#8: Poetry

The next day arrived. Karu and Matt sat across from each other at Matt’s desk, handwritten papers piled between them, and their acoustic guitars by their side. Matt insisted they sit at his desk, as he had many questions to run by Karu.

“How do we know it’s… good?” he asked, having experience in instrumental, but lacking in the lyrics department. “What’s the fundamental rule of lyric writing?”

“No one answers that in the classes, huh,” said Karu. “I didn’t know you were talking about lyrics specifically.”

“I didn’t know how to word it until yesterday.”

Karu placed the top sheet between them and pointed to the first verse. “How does that sound in your head?”

The name given to this song was Love Machine. Matt read the verse over and over, then narrowed his eyes. It was basic romance stuff he cared little for. That was the whole reason he abstained from lyrics. “That’s weird.”

“Yes it is. It makes you think what’s going on in their head as they write it down.” Karu pulled his left-hand guitar onto his lap. He tested the chords, then made a comment about how rudimentary the progression was. “Let’s try with these.” He made up his own melody to sing along, then played what he assembled. “Is it still weird?”

“Yes.”

Karu smiled. “It’s raw - a rough draft. No one gets it right the first time, and professional-” His right eye ached. “I can’t call them that. Conventional writers barely go past the rough draft. Did you wonder why we have poetry classes here?”

“We don’t have straight-up poets in Minarin. I thought that was weird, too.”

“Songwriting is poetry. If you don’t have a focal point, you don’t have a song. You like Tanevi Hip-Hop?”

Matt found Karu’s points went somewhere eventually, even if he lost track of his point in the middle. Other students argued that it was irrelevant. “Sure. Everyone likes Tanevi Hip-Hop.”

“Why is Tanevi Hip-Hop better than most Bung’ke Hip-Hop?” Karu found Matt listless when he asked this question. “I mean, what makes you laugh, scream, and smile when you hear it?”

Matt’s mouth dropped open. “The way they rhyme?”

“It’s wordplay,” Karu answered. “If you translated the lyrics, you’d find local metaphor - you can’t find that anywhere else in the world. So a new question arises: why aren’t we taking metaphor into account when we in Bung’ke write songs?”

“But that’s how you write,” said Matt. “No one can write like Karu Hanaki.”

“Because they didn’t consider the metaphor I’m putting forth,” Karu argued. “My writing style isn’t copyrighted. I haven’t told anybody because I want to see how people work it out. But that’s what poetry classes are for, aren’t they.”

They sorted through Love Machine, then Karu helped Matt mark it based on the lyric placement, rhythm, and chord progression. Then, they read through the next. It was named Yes, However. Karu played until the chorus, where a detail caught his eye: makeshift notation for the chorus.

“So it’s not the way we thought.” He changed the melody to fit the notation, and his rendition faded the more he thought about the song. He checked the name on the sheet: Jeff Heiran. He covered his mouth, on the verge of tears.

Matt raised an eyebrow. “I know it’s pretty damn good. What’s the matter?”

No one could ignore the eight-foot-tall Nightwalker, even if he backed into a corner at a party. “I helped this guy into the building. He figured it all out.”

Matt’s shoulders rested. “I guess you gotta tell everyone now.”