singing – Lyric Overtones

Poems from Mouth Quill sound as Choral Music

“Midsummer Birches,” a poem from my collection Mouth Quill—Poems with Ancestral Roots went live on June 24, 2021 as a choral pieces composed by Brigitte Doss-Johnson and sung by the virtual choir, Laulusild. A traditional old Estonian tune and words were woven with newly composed music set to my poetry. One piece is a celebration of Estonian Jaaniöö (Midsummer’s Eve) and Jaanipäev (Midsummer’s Day).

The English language poem begins by invoking Estonian traditions, referencing age-old verses and songs about this most important holiday: Jaaniöö birch leaves bitter-sweeten the air. A young man’s beloved rides his silk-tufted horse. Kaasike, kaasike, the refrain sounds. Trot with pride, mane bedecked with bangles.

The second poem and song is “The Rise,” which includes a recollection of my mother’s lullaby, an old Estonian song (Uni Tule), which I recall hearing as a very young child in America and realized later would have been sung by my grandmother in Estonia, who I never met. This motif is woven into newly composed music of the poem text . . . sleep mists its way from coastal stones crosses a thousand miles, fall upon my eye.

Singers include individuals from North America, Japan, the Basque region of northern Spain, Malaysia, and Estonians from the U.S., Canada, and Australia.

You can view the videos here:

Poetry book coming!

Baltic Ice Lake with caption

My chapbook of poetry is being published by The Poetry Box and is slated for release in September 2020! The lines below the photo are from the first poem, Ancestral Journey—Beneath Ice Sheets, which begins an imaginary exploration leading to the shores of Estonia. This poem is part of a trilogy, three poems that form the start, middle and end of the collection; the other two being Ancestral Journey—The Milky Way and Ancestral Journey—Helix.

I chose the satellite photo above to share this announcement as it so beautifully illustrates, by way of a (modern) snow line, the approximate glacier lines from 10,000 years ago! You can see Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and even the small island of Saaremaa in this aerial image. Long ago, glacial ice covered all. When the melting began, I imagine the long journey of our Finnic ancestors, leaving the Urals:

Some will be left in river-bends,
some follow the reindeer north.

Some will look heavenward at traces of bird-flight,
some walk a milky star-path westward.

The term Mouth Quill (collection title and title of an individual poem) is found in runo verse (regilaul)—the word translates to suudesulg and refers to “a singer’s magical tool.” Some of the 21 poems are inspired by themes found in ancient runo verses (with the original runo verses listed in Notes), others by Estonian music, language and historic events. My writing weaves those world views into a life born and lived in America, with deep ancestral roots.

Poet Deirdre Callanan describes Mouth Quill—Poems with Ancestral Roots as “a dark crystal studded with light.”

Voices (Song Festival, Tallinn, Estonia)

Estonian World Kaja Weeks Voices Poem

A version of the poem “Voices” was first published by the online journal Estonian World.
http://estonianworld.com/culture/kaja-weeks-estonian-singing-voices-in-a-poem/

Voices (Song Festival, Tallinn, Estonia)

Song-Mother’s voices,
sounds of ancestors once slipped from tongue to air—
ribbon-like, still unfurling.

On the edge of the sea
a silver shell holds thousands, singers who face
thousands more on a grassy gentle rise. All inhale.

Though the hour nears midnight
sun skims waters of the Baltic Sea,
flames in the tower-torch leap high.

The singing will not stop,
Lee— lee— lo, the sounds form Leelo!
Each ancient syllable earned with sweat and love.

A conductor, peering from within a laurel wreath
clasps his chest, lowers his head,
bows to the choir who has honored song.

The watchers become the singers,
the standing levitate,
the air is alive.

Swirling round, melodies rustle, loosen hair,
saying: we are a living sound—sing us speak us hear us.
Song-Mother’s voices—Hääli imedänne!

* Hääli imedänne – Means “magical voices” in old Estonian
* Leelo – The old Estonian word meaning “song,” and the title of an actual song

Author’s Note: Voices is a poem from a chapbook manuscript (in progress) in which writings reflect both the trauma and beauty of Estonian culture and history as it rooted in my personal journey and identity.

