Today’s piece uses a very short poem I wrote in immediate reaction to some sad news I heard this weekend. Despite that news’ immediacy and particular sadness, the poem that resulted became something else, and I’m not sure why, even as I was writing it, revising it, and then figuring out today’s music and performing … Continue reading Why Now, Vocalissimus
How many poems celebrate the poet’s dream, or dreams? This one doesn’t. It’s fair to say that American poet William Carlos Williams had a curmudgeonly streak. In this poem from his 1921 collection Sour Grapes he holds the line for the style that early Modernists had championed to break free from the poetic fancies that … Continue reading William Carlos Williams’ Thursday
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
One of the odd things that can happen to a poem is for a single line to become remembered while the poem itself may fade out of fashion. Today’s poem, which is likely to be our final poem for this April’s American National Poetry Month was published in the middle of the 19th century by … Continue reading In England Now (Home Thoughts, from Abroad)
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
Let’s pickup the countdown of the pieces that drew the most listens and likes over this past winter. Each bold-faced listing is a link to the original post on the piece in case you’d like to read what I wrote back then, and those original posts will also contain links to the full text of … Continue reading Winter ‘20-‘21 Parlando Project Top Ten, numbers 7-5
Was I being audacious when I compared Eliot’s “The Waste Land” to a modern hip hop/rap production sampling various parts and levels of the world’s culture? I don’t think so (though maybe I should be worried). I’m not going to get into a rap battle between T. S. Eliot vs. Missy Elliot, or a discussion … Continue reading Sweet Thames
It’s been quite the April here as we ramped up activity to celebrate U. S. National Poetry Month. A lot of effort and time on my part, but since this project is based on the joy one finds in looking and listening to something and seeing what the encounter brings out, it’s been fun for … Continue reading Wrapping Up National Poetry Month 2019
We left “The Waste Land” last time in certainty and doubt. For one of the few times the narrating voice of a part of “The Waste Land” has given its name. Yet despite the male pronoun I used throughout our last post, that narrator, Tiresias, is noted in mythology as having lived as both a … Continue reading The (Play with) Fire Sermon
I’ve got reasons for kicking off Black History Month a few days early: my February is going to be appointment-filled, something that’s likely to reduce new work for this project, and I want to participate in this observance of American history. Why was I so determined to do this? Well, note this project’s subtitle: “Where … Continue reading Sonny Rollins, The Bridge, 1959
Frank Hudson 