut down the abomination of every god smothering the cave where the fire girl raves, her vowels swallowing me deeper into her wall, Accipite et manducate ex eo omnes. Hoc est enim Corpus Meum. The hulls of our shoes, the ones we bargained for in the souk the day we arrived, will remain. Our dust will fill the belly of an hour glass. ["Left Eye of the Moon" © 2008 Richard Fammerée] ....";....................I edited my profile at ..Freeweblayouts.net.., check out these ..Myspace Layouts!........ ..TONI CHILDS One Life - 9am with David & Kim...... .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * "One Life" written by Richard Fammerée [lyrics & music]; performed by Toni Childs, live on national Australian television, 9/11/08 * * * * * ONE LIFE * (The story) * I consider many of my songs and poems compositions of personal healing, not necessarily intended for recording or distribution. And there is a lesson in this, for these somehow reach the larger world and two, in particular, have outdistanced their composer: “Notre Dame” (popularly known as “Blue & Green”) and “One Life” (recently covered by Toni Childs: www.myspace.com/thetonichilds). * “One Life” was born in Chicago in a desire for recalibration. It had been a particularly urban winter: ice, insensitive, concrete, insensitive, February, insensitive (even if a red heart is pasted annually upon its breast). * Returning from a slim solace and chaleur of Belize in the final days of winter in March, I began performing in and around Wicker Park where I had been raised. One venue lead to another: Hot House, Chopin Theatre, Subterranean, Uncommon Ground, finally the Art Institute. A member of the Dave Matthews team began courting my band during our recording sessions at Alien Sound. Our female vocalist was invited to join DM on the road and there was talk of us opening for them in an outdoor summer venue. * Spirits were high and expectations grew higher. And, of course, the dramatics inherent in the soaring of the ego increased, as well. * One afternoon I found myself in very quiet room looking into the vast green skirt of a quiet oak filling the window. As if scoring an inner film of me again in green again, a song emerged which I continued to write and sing whenever the insanity of a fast urban life began to overwhelm its shiny tinsel benefits. * “One Life” would return me to the island of Kaua’i, to my favorite camping site between great trees along Anini Beach where the song had certainly been sown. * Predictions of hipster rhythm sections, however, can often be counter-intuitive and unsettling. John and Hamid had almost convinced me not to leave Chicago. * “Think about what you’re doing--and the consequences.” * “I’ll only be gone two or three weeks--” * “Still, . . . “ each nodded. * Helene cast Tarot. She concured wanly, warily. * I always try to choose faith not fear--and, soon, I was reclining on the lanai (wrap-around porch) of Eddy Free and Laura Love’s tree house. I felt safe enough to share my new song. Eddy tumbled from his hammock and returned with a twelve string. * “This is the song Dave Matthews should hear.”* “That won’t happen. Helene doesn’t sing it.”* Eddy nodded. He had been there. I was just happy to be singing my freshest lyrics to the hungry jungle and dream-distant sea. * That final summer month just prior to 9/11 was a relaxed and happy time for our circle in Kaua’i. Every weekend featured a vivid house party celebrating the miracle of life--and finding ourselves in paradise--with organic, orgasmic food, music and fire dancing. There are moments I replay as if from a film. In one, I am sitting at dusk on the lowered gate of a flat bed pickup up in the hill country of the island, an area called “little Ireland.” I am surrounded by fire dancers and cartoon-tattooed drummers, and we are surrounded by jungle. I am playing my guitar wildly.* In another, I am playing my guitar generously, then intimately, sipping wine, smiling languidly, laughing and listening, listening more closely to the woman sitting cross legged on the floor beside me. Her voice fills the room and gracefully diverts every conversation. We are surprised at our ability to create songs together effortlessly, and she encourages this. Her name is Toni. She is the woman I have seen riding a palomino down the valley when I study the sea at dawn from Heather’s lanai. In rainy moments, I have watched her from the window of the spare bedroom where my guitar and knapsack attend me.* Eddy joins us, resting his hand along the waste of his unvarnished Guild. “Are we in tune?’* We are, surprisingly, in that humidity. At least to each other.* “Play that new song--the tree song--everything is all one life--”* “Maybe later--”* Toni turns to me. Her eyes have changed. Her face has changed. “There is no later. Only now.”* I fold over my guitar, actually Heather’s guitar, and sing.* “You wrote that?” she asks as if surprised by a bouquet of local wine. “The words and music?”* Yes and yes.* One year later Toni Childs was awarded an Emmy for a song featured in a documentary by Eve Ensler, creator of the Vagina Monologues. The following spring I was writing yet another lyrical poem in a red barn in a forgotten, very purposely corner of the Midwest when an unlisted number appeared on the small window of my cell phone.