Songs from my ancestral heritage have been a central part of my life. As a young child I was mesmerized by very old runic songs, called regilaulud—including shepherd’s calls (helletused). These came to me by way of the songstress Ellen Parve Valdsaar, an Estonian refugee whose magical interpretations left a lasting impression upon me. I also heard and sang much choral music, mostly in the a cappella tradition that allows voices to meld within wonderful, enlivening resonance. The poem, Voices, celebrates the height of such a continued tradition, the Estonian Song Festival, first begun in 1869. It is now held in Tallinn every five years and is designated a UNESCO “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.” Click here to hear a refrain from the song, “Leelo” (the old word for “song”) as sung at the 2014 Estonian Song Festival in Tallinn. (In “Leelo” composed by Mart Saar with text from traditional folkverse, the singers plead, “What are these reins, these ropes that bind us?” The antidote, they answer, is “Song! Song! Song!”)

Even as the child of Estonian refugees to America, I understood the transcendent qualities of this music rooted in antiquity. In the 1970’s, as a college music student, I created a small vocal ensemble named Kannel (Zither) which performed mostly traditional Estonian music. Today, I sing with the Baltimore-Washington Estonian Singers (BWES), including in our performance for the capital area’s 100th Anniversary of the Republic of Estonia.

Kaja ja Iira EV100 — *Ira Reiman and Kaja Weeks in traditional Estonian folk costumes, singing as members of BWES at Washington DC- Celebration of 100th Year of Republic of Estonia. February 2018*

Kannel Kaja Parming Lektor 1977 NY — *Kaja Parming delivering lecture about old Estonian folk music, New York, 1977.*

Kannel 1977 NY — Ensemble Kannel performing in an evening of Lecture and Old Estonian Folk Songs. (Pictured in lower photo, left to right) Ursula Brady; Kaja Parming (Founder/Director); Talvi Laev; Tiia Papp; Angela Dupin; Kersti Tannberg. New York, 1977.

Kannel Toronto 1971 — *Kannel in Toronto, 1971 (Pictured from Left to Right) Tina Karm; Angela Dupin; Anneliis Elmend; Ursula Brady; Kaie Põhi; Kaja Parming (Founder/Director); Anne Pleer.*

A Girl’s Singing Nirvana, My Mother’s Voice

A Girl’s Singing Nirvana, My Mother’s Voice is a lyrical essay with themes of autism in the young and stroke in the elderly. It tells a story of how each was able to use singing when wordlessness compounded their lives and reveals my journey with them.

A Girl’s Singing Nirvana, My Mother’s Voice by Kaja Weeks was first published by The Potomac Review, A Literary Arts Quarterly in 2015. I am very pleased and proud that the journal nominated my essay for a Pushcart Prize.

A Girl’s Singing Nirvana, My Mother’s Voice_Excerpt

The Silver Swan and Her Stroke: First Songs as Last Songs

My essay, The Silver Swan and Her Stroke: First Songs as Last Songs, is rooted in the profound effects of singing as entwined with mysteries of communication and love.

The poetic verse alluded to here, The Silver Swan, was first published in 1612 in the madrigal by Orlando Gibbons and illustrates the legend of “the swan song” – that silver swans sing only once, before their death. You can hear a beautiful performance of The Silver Swan round by British a cappella vocal ensemble, The King Singers.

The silver swan, who living had no note,
when death approached unlocked her silent throat;
Leaning her breast against the reedy shore,
thus sung her first and last, and sung no more.
Farewell, all joys; O Death, come close mine eyes;
More geese than swans now live, more fools than wise.

I am so pleased that this essay was published by Ars Medica: A Journal of Medicine, The Arts, and Humanities, Winter 2017. Ars Medica is the only medical literary journal in Canada, and one of a handful of such journals in the world. Click here to read the full piece at Ars Medica or The Silver Swan and Her Stroke_Kaja Weeks_Ars Medica_2017 to read in PDF format.

ABSTRACT

The Silver Swan and Her Stroke: First Songs as Last Songs

By Kaja Weeks

This is a view of a massive stroke followed by rare communications through singing and vocalization between an elegant lady born by the Baltic Sea almost 100 years ago and her daughter (the author). A reflective true account with story-like narration, it conveys the intersection of a musically rhythmic but “pitch deaf” mother and classically-trained singer daughter at their final crossroads. The stunning scene of hearing her mother, unable to speak, but singing “with full power and nuance, like a glorious Wagnerian soprano,” has the author first considering the extraordinary plasticity of the brain, and then, as a daughter, the poignant meaning of her mother’s sounds, who like the “Silver Swan,” sung her first and last, and sung no more.”

