Part of the ongoing adventure of doing this project over the years has been the performance of a section of the English Modernist poetic landmark “The Waste Land” each April as part of our celebration of National Poetry Month. So far I’ve done three large sections, one each year. My first preference in this has … Continue reading The Entire “The Fire Sermon” from T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land”
Each April, as part of our celebration of National Poetry Month, the Parlando Project has been presenting in serial form T. S. Eliot’s High Modernist masterpiece “The Waste Land.” This year, we’re up to the third section of the poem “The Fire Sermon,” but before we present new material, I want to give our newer … Continue reading A Game of Chess, presenting T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” for National Poetry Month
Readers of these posts may recall a discussion of the theory that Emily Dickinson’s reclusive nature in later adulthood was caused by epilepsy and that her poem “I Felt a Funeral In My Brain” may have been describing the auras experienced around epileptic seizure events. I think it’s an interesting idea, a plausible one, but … Continue reading Intro to The Waste Land
We’re now nearing the top of our look back at the most liked and listened to audio pieces this past fall. Yesterday we used words from a trio of women writers, and today starts off the same way. If you missed the original posts on my encounter with these texts and creating the music for … Continue reading Fall 2019 Parlando Top Ten, numbers 4-2
Were you surprised or puzzled when I introduced this series on the Spoon River Anthology by comparing it to the later bleak Modernist landmark “The Waste Land?” I would have been. Not only is it often (usually?) left out of recent timelines of significant events in Modernist poetry’s emergence, the single epitaphs I recalled from … Continue reading A Misplaced Landmark in Modernist Poetry Part 3
Readers here know I have an affinity for the lesser-known, the forgotten, the underpraised participants in the Modernist movement. In any historical or literary period, there have to be some that are overlooked. Why? Geographic, gender, racial prejudice? Bad luck or spotty publishing history? Yes, all those can play a role. But today’s case is … Continue reading A Misplaced Landmark in Modernist Poetry Part 1
It’s time for the seasonal tallying of the pieces presented here that received the most listens and likes from you during the past three months. We presented 36 or 37 pieces in that time, including our increased posting activity during April’s National Poetry Month, but the most notable event for me during this interval was … Continue reading The Parlando Spring 2019 Top Ten Part 1
As I’ve done most quarters, I like to look at the most played and liked pieces during the past season and report back here. Usually a few of the results surprise me, they aren’t always my favorite pieces or even the ones that I think came off best. I do this in classic countdown fashion, … Continue reading Parlando Spring 2018 Top 10-Part One
We return with the next three in the count-down of the most listened to and liked audio pieces of last Winter. Like last time, all poets who worked in the 19th Century, but in this group, all men. Two out of the three today are from the British Isles. In may be no surprise, given … Continue reading March 2018 Parlando Top 10 Part 3
The subtitle of the Parlando Project is “The Place Where Music and Words Meet”. As I mentioned last night, this project, which combines words sourced from a variety of sources with a variety of music, has now reached 100 available audio pieces since it’s official launch 11 months ago. Note that stress on variety. In … Continue reading The Summer 2017 Parlando Project Top 10
