When I started this project a few years ago I didn’t realize that I’d have to largely work with poetry which is in the public domain. This can still disappoint me, but there’s been a welcome side-effect. This limitation caused me to look deeply into the first couple decades of the 20th century for texts … Continue reading Night, and I Traveling
Emily Dickinson isn’t the only one of this project’s favorite American poets to write a Thanksgiving poem. Carl Sandburg did so too. Long time readers here will know how much I like Sandburg and how often I like to speak toward the canon-keepers to point out that early Sandburg was a devoted Modernist with a … Continue reading Fire Dreams, or Carl Sandburg’s Come On, Pilgrim
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
Did you find yourself agreeing more with H.D. or William Carlos Williams in Thursday’s audio piece taken from Williams’ Kora in Hell? If I was to survey listeners, I’d be surprised if Williams wouldn’t win far more applause. Being that it’s his book, and he controls what H.D. presents before he responds, it wasn’t really … Continue reading More on that exchange published in the prologue to Kora in Hell
William Carlos Williams Kora in Hell is an unusual book. Its subtitle: Improvisations promised me more than it delivered. Improvised or semi-improvised poetry, that true Jazz poetry where the author composes on the spot from themes or from spontaneous inspiration is something I admired and—to a degree—practiced in my youth. The improvisations of Williams’ book … Continue reading An exchange from the Prologue to Kora In Hell
Just a couple of posts back I said that early Carl Sandburg poetry can be just as aligned with the ideals of the Imagist school as the Trans-Atlantic poets such as the then contemporary work of Ezra Pound, Amy Lowell, H.D., Richard Aldington, F. S. Flint, T. S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, and T. E. … Continue reading Back Yard
I’m going to do something this time that I’ve done before but is rarely done. I’m going to revise someone else’s poem without their permission—which I would feel bound to obtain, but the author Orrick Johns is long dead. The last time I did this, it was Rupert Brooke’s work I used, and my excuse … Continue reading Ollendorf’s Wife
Long time readers/listeners here know I like to look for the Modernist outliers and less-remembered poets, and today we have one of those: Orrick Johns. But as a bonus, today’s piece by Johns likely influenced one of the most famous American short modernist poems. So, we’re only one remove from “poetry’s greatest hits” with “Blue … Continue reading Blue Undershirts
This April the Parlando Project will shift into a higher gear to help celebrate U. S. National Poetry Month. And what better way to start off but with a piece by Emily Dickinson, “This World Is Not Conclusion.” Subscribe or stop back often to see how the Parlando Project presents different poems with different music … Continue reading This World Is Not Conclusion
I indicated when I first presented a poem by Charlotte Mew this month that I’d talk more about her life, but what I know is so limited and sad that I’ll try to condense things. She was born into a family that had more than its share of illness and mortality. Three siblings died in … Continue reading The Trees are Down