Changeling and The Baroness

How did I ever survive the night with that little boy . . . heavy metal braces on his legs, brace on his back, tethered to his crib, crying, crying for his mother, crying for his life, I think. All I had, at 18, was nauseating fear. How could they have left me to keep this Changeling, this fragile, alien-like being?

Sweating, my haunches gripped a wooden chair in the glow of his night-light. He whimpered and I sang, my voice creaky. What else, what other paltry thing, could I have done? He seemed to find moments of peace in my fearful singing, but mostly his agony prevailed and I wanted no part of it. Back on campus I sobbed with relief and vowed never to subject myself to such a thing again.

Yet decades later, week after week I have welcomed multiply-impaired children — developmentally, emotionally, physically, sometimes with braces and all – into a small clinic room, and like with that first little boy, I am singing. Years of training under the architects of the developmental approach known as “Floortime,” in which warm, child-led relationships form foundations, provided understanding of emotional, cognitive and sensory aspects critical to healthy growth. Musical elements, such as tempo, rhythmic steadiness or surprise, and the color of my voice provide powerful tools, but the child’s uniqueness shines through relational tactics, and I am able to integrate singing at the core of playful, hopeful intervention.

***

But the journey, sparked with the first little boy, who in a moment of desperate fear I had regarded as nearly alien, like a changeling, had all started in music school with Madame Lorrain. Althea Lorrain — tall, handsome, regal in stance. She had steel blue eyes, so intense, she could possess anyone with her gaze. Her face was scarred, framed by silver hair pulled back and knotted high on the crown. I was petrified of her. Yet she became central to a journey that began as if on opaque water where, though life teems below, only a dark surface is revealed. It changed everything about my rigid, fearful responses to children with disabilities, allowed me to truly consider them, and to find their strength and beauty despite great challenges. To convey her influence, one needs to understand more about this extraordinary woman.

She was my teacher for an esoteric class, Foreign Language Diction for Singers. We sight-read French, German, Italian and Latin passages from arias, lieder, and choral works, transforming – right in the moment — odd little symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet into a stream of perfectly spoken language. It was extraordinarily demanding, but perfection was her standard.

I will never forget our class, suspended in fear, when she asked poor Andy Taylor, a hulk of a boy from Alabama to read a Latin verse. From the top of the terraced lecture hall Andy’s resounding voice fell in waves, “Glow-reee-ah eeen egg-shell-seees day-oh-uu.” (That was supposed to be “Gloria in excelsis Deo.”) Madame Lorrain’s figure expanded like a balloon as she drew in her breath at this. I don’t recall how many times Andy tried, with corrections about mouth and jaw, lips and tongue. But suddenly, Madame Lorrain, in her long tweed skirt, leapt up the wide steps and ended in front of Andy with her two fingers in his mouth! “Here!” she said, “Do you not feel ziss?” Her fingers jabbed the roof of his mouth. Andy turned moon pale, eyes frozen – keeping his mouth ajar so as not to accidently bite Madame Lorrain.

I perfected the International Phonetic Alphabet and planned never to make a mistake or be alone in her presence. One winter evening I stood upon a balcony overlooking the iron gates of Campus Drive. I inhaled the chilly air with a kind of melancholy that infused my college years. Silently, in darkness, a figure slid next to me. All breath stilled in my throat as I recognized Madame Lorrain.

First, a polite inquiry about class, but then her request that I recite something! Dazed, cogent thoughts unreachable, a sound-image of Madame Lorrain formed – the way she opened every single class with Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” in German – words from the magnificent choral finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. So, like her, I raised one outstretched arm, streamed a dark, low voice and gave it all I had, my best diction and intonation: “Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium.” But that was it — that’s all I could remember! So, I repeated it, “Freude, schöner Götterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium.” With gravitas, I turned to her. She was caressing her face between the palms of her hands, “Ach!” she murmured with a satisfied quiver.

But, it was a bait and switch. For immediately, she seized me, lamented about a young child who was multiply-, severely-handicapped. “The parents are exhausted from constant care and most urgently require a time out.” Her hand touched my arm. “I am certain you would be a good caregiver for him.”