* I knew it would not be a credit card company extending my credit line or Helene who no longer allowed herself to believe in me--or herself. Findley, my cat who was supposed to be busy decreasing the rodent population, glared at me until I finally answered.* “Hello, Richard? This is Toni.”* “Hey, Toni. How are you?”* “Very good actually. Listen, I’d like to cover that song you sang that night at the party--”* “ ‘One Life?’ ”* “That’s it. The tree song.”* Arrangements were made for me to return to Kaua’i. Toni introduced me to her producer David Tickle. We recorded the song and it appears on her new record Keep the Faith [www.myspace.com/thetonichilds].* Blessings to all and to all a good life. . . . ..TONI CHILDS Interview 9am with David & Kim...... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... .. .. .. ......Notre Dame.... (video).... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. "Notre Dame" by Richard Fammerée (poem & song) and Miranda Rondeau [www . myspace . com/mirandasmuse] with the director of TWiN Poetry (film) * * * * * NOTRE DAME * * * * * Our Mother who art in everyone, everything is thy name. Thy garden serene, thy waters green the earth as they blue the heavens. Thank you for our daily bread and the blessing that no one can be satisfied until everyone is fed. Forgive our ignorance as we forgive those who ignore you in each of us. Lead us from fear and deliver us from anger and anxieties, for life is a ripening to return to you, to feed you, to seed you, to be reborn forever and ever Again * * * * * c 2000 Fammerée .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * The story of "Notre Dame (Blue & Green)" * * * * * I have visited so many sacred sites, by design or fortune, that a singular lesson has been amplified beyond revelation to certainty: each of us is the innermost sanctum. One needs travel no further than the soul to experience the most perfectly proportioned temple and the most daringly elegant cathedral. Still, I shall relate the story of a poem which has already surpassed me and my relatively few years walking the earth. Kato Zakros is the final town at the eastern tip of Crete, an island of famous mythologies (Minos, son of Zeus; the Minotaur, its labyrinth; Theseus) and mythic civilizations (Minoan). I had originally dreamed of living among its fabled palm trees--the first I would have ever had seen--during my two year journey (which I sometimes call my third crusade) which began in County Kerry, Ireland, and ended in Jerusalem. Nine months into the adventure, that first spring, I found a garden house in Mirtos (along the southern coast of the island) and ventured no further east than Irepetra. I finally visited Kato Zakros fifteen years later during my pilgrimage to Mirtos. I found a small room above the pebbled beach which looked directly across the eastern Mediterranean to Acre. It was in that white bed pushed close to the wall the wife of the Lord’s Prayer appeared to me. It began as a trickle of words in the fissures of the ancient, shadowy ceiling, and they puddled into a cloud settling upon my chest and blossoming behind my eyes. I rose and wrote out the Lord’s Prayer and began to construct a new poem--its “lost half”--alongside. Nine months later, I discovered the notes folded into my knapsack among fragments of poems and music and addresses hurried across half sheets and receipts. I left it in my bag as I prepared for a flight to Tel Aviv. I arrived to Jerusalem three weeks before Passover and Easter and decided to begin my Peace Tour of Israel, Jordan and Egypt immediately to arrive back to the Holy City during holy week. Having crossed the Red Sea into the Egyptian Sinai after a fortnight of wandering Arabia enroute from Jerash and Petra to Aqaba, I settled thankfully into a straw hut in a Bedouin camp. A little shade upon the path to Mt. Sinai was a relief. There was another westerner living in the camp, a German woman whose intensely blond hair was always covered in black. A student of mysticism and desert deities, particularly fertility goddesses, this woman without child kept to herself. One afternoon we met in the absolute silence of the desert near a primitive sink. If I were composing a Bible, I would say that we met at a well. I recited the fragments of the poem I would name Notre Dame two weeks later in Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris enroute back to the States. Her eyes were intense as the sky we were hiding from, her skin cured as a person’s twice her age. Hermitic--and hermetic--as she was, she encouraged me to birth the words to the world; and I finished the poem that night walking beside the gentle ripple of the Red Sea, revising aloud with each step. It was a full moon and I recited into its eyes and purity. Distant fires in the desert, I later learned, were Israeli families singing and feasting, for it was also the eve of Passover. I recited Notre Dame into Mount Sinai. I said to Jehovah, “If this poem displeases you, I stand here naked in the place where two apostates (with rather complicated, forgettable names) were devoured by the earth--” The night remained still, benevolent. I recited the poem again a few days later on Easter Sunday in Jerusalem at Christ Church. And again months later at the invitation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama during the World Festival of Sacred Music. I had just returned from the island of Kauai where the music had been born as Aphrodite from the sea. * * * * * Notre Mère qui est en nous, tout est ton nom. Que ton jardin soit serein, que tes eaux verdissent la terre comme elles bleuissent le ciel. Merci pour notre pain quotidien et le bonheur d'être certain qu'aucun ne sera rassasié avant que chacun mange a sa faim. Pardonne-nous notre ignorance comme nous pardonnons à ceux qui t'ignore en chacun d'entre nous. Ne nous soumets pas à la peur mais délivre-nous de notre colère et de nos tourments, car c'est a toi que revient la maturation de la vie, pour te nourrir, t'ensemencer et renaître pour les siècles des siècles Encore * * * * * © 2000 Fammerée * * * * * .. .. .