Here's song version of a Paul Lawrence Dunbar's poem. Dunbar is often reckoned the first successful Afro-American poet, and this poem, now song, shows how Dunbar wrote both of the Afro-American experience and universal themes within his poetry.

This is a winter sonnet I wrote portraying my thoughts of the mortal illness of another poet Robert Okaji while I, an old man, am bike riding though some winter crows. For the first Parlando piece of this year, I declaimed this with a rock band behind my reading. 

For more than 700 other examples of various words (usually someone else's', usually literary poetry) combined in various ways with original music in several styles, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org.

Robert Frost included this rural winter poem in his first collection A Boy's Will.  Concise it may be, and it works by tiny increments, but I think it's as harrowing as Dylan's "Hollis Brown" or Springsteen's Nebraska.  So, I set it to original music and performed it.

That's an example of what the Parlando Project does: we take other people's words, usually literary poetry, and set them to various kinds of original music. You can find over 700 examples of that at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Sara Teasdale praises life while facing death in her poem I've now performed with music. 

For more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in various styles, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Here's a musical performance of my setting of Thomas Hardy's deft poem about Christmas miracles. 

For more about this and more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in various styles visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Russian poet Akhmatova's poem portrays a skeptical and experienced view of falling in love. I made a new English translation of this last summer, but its cold winter view of love convinced me to put off arranging a song-version of it until December.

For more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with music in various styles, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Margaret Widdemer was an early 20th century American poet and novelist, once somewhat popular, now mostly forgotten.  "The Dark Cavalier" may be her most remembered work, and it's a dark gothic ballad sung by Death. Death is disturbing in their seductiveness in this piece You've been warned. 

For more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with various kinds of original music we create for this Project, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

A performance of a somber, gothic, ghost poem written by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor and performed with a haunting musical setting in our Parlando style. 

For more about Slessor, and for more than 700 other examples of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music we compose and perform, visit our blog and archive at frankhudson.org

Two pieces in one today: a spoken-word performance with music of Kevin FitzPatrick's poem "Lambing," and then a short instrumental response to the story of the poem "Night-Born Lambs."

For more of what we do, combining other people's words (mostly literary poetry) with original music 

I combined two short Emily Dickinson poems to create this song or the strangeness, richness, and temporariness of life. 

To find out more about this, or to peruse the more than 700 other combinations of words (mostly literary poetry) with original music that are part of the Parlando Project, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

A short bit of Gertrude Stein presented without prejudice as word-music you might enjoy in this musical performance by The LYL Band. For more about this, and the Van this is an abstract portrait of, see our blog and archivers at frankhudson.org

I took a strange poem by Robert Louis Stevenson and made it a stranger song as part of our observance of Armistice Day this year. Read about how my version slightly modified the original work and check out the more than 700 other combinations of various words with original music at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

For Armistice Day, I sing this poem by A. E. Housman about returning WWI soldiers. 

For more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) and original music we perform, visit our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

An original song I made from a poem of mine about Autumn. Don't worry, the Parlando Project is still dedicated to using other people's words, and we'll return to that soon.

For more than 700 examples of that sort of thing, various words (mostly literary poetry) combined with music we compose and perform, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

A special Halloween extra episode: 10 songs in 33 minutes featuring ghosts, graveyards, curses, and creatures. 

The Parlando Project combines words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in various styles. Here's a list of the songs in this mix along with their lyrics' authors: A Poison Tree (Blake), The Listeners (De La Mare), All Souls Night (Flexner), Reynardine (Campbell), Unreal City (Eliot), Ghost Blues (Ball), The Little Ghost (Millay), The Shadow on the Stone (Hardy), Ghost House (Frost), Stones (McKiernan)

For more about this Project see frankhudson.org

I extracted this sweet yet regretful poem for music performance by the LYL Band from a longer and more archaic one that Longfellow wrote. 

For more about this and for more than 700 other combinations of various words (usually literary poetry) with original music visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

The LYL Band's musical performance of a short poem comparing small-town Midwestern wooden churches to an acoustic guitar. 

For more that 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music, visit our archives and blog at frankhudson.org

Emily Dickinson's little poem mention my "home" instrument, so I just had to perform it.  Besides the obligatory guitar I let a string trio enter into the middle of the piece, scored in my simple way.

For more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

I poetically expand on this commonly expressed feeling of writers during this live LYL Band performance. 

We usually use other people's words at the Parlando Project, and to see more than 700 other examples of that (mostly using literary poetry) combined with original music in various styles, visit our archives and blog at frankhudson.org

Emily Dickinson featured bees in many of her poems, but this short playful poem is possibly the most imaginative.  I set it to music with acoustic guitar for today's audio piece.

For more than 700 other combinations of various words (usually literary poetry) with original music visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

I adapted the final poem in Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses as a song for today's audio piece.  Stevenson may have intended this poem to extend the lifetime of his children's book, by explaining to future children that his 19th century poems were nevertheless about children like them however different in details from his time.

My encounter with this poem led me to see it as something many adults, and I particularly, feel about the children in our lives who grow and change and leave us with "Children of the Air."

This is what the Parlando Project does, we combine words (mostly literary poetry) with original music. We've done over 700 of them over the years, and you can hear them and read about our encounters with all those words at our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Here's a section of a longer Carl Sandburg poem for American Labor Day. Physicists tell us that what we see as a solid object is just atoms and particles moving around rapidly. Sandburg and Labor Day tell us that what we see as city is just the vibration of our constant labor.

The Parlando Project has over 700 audio pieces combining various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music. You can find our previous pieces and read about our experiences of them at our blog and archives found at frankhudson.org

Claude McKay's aching summer love poem performed as a love song. That's the kind of thing the Parlando Project does, takes literary poetry and combines it with original music in various styles.

You can hear over 700 examples of this archived at our blog where I discuss my reflections on each poem and performance at frankhudson.org

A song about a spring teenage romance interrupted by the summer vacation break in the schoolyear. 

For more about this and more than 700 other examples of various words (usually literary poetry) combined with original music, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Here's a poet writing the poetry of a long sleepless night, yet he spends as much time on the others in the summer night as himself. Today I perform this story of one now long past summer night.

To hear more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in various styles, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org