Why me? Did she intuit some untapped compassion? Had she sensed my own vulnerabilities? I never knew, but from weakness, fleeting imagined compassion and sheer fear of her, I capitulated immediately. That is how I came to spend one of the most terrifying but heart-wrenching nights of my life. I didn’t understand it then, but once the parents walked out and as I felt utterly powerless in front of that crib, I nearly negated this small child’s humanity in order to bear my own agony, for I identified him as an “other.” In my eyes a boy, most likely with severe multiple sclerosis, became a “wounded creature” of whom I was terrified, in actuality because I couldn’t reach him – a terrible warped circle of thinking/feeling. It is not altogether surprising, in that light, to see how alien, other-worldly, changeling myths could arise as primitive states of mind. This insight into a liability of human nature begs to be countered by strong, comprehensive support – emotional, educational, economic and spiritual — for parents and caregivers of children with severe challenges. Broadly, it is also true in particular developing societies and cultures where systemic societal disregard for children with special needs still prevails. The journey of change is practical, but also one of the mind and heart.

Madame Lorrain had understood the significance of the respite-mission, and for me it became a kind of insemination, dropped deep for gradual activation. Life forces came to mingle fatefully and a journey mapped: that first child with his unforgettable, heart-wrenching suffering; then the slow heat of shame over my primitive revulsions; realizations that a musical gift I had, especially if backed by training, could possibly be life-altering; finding mercy, empathy and true connections with the children; sustaining courage, compassion.

Then, there were more revelations about Madame, who actually turned out to be a Baroness. I found out that she bore many more horrific scars, not only on her face, but all over her back as well. In fact, Althea Lorrain, Austrian by birth, had been a young woman in the French Resistance during World War II. Arrested by Nazis, she had been severely tortured. But her moral and courageous undercover pursuits saved countless lives.

Given her history, I came to understand something profound. Each time she had so soberly proclaimed in German, “Freude, schöner Götterfunken”(Joy, bright spark of the divine) we became onlookers to her defiance in the face of defeat, witnesses to her hurling transcendent light right back into darkness. She pulled me in toward the light. And as anchored delusions of “fragile aliens” – like the subconscious myths of changeling-children – dissipated, my personal sung Odes-of-Joy rose, dove into opaque waters, but rose again. They were imperfect, but resilient even in fear.

Today, decades after my first seminal encounter, I practice in a music room under the wings of interdisciplinary pediatric therapists. A girl — speech slurred, her shaking limbs held in braces – can be found reaching toward my lips. They are open in loving song.

***

* Changelings are tied historically and in folklore to a widespread belief that a previously healthy child is snatched by other-worldly spirits and, in their place, is left a sickly, deformed or incessantly crying child. These desperate illusions are thought to have justified maltreatment, death and coping with maternal post-natal depression.

Changeling and the Baroness by Kaja Weeks was first published by Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine in Fall 2016. Intima is one of a handful of literary journals dedicated to interdisciplinary themes of writing and healing. It is affiliated with the Narrative Medicine program of Columbia University.

A Stringed Wing

The celestial sounds of a zither make me think of a wing strung with vibrating strings. In myths of Estonia, Vanemuine — the God of Music and Poetry — played the kannel, a zither or lap-harp with magical effects that gave birds and tree-leaves their songs. I have sung these old tunes to the sound of the kannel, or sometimes, I’ve simply let the strings of my own vocal cords spill verse upon verse into air.

The naturalistic and historic motifs of Estonia have long inspired and chained me. Many of my poems and lyrical writings hold them.

As I write this now, I recall that my mother’s earliest memories hold the quiet sounds of her father, a furniture-maker, stroking the strings of his own-made kannel as she and her brother, Sass, drifted to sleep upstairs.

Whisper, Weep or Shimmer

What makes a sound unique – her voice recognizably different than mine, a violin from a harp, leaf shudder from wind – is carried in vibrations and their overtones. The complexity of harmonics, their patterns, intensity, onset and decline bring beauty, mystery or clanging noises that make up our soundscapes, literally and figuratively – in thought and word.

I have always been captivated by these configurations. Whether with my singing voice, with vowels that whisper, weep or shimmer or with words that infer thoughts of all that is unsaid – this is the play on waves and the spaces in between.