Another Emily Dickinson setting where my music seeks to bring out the strangeness that sits in-between some of her poems' lines. This lesser-known Dickinson poem might be paired with her "Because I could not stop for Death." She's singing here before the carriage arrives.
For more than 750 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org
I'm planning a short series of Emily Dickinson poems combined with a variety of original music as I look forward to spending next week attending (online) a number of events in the Emily Dickinson Museum's Tell It Slant festival.
Today's example is a musical setting for acoustic steel-string guitar of a poem portraying a day's sunset viewed in an intimate female world.
The Parlando Project has over 750 such combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) combined with different music in different ways. You can read more about the experience of doing this and hear all the musical pieces at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Each year on September 18th I do something to commemorate composer and guitarist Jimi Hendrix. This year I set this famous short poem by classical Chinese poet Li Bai.
Later this morning I'll post more about thoughts on how this poet and that musician might fit together. This just one example of what the Parlando Project does: we combine various words (mostly literary poetry) with music in different styles and then write about the experience of that at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
The Parlando Project is less often able to present the live rock band performances that it started out with, but here's a little piece from one of those performances, one telling about the aftermath of a large hail and high-wind storm that struck in August of 2023.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations and you can hear them all and read more about our experience with the poems at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Late 19th century American poet Richard Hovey translated many French Symbolist poems; but this sonnet, published in a posthumous collection, is apparently Hovey's own work in French under the title "Au Seuil." Hovey's poem considers dying and the possibility of a judgement and afterlife.
I translated Hovey's French into English for this musical performance. The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in different styles. This is the 775th one we've published, and you can hear them all and read about our encounters with the poems at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Here's a short love poem by written for the 1894 Songs From Vagabondia by Richard Hovey. This book found favor with young men in its day for eschewing moral uplift and earnest toil to write instead of wine, women, and joyful travels.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in differing styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can hear them and read more about this at our blog and archives at frankhudson.org
Labor Day weekend in America is often the occasion for end of Summer activities. In this poem from the 1894 Songs from Vagabondia, poet Richard Hovey rows down a river in Maine connecting a lake and ponds. What does he find? The sense that Summer feels like a dream.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've released over 750 of these combinations. You can hear any of them and read more about our experience with the poems at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Pioneering Canadian poet Bliss Carman included this fantastic prose poem in his breakthrough 1894 collection "Songs from Vagabondia." Is it the slightly intoxicated wonder-talk of two tipsy young men, or the account of two angels playing with the universe?
That Carman seems to have designed that blurring makes for an interesting 19th century SciFi vignette which I perform today.
The Parlando Project combines various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can find them at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Pioneering Canadian poet Bliss Carman's break-through collection was called Songs of Vagabondia, a popular 1894 book which extoled the adventurous and sensuous life. In this selection he jauntingly compares Robert Burns and Robert Browning.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can find more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Ancient Greek poet Sappho's poetry survives in fragments and spaces, but in 1904 a Canadian poet imagined Sappho's poems as if they were complete. The audacity of that project undertaken by Bliss Carman must be conceded, but the results can be judged on their own merits.
The Greeks said that Sappho's poems were sung with lyre music, and the Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music we create. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can find all of them and what we write about our encounters with the work at our blog and archives, located at frankhudson.org
August 6th is the 8th anniversary of the launch of the Parlando Project — but it is also the 23rd anniversary of my late wife's death and Hiroshima Day. The Parlando Project is largely about performing other people's words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in various styles, but for this August observance I used a poem I myself wrote about grief and have now turned into a song.
The Parlando Project blog and archives is where I write about my encounters with the words combined with music. There are more than 750 examples there. You can find them at frankhudson.org
Not sure it's advice only useful for young women, but a savvy poem of love's boundaries none the less.
The Parlando Project takes various words (usually literary poetry) and combines them with original music. We've done over 750 such combinations and you can find more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Sara Teasdale with a short heartbreak poem I've set to music and sung.
That's what the Parlando Project does: we take various words (usually literary poetry) and combine them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and they're available at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
An Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet of youth and aging is turned into a song, which is the thing the Parlando Project does. We take various words (usually literary poetry) and combine them with original music.
We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can find them at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
It's a poem, but in it Robison Jeffers wants to deliver a speech about political speech. I may not agree with Jeffers aims at the moment he wrote his poem, but I can feel the frustration he speaks of. You might too.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in various styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, so if you'd like to read or hear more, go to our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Emily Dickinson's in a goth mood again, but she makes such things sound lovely, so we sing her poem of everlasting nature and non-everlasting life today.
Not just Dickinson, but that's what the Parlando Project does: takes various words (usually literary poetry) and combines them with original music. We've got over 750 such combinations in our archives available at frankhudson.org
I made my own English translation of from Lorca's Spanish poem "La Guitarra" and performed this with my own simple guitar accompaniment.
That's what the Parlando Project does: combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music. We've done over 750 of these combinations over the past 8 years. You can find more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Today's musical setting is Carl Sandburg's short ambiguous poem about a strong-dreaming woman. The reader is left to decide, why the poem's Chick Lorimer is gone. Has she left with her flags flying high? Or is the poem's seeming praise of many lovers and her uninhibited nature hiding a more complex relationship with the town? As a singing performer of this poem I had to decide, and went with the more complex interpretation.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 such combinations and you can find more at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
For Juneteenth, a song from the 1860s written by George F. Root, a white songwriter, depicting an enslaved mother sending her child to the Union lines alone for freedom. I revised Root's melody a bit and performed it for today's holiday.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and usually combines them with original music. You can find more than 750 of them at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Goth Emily Dickinson again, with a poem about what stirs the sharpness of our attention now turned into a song.
The Parlando Project combines words (usually literary poetry) with original music in various styles. You can find more than 750 of these combinations at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Williams melds birdsong, rain, and dawn into one instantaneous thing. I turned his poem into a short musical performance.
American poet Emily Dickinson's enigmatic short Spring poem performed with new music as a Spring song.
For more than 750 other combinations of various words (usually literary poetry) with original music visit our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Your presenter with an acoustic guitar galloping through Emily Dickinson's exhortation of Spring today.
Robert Frost tells a little tale of nature and gardening for May. Being that it's Frost, there's a sharp observation woven into the story about man and nature.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of these combinations, and you can hear them and read more about this Project at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
John Sinclair (who died during this National Poetry Month) did a lot of things in his life, generating so many stances and actions that I suspect no one can agree with all of it. But one thing he did throughout his life was write Jazz Poetry, and so for International Jazz Day this year I thought I'd seek out and perform a couple of his poems.
The Parlando Project combines various words (usually literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've done over 750 of them, and you can hear them and read more about our experiences with this at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org