You know, I really mean it when I say I aim to combine various words (mostly poetry) with various original music. I find I’m a self-iconoclast. If I sense a few too many audio pieces leaning one way, I want to lean another. Brave listener/reader, bear with me. If you like or even love something … Continue reading For Once, Then, Something, or Robert Frost kicks it EDM
A bit earlier this month we presented a landmark very short Imagist poem, Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro.” 14 words, and a prime example of the Modernist’s reaction to the rhetorical flourishes of a worn-out 19th century. Today I’m going to release a Robert Frost response, a 47-word rejoinder, a spring poem … Continue reading A Spring Song with Some Winter In It: Frost’s “A Patch of Old Snow”
Early on here I mentioned that I didn’t care for Robert Frost when I was young. When I first was introduced to him he was still alive, but the very image of an old man. I think of him on a cold, windy and monochrome day reading at John Kennedy’s inauguration ceremony, more than 80 … Continue reading Frost’s October
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
It’s been quite the job of work to do daily posts with new lyric videos here this April in celebration of National Poetry Month, and I haven’t taken the time yet to see what impact those extra efforts have had. Though I was re-releasing already recorded audio pieces from the earliest years of this six-year … Continue reading Completing my National Poetry Month daily posting with two beautiful pieces
Even with its most popular and well-known poems, poetry works, works its impact, one reader, one listener, at a time. Doing this project leads me to read a lot of poems. I’ll go through whole collections, entire anthologies, looking for things that I suspect I can create music for. That sense, “This could work with … Continue reading Her Lips are Copper Wire for National Poetry Month
As I selected things to re-release from our early years from this Parlando Project for National Poetry Month, I wanted to include some of my translations. We’ve already done a translation from the French of Dada founder Tristian Tzara this month, but today’s is another of my favorites, written by a master of classical Chinese … Continue reading Jade Flower Palace for National Poetry Month
It’s Easter and time to close my short Edward Thomas series for National Poetry Month with a short elegy written by a poet both less and more known than Thomas in the United States. But before I get to that, let me fill in a few spaces in the Edward Thomas story. I ran into … Continue reading Easter Monday (In Memoriam E. T.) for National Poetry Month
We continue today our National Poetry Month series where we re-release some of our favorite performances from the early days of this Project in the hopes that more ears will be able to hear them. Today’s piece steps forward a couple of years from yesterday’s, where in “Adlestrop” British poet Edward Thomas had written with … Continue reading Gone, Gone Again for National Poetry Month
How has it been this far into National Poetry Month before featuring Emily Dickinson here? Well, no matter, time to get onto that today, as a number of our most popular pieces over the years have been related to Dickinson. Today’s piece is one of my personal favorites, our orchestral setting for her “We Grow … Continue reading We Grow Accustomed to the Dark for National Poetry Month
Frank Hudson 