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * UniVerse of Free Expression: A Festival & Celebration of International Poetry & Music featuring Ofelia Zepeda, Fady Joudah, Kwame Dawes, and Valzhyna Mort [http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=32336]* * * * * UniVerse of Poetry readings and showcases commend individuals who demonstrate a consistent dedication and integrity of vision, humanity, innovation and artistry in their writing, increasing the dialogue and significance of poetry within a greater society, nationally and internationally.* * * * * In celebration of this purpose, this historic event, hosted in collaboration with Chicago Public Radio, features: .. .. .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * Ofelia Zepeda - an enrolled member of the Tohono O’odham Nation of Arizona, who grew up in a rural cotton farming community near the reservation. The first of her family to attend school, she received her Master's degree and Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Arizona where she is now Regent’s Professor. Ofelia published the first written grammar of the Tohono O’odham language and preserves this language in many of her poems, which are collected in several award-winning books, including, Where Clouds Are Formed, Jewed ‘I hoi/ Earth Movements and Ocean Power: Poems from the Desert. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * Fady Joudah - an award-winning poet, translator and physician. His first book, The Earth in the Attic, won the 2008 Yale Series of Younger Poets Award, and his translations of three recent volumes of poetry by his mentor, revered Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish, are collected in The Butterfly’s Burden, which won the prestigious Banipal Translation Prize. Born in Austin, TX, in a Palestinian refugee home, Fady is a physician of internal medicine and a field member of Doctors Without Borders. This experience informs many of his poems, giving them rare insights into the human condition. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * Kwame Dawes - first and foremost a poet, but also a musician, lyricist and playwrite; a Reggae scholar; author of two novels, distinguished Poet in Residence and executive Director of the South Carolina Poetry Initiative and programming director of the Calabash International Literary Festival, and author of 13 books of poetry. Kwame was born in Ghana and spent most of his childhood and early adult life in Jamaica. In 2007, he was funded by the Pulitzer Center to return to Jamaica to write about the AIDS crisis there. He honors the people and caregivers battling the disease with a series of poems available at www.livehopelove.com. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... * * * * * Valzhyna Mort - born in Minsk, Belarus, made her American debut in 2008 with the poetry collection, Factory of Tears, which was published by Copper Canyon Press. Mort received the Crystal of Vilenica award in Slovenia in 2005 and the Burda Poetry Prize in Germany in 2008. She writes of her home country and language, and explores familial and existential themes with a refreshing directness and intensity that allow her to pivot swiftly from the concrete to the surreal, from the personal to the shared human experience.* * * * * With a special screening and live scoring of an excerpt of “War Rug,” a film and poem by Francesco Levato with an original score by Richard Fammeree.* * * * * The event also included a remembrance of Nadia Anjoman, a young Afghani poet and mother who was murdered in 2005 for having published her poetry. Nadia Anjoman represents Afghanistan on UniVerse of Poetry. She wrote tirelessly, studied literature secretly, and published her first book, The Smokey Flower, while living under Taliban rule when she was 25 years old. For this act of courage, she was beaten to death.* * * * * Hosted by Richard Fammerée, poet and founding director of UniVerse of Poetry, and Rachel Jamison Webster, celebrated poet, artist-in-residence at Northwestern University, and the editor-in-chief of UniVerse of Poetry.* * * * * Recorded Friday, February 13, 2009 at Chicago Center for the Performing Arts. .. .. .. .. .. .. .... * * * * * .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. Here is the Genesis of my sojourn on Kauai: Spirit led me to Anini Beach which led me to Shoshana who led me to Kimba who led me to Eddie Free who led me to Laura Love who led me to Timory who led me to Toni Childs who introduced me to David Tickle who introduced me to Ann West. Ann and I have written the eqiuivalent of three albums. Here is the first single from our first album: .. .. .. .. .. .. .. * * * * * ANN WEST'S FIRST SINGLE "MISSED IT AGAIN" written by Ann West, Richard Fammerée & Frank Myers; produced by David Tickle.