Dave Moore's 7-minute compression of hard-boiled detective fiction tropes. He says he was inspired by Robert Coover, but he turns the pages his own poetic way in this one, with vocals by the author and backing from The LYL Band.

WARNING: in this crescendo of inuendo, bad words and flawed people show up.

My elegy for poet Kevin FitzPatrick performed live by The LYL Band. For more about this, or for more than 600 other Parlando Project pieces combining various words (mostly poetry) with original music go to frankhudson.org

This is our musical performance of a poem by Kevin FitzPatrick. Kevin wrote many fine poems about the world of work. This one, from his last collection Still Living in Town, is but one example. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music, visit frankhudson.org

Another of my adaptations of master classical Chinese poet Du Fu's work for performance in English. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music, visit frankhudson.org

Avant gardener Dickinson wants us to appreciate the effort it takes to flower, and so I perform her poem today with acoustic guitar. For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music, visit frankhudson.org

I adapted this poem by Tang Dynasty Chinese poet Du Fu and performed it with my original music. For more about this and more than 600 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music, visit frankhudson.org

English poet William Blake's mystical tiger is a highlight of his book Songs of Experience.  Here's a solo acoustic guitar and vocal performance using my own musical setting from the last Year of the Tiger (2010) for the current one.

I gave this lesser-known Edward Thomas short poem a folk setting so that I, and now you, could hear it. For more about this and other combinations of various words and original music visit frankhudson.org

A primitive LYL Band cassette tape recording from the middle 80's celebrates the great baseball player. For more about this and other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music visit frankhudson.org

A performance of Walt Whitman's de profundis poem. Published in 1867, Whitman's expression of the questions of despair and the answer he finds still resonate today.

For more about this and other Parlando combinations of various words and original music, visit frankhudson.org

Carl Sandburg didn't just do Chicago poems. An example: this lovely farmland poem performed with my best approximations of Jazz in the mode of Bill Frisell for today's International Jazz Day. 

This piece concludes our daily re-releases this April of some of my favorite early Parlando Project performances. The Project combines various words (mostly poetry) with original music. We've done over 600 of them, and if you'd like to hear more you can find all of them in our archives at frankhudson.org

Charlotte Mew's poetry has some unusual qualities, like in this poem which starts out like she's a more reserved Frank O'Hara and then ends more like Rilke. It's also the only Arbor Day poem you'll hear today that has a dead rat in it.

Mew is not the only one who's unusual--our listeners are too. The Parlando Project has done over 600 combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music. You can find those performances and more at frankhudson.org

I sometimes see a psychedelic