Black Chicago poet Fenton Johnson published these two free-verse poetic portraits in Others magazine in 1919, gaining him some notice as an Afro-American who was working in the avant-garde forms of Modernism.
I performed his two poems with a rock band accompaniment for today's example of what the Parlando Project does: combining various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in different styles. We've been featuring work of this lesser-known, but pioneering, poet Fenton Johnson this month; and you find out more about him and check out our over 700 other audio pieces at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Pioneering Black Chicago Poet Fenton Johnson termed this poem a literary spiritual in his 1915 collection Visions of the Dark. I read it as predecessor to later Gospel songwriting, and so set it to music for this spare solo performance with just acoustic guitar and voice.
This is one example of what the Parlando Project does. We explore various words (mostly literary poetry) and combine them with original music for these performances. You can find over 700 examples of this at our archives and blog frankhudson.org
BONUS TRACK
Black Chicago poet Fenton Johnson was using Blues Language as early as his 1913 poetry collection "A Little Dreaming." That could make this poem an early example of a literary page poet using Blues Language.
Just for fun I decided to create one of our rare Parlando Bonus Tracks. This version has been made to sound like an old, somewhat worn 78 RPM record as a tribute to the early Blues musicians.
The Parlando Project takes various words, mostly literary poetry, and combines them with original music we compose and perform in different styles. Ther are over 700 other examples at our blog an archives located at frankhudson.org
Even in 1913, Black Chicago poet Fenton Johnson was already using Blues-language in his literary poetry. In this poem he printed in dialect from his first book-length poetry collection "A Little Dreaming" Johnson may be encoding a message not every listener will understand.
There will be a discussion of that and more than 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in different styles at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
Early 20th Century Afro-American poet Fenton Johnson again shows his range with this Celtic dark fantasy poem that I've turned into a song.
That "turned into a song" is something the Parlando Project does. We've created over 700 combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in various styles. You can find them at our blog and archives locate at https://frankhudson.org/
Early 20th Century Black Chicago poet Fenton Johnson's dream poem references Virgil's "The Aeneid." I've turned it into a song as part of my month-long celebration of this lesser-known Midwestern poet who preceded the Harlem Renaissance.
That's what the Parlando Project does: it takes other peoples words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in various styles. You can find over 700 such combinations at our archives and blog located at frankhudson.org
In 1906, Paul Laurence Dunbar, the first Afro-American poet to receive substantial notice, died, only 33 years old. Only a few years later in 1913, a 24 year old Black poet from Chicago, Fenton Johnson, publishes his first poetry collection which in which he pays tribute to Dunbar as he tries to pick up the standard from the fallen Dunbar.
I've made Johnson's poem into a song, and as this Black History Month continues I plan to perform more of Johnson's work and tell something of his career as part of the Parlando Project where we combine words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in various styles. You can find more than 700 examples of that at our archives and blog located at frankhudson.org
American poet Robert Frost assiduously read the book of nature even when the pages were blank. Here's a beautiful short poem that looks out on a wintery night and sees a blank whiteness. I've made the poem into a song accompanied by acoustic guitar.
The Parlando Project takes words, usually other people's words, usually literary page poetry, and combines them original music in various styles. You can find over 700 examples of this at our archives and blog located at frankhudson.org
At least on the face of it, this short Emily Dickinson poem asks for a lifetime of experience all at once, all its grief and joy. As I understood it while creating this performance with original music, she weighs grief and joy as Taoist components.
My music today for this has a touch of a slowcore approach. but I was also thinking of John Lee Hooker, and mic'ed up my foot-stomps for percussion in the electric guitar and voice recording that mimics that combination on Hooker's earliest Blues sides.
The Parlando Project combines various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music in different styles. You can hear over 700 other examples at our blog and archives at frankhudson.org
Goethe's short lyric poem in German wanders into this short folksong arrangement via an English translation by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that I slightly modified for this song performance with my music for 12-string guitar, bass, and piano.
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