A poem about August written by Emily Dickinson's childhood classmate is performed with acoustic guitar and bass. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org
I perform, from Walt Whitman's Specimen Days, this roving meditation on summer. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music, visit frankhudson.org
Emily Dickinson performed with sitar and electric guitars. I'm sure that's what she'd want for this song-debate between nature's seasons and her soul. For more about this and other combinations of various word and original music visit frankhudson.org
Alfred Tennyson's tiny poem about a small insect's transformation performed with original music by The LYL Band. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org
A somewhat imperfect performance, but I have to share this song that begins near the end of a basketball game and moves on to statements about life, dying, and death like this one:
“You can make this up. It makes up itself. You can’t make it be more than anything else.”
This musical piece uses as its text Heidi Randen's short response to Louise Glück's poem "The Wild Iris" which speaks of suffering and its aftermath with possible rebirth. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.com
A break from our sometimes intense presentations of poetry with music, here's a bluesy little ditty about the worship of dead rock stars. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
A short piece about an aging farm woman with Alzheimer's performed by The LYL Band. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
Langston Hughes answered Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" with his addition. I have in turn performed it with a folk acoustic guitar setting you can sing along to, adding my own short coda to Hughes' thoughts. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org
Walt Whitman's hymn to American work and workers performed. It's a good choice for Independence Day - July 4th, or any other day. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org
A strange, yet evocative summer song written and sung by Dave Moore. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem of love, night, a ferry ride, and the world remembered performed. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
William Blake's mystic lullaby sung with acoustic guitar. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music, visit frankhudson.org
Performing Canadian poet Bliss Carman's reimagined ancient Greek poet Sappho. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music, visit frankhudson.org
I translated and adapted this poem by the ancient Greek poet Sappho to create a song that now also references Rimbaud and his poem "Dawn" from the French poet's Illuminations. For more about this and other combination of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
A musical performance of a poem from a poet you wouldn't associate with urban grit: Joyce Kilmer. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
Another short, sharp observation about love and life from the last "Twenties," this one written by Dorothy Parker. For more about this and other combination of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
Written by Mary Carolyn Davies, a little-known woman from the early Modernist era of 1915, I perform this short piece with bass and acoustic guitar. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org
Emily Dickinson's tiny poem about art and artists performed. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music, visit frankhudson.org
English poet Christina Rossetti's mysterious song of May, and May not. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org
I perform my own fresh translation of Rimbaud's prose poem from his Illuminations today. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music go to frankhudson.org
“Oh, to be in England now that April’s there…” a wistful poem of remembering spring while being separated from one’s homeland. As we grow older, are we all separated in some way from some Spring? For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org
For #InternationalJazzDay at the end of #NationalPoetryMonth, here's some early (circa 1920) Jazz Poetry by Carl Sandburg. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music, visit frankhudson.org
Langston Hughes wrote this charming spring poem for children, but even obsolete children might like it. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
For 5 years the Parlando Project has been serially performing The Waste Land for each #NationalPoetry Month. In today's concluding part, The LYL Band tears open the poem's fragments and masks that came before in a nakedly emotional expiation. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org