Even though music takes half the time and focus of this project, I find myself talking about it hardly at all, which is probably unfair here “Where Music and Words Meet.” So, today I’m going to talk more about music. If that’s not your interest, I’m still going to ask you to keep reading, as … Continue reading Jimi Hendrix 2018
Today’s piece uses my own words to present some images regarding American musician and songwriter Jimi Hendrix. Just like William Carlos Williams meditation on a small plant last time, I pretty much follow the famous Imagist rules: direct treatment of the thing, no unnecessary words, and musical phrasing instead of mechanical metrical feet. Each one … Continue reading For the American Hendrix
I move back and forth with musical instruments and intent here, but since I started as a guitarist, there’s a lot of guitar playing in the Parlando Project pieces. When someone asks about my musical stuff, such as what I play, I often redirect, and make it a point to call myself “a composer” even … Continue reading Squid Speaks of the Electric Guitar
If you’ve followed this Top Ten countdown series of the most liked and listened to audio pieces this summer at the Parlando Project you’ve taken a bit of a journey, and I thank you for coming along. The kind of music I create and present here varies, and lately I’ve been doing some louder stuff … Continue reading The Most Popular Parlando Piece for Summer 2021
Is it time to take a break from our sometimes intense presentations of poetry combined in some way with music? Well, here’s a little ditty about the lighter side of death, or rather the worship of dead rock stars. My observation is that though there are still the occasional premature music casualties in the current … Continue reading They’re Not the Grateful Dead
I know, I know. Some come to blogs like mine as a break from politics. Carl Sandburg used to mollify the editors of Poetry magazine who wondered about the encroachment of his politics into his Imagist poetry by suggesting that no, he was a poet, an artist—and if a little politics snuck in from time … Continue reading This Machine…
We are over half-way through Black History month and I’ve mostly spoken obliquely about it. I think that’s my nature. As poet I’m often doomed to reader response that they just don’t get it, and that bothers me, because in my mind I’m intending to link disparate things because I think that’s powerful. But in … Continue reading Heartened
I started out this January trying to translate Rimbaud, and it’s only as the month is ending that I’ve finally got something to present. Why was this such a struggle? Well, some of it’s me. I’m having a harder time this winter keeping up this project, and by focusing recently on translation I’ve only made … Continue reading Rimbaud’s Eternity
Continuing our review of the Top Ten most liked and listened to pieces this past season here at the Parlando Project, here are the next three. My son likes to needle me by asking what old dead white men I’m presenting today on the blog. What could be my defense? I could respond that many … Continue reading Fall 2019 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 7-5
It’s perhaps my favorite scene in D. A. Pennebaker’s Bob Dylan documentary Don’t Look Back. Pennebaker has setup this narrative as Dylan tours England in 1965, introduced with shots of British music newspapers touting the teen-aged Donovan as Dylan’s rival. My well-remembered scene is shot in Dylan’s Savoy hotel room, where boffins can pick out … Continue reading Brancusi’s Golden Bird
