I’ve been planning on presenting this eerie ghost story by English poet Frances Cornford for awhile now, but I wanted to take care with the musical setting while working on our recently completed countdown of the most popular pieces here from this past winter. Heidi Randen was interested in doing this as a guest reader, … Continue reading From Our Breasts, Frances Cornford’s “The Old Nurse”
Frances Cornford is a 20th century poet that is close to unknown in the United States, despite achieving some degree of success in Britain. She’s sometimes classed there as a “Georgian poet,”* a grouping that like the Imagists produced several contemporary anthologies in that century’s teens and twenties. It’s not a term used much in … Continue reading Missing
Each quarter I like to look at the pieces here that have received the most listens and likes. It’s time to look back at this year’s spring, and so I’ll be doing that this week. However, I once more need to report that it’s become increasingly hard for me to desire to create new pieces … Continue reading Spring 2020 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 10-8
Though an often-puzzling poem, Eliot’s “The Waste Land” is tightly written. I’m not talking about some raw stat like its number of lines, but that the language itself works in its sentences and small phrases directly and without much waste. That’s not a Modernist-only tactic, but early Modernism did make it a goal. And a … Continue reading On the Troop Ship to Gallipoli for National Poetry Month
Continuing on with our countdown of the most popular pieces here this past spring, I find a few things that break the usual patterns. So let’s get on with it and see what we find that were the most liked and listened to since March 1st. The bold-face titles are links to the original post … Continue reading Spring 2020 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 4-2
Continuing on with lyric poetry, that short form of compressed immediacy, here’s a poem that seems to be better known in Britain that it is here: Frances Cornford’s “To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train” first published in 1910. I think it illustrates one of the things about good lyric poetry of the Imagist* … Continue reading To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train
A lot of these performances begin somewhat randomly. Oh, Edward Thomas isn’t random, I’ve enjoyed exploring this British writer with you since I first ran into his connection with Robert Frost in the years just before WWI. Was I looking for a poem considering a particular subject or event? One could see today’s piece, “Cock-Crow” … Continue reading Edward Thomas’ “Cock-Crow” cleaves the wood of thoughts that grows by night
Remembrance of warfare is a complex thing. There are forces for forgetfulness and memorial fighting inside us regarding war, and the entropic forces of time passing put a thumb on the scale as years pass. This Wednesday was once Armistice Day, the day when, for a mere two decades or so, countries celebrated solely the … Continue reading The Cenotaph
For those that have been following our look at English poet Frances Cornford, we’ll have at least one more example coming of her stuff soon. But now is the time when we count-down the ten most liked and listened to pieces from this past winter. It’s been a slightly difficult season for this project for … Continue reading Winter 2020 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 10-8
Can we accept a little fall-off from Rilke last time to something I wrote? As long-time readers here know, the Parlando Project is about “Other People’s Stories.” Dave and I both write words as well as music, but I find it interesting to examine how I experience other people’s words, other people’s outlooks and visions. … Continue reading Breakfast in a Pandemic
Frank Hudson 