In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
James Ciano’s debut poetry collection The Committee of Men exquisitely explores themes of toxic masculinity and masculine identity.
Edward Hirsch wrote of the book:
“In this haunted and haunting book of initiations, James Ciano takes on a past and a subject matter seldom encountered in poetry—the harsh, glaring, unpoetical world of grueling masculinity. With John Keats and James Wright as two of his guides, he uses the transformative power of poetry to confront and transfigure his longstanding demons. This deeply humane collection left me shaking, shocked, and enthralled.”
In his own words, here is James Ciano’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut poetry collection The Committee of Men:
Some of the songs here intersect with the book’s themes, but most of them are here because they for one reason or another provided spiritual, emotional or psychological guidance in the making of these poems.
Home by Six Organs of Admittance
I’ve always admired Ben Chasny’s work. This song, with the freighted simplicity of its title, spoke to me through its juxtapositions. Most especially the emotional dissonance between the sweetness of the repeated acoustic chords and the distortion of the electric guitar on top of it. Something about the distortion I find beautiful and devastating. Like looking at a face that you love, and then looking at a face that you love while it rides the graviton. And how those two faces are alive at all times inside the same face.
Teenage Spaceship by Smog
Perhaps no song better captures the time of being alive as a teenager. The charged way in which, at that age, the suburban can take on the characteristics of the sublime, the other-worldly. The singular feeling of being alive, of being awake after everyone in a house, or a neighborhood has already gone to sleep.
Banshee Beat by Animal Collective
“You have your fits I have my fits, but feeling is good.” Feeling is good. What a hard thing to remember. So much of this book was written from inside tremendous states of not-feeling, or feelingless-ness. What I wouldn’t have given to feel anything, while inside the worst vortices of depression.
You Can Make Me Feel Bad by Arthur Russell
Shame is a recurring feeling in these poems. Self-hatred, too.
I had the great privilege of hearing this performed by the Los Angeles new music collective, Wild Up, at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.
“There’s a place for us in the real world” is a reminder I think anyone who has ever felt isolated or alone should hear. I can sing it to them!
Do Your Best by John Maus
A poem from the book draws its title from this classic. I wrote a bit about the poem here, for the Poetry Society of America. As I’ve put this playlist together, and the book for that matter, there’s an obvious trajectory from isolation to connection. Isn’t that what it’s all about? I feel romantically, now, about the suffering I once felt. This song helps me feel tenderly towards that time.
Envelop by Julianna Barwick
If I had to pick a most listened to album over the course of writing this book it would be Julianna Barwick’s A Magic Place. This song is the opening track to that album, though I could’ve picked any song for this. As a boy, I once thought that every part of me was a part of everything else in the world. If I looked at that tree or that swatch of sky or that train by my window, I could feel a little bit of me pulled toward each thing. Julianna Barwick’s music gives me that feeling, again. Or, makes me feel like that feeling was more real than I realized.
I Heard You Looking by Yo La Tengo
A beloved teacher of mine once talked about poems (but also our lives) as a negotiation between chaos and order. I think it’s a principle I find especially compelling in music as well. This closing track is one of the great cacophonous journeys from melody to noise to melody again, a purification through sonic dissolution and a manic cathartic release. Control lost then recomposed, but changed in the recomposing. Sometimes poems seem so orderly to me. I’ve always wanted to capture, in language, the feeling that this song gives me.
I Shall Love 2 by Julia Holter
A rallying cry against the darkness. This song kept me believing in the tangible things of my life, even when they seemed most empty, or just beyond my reach. It’s hard to listen to this song and not immediately feel like color has rushed back into each thing that once seemed muted and distant to you.
Coney Island Baby by Lou Reed
I have a poem in The Committee of Men called “Coney Island Baby,” which draws on the language and themes of Lou Reed’s anthem. It is the song my book is most indebted to. Love saves.
And the glory of love, glory of love
Glory of love just might come through
James Ciano is a poet. Originally from New York, he currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.