As we continue into the last week of National Poetry Month I’m going to remind casual readers here that poetry is not only beauty or amazement, even if during this month we often emphasize those qualities. Yesterday’s piece by Chicago’s Carl Sandburg was about a lovely evening, about a generalized bonhomie with love, music, and … Continue reading Fenton Johnson’s “Tired” for National Poetry Month
Since I’ve been unable to supply new pieces for the past few days, it has occurred to me that I could point out some other pieces this project has already done that fit into the Black History Month theme. Here’s one that has been found by a number of visitors during their own searches here … Continue reading Fenton Johnson’s “A Dream”
This project has gone on so long and produced so many pieces, so before February ends I thought I’d highlight five of the most popular pieces we’ve presented in past years that deal with Afro-American experience or history. The bold-faced start of each listing is a link to take you to the original Parlando Project … Continue reading Some past Parlando Project pieces relating to Black History Month
One unusual thing I did this spring to celebrate National Poetry Month was to re-release 31 pieces from the early years of this project. This was a way, despite reduced time and opportunities to create new pieces, to still celebrate and demonstrate the various poems and music combinations of the Parlando Project. That April batch … Continue reading The most popular Parlando Project piece for spring 2022
Before continuing with our count-down of the most liked and listened to pieces here this past autumn, let me remind newcomers what the Parlando Project does. We take words, mostly other people’s words, usually poetry, and combine them in different ways with original music. “Oh, you mean you make them into songs?” Well, sometimes, yes. … Continue reading Fall 2020 Parlando Project Top Ten, numbers 4-2, and what is it that you’re trying to do anyway?
Let me write a post about something that I experienced recently, just like a real blog would do. Early this month I attended a virtual symposium Sonnets from the American organized by Dora Malech and Laura T. Smith.* I’ve heard “Zoom Fatigue” is a thing now, but I found it energizing. I’m still integrating things … Continue reading I’m not a scholar, but I play one on the Internet
Rabindranath Tagore is surely one of the most remarkable writers ever to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. If you’re a veteran of this project you might recall that a few years back when Bob Dylan won the same Nobel there were objections from poets and novelists that song-writing wasn’t literature, and that giving such … Continue reading Silent Steps
When I look through an old anthology like Locke’s The New Negro from 1925, my eye is not just looking for the well-known work featured there, but to the ones that somehow got overlooked, and that’s how today’s piece “Escape” by lesser-known Black poet Georgia Douglas Johnson came to my attention. Unlike Countee Cullen from … Continue reading Georgia Douglas Johnson’s Escape
Well, this is sort of embarrassing. The Parlando Project is about wandering about in the universe of other people’s words that I might combine with music. I wanted to cast for a wide choice of words because that was part of the core energy of one of the project’s ideas: “Other People’s Stories” and how … Continue reading The Most Popular Parlando Piece this Past Fall Was…
This Friday is International Jazz Day, and for a project that subtitles itself “Where Music and Words Meet,” it’s a little odd that I talk less about the musical half of what we do. My project assumes that poetry, even on the page, can be defined as words that want to sing. What manner of … Continue reading Jazz Fantasia, a pioneering work of Jazz Poetry
Frank Hudson 