Senior Symposium-ers: David Leach
Poetry? Jazz Piano? David Leach doesn’t see them as that different, and we asked him to give us a taste of why. Hear the full extent of his research, titled 'The Long Watch: Original Poems/An Exploration of Poetic Voice', tomorrow at the Senior Symposium.
In broad terms, what about T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Jorie Graham and Charles Wright spoke to you as a poet? How do they inspire you?
Each of these poets resonates with me on a range of wavelengths, from their philosophy and thematic material to the particularities of their syntax. With Graham, for example, I'm particularly captivated by a kind of desperation I hear in her voice and by the way she manipulates syntax to create the sense of the conceptual mind working at the absolute edge of its capacity. They are all very different poets, so it's hard to generalize apart from saying that I'm inspired by each poet's obvious commitment to their art, the depth of their engagement with language, and the vast scope of their inquiry into existence.
Has being a creative writing major impacted the way you play jazz piano?
Being a creative writing major has deeply impacted my piano-playing and vice-versa, so it's hard to point to some aesthetic or some idea about the creative process and say "that came from poetry and affected my music" or "that came from music and changed how I write." I hear language as music. I'm more in love with the sounds and rhythms of language than I am concerned with what it ostensibly means. At the same time, when I sit down at the piano to play, I find myself trying to shape time in the same way that poetry shapes experience through emotion, intellect, and intuition. Writing and music for me are like two halves of a rubber ball--without both together, nothing bounces.
Interview by Christine Jay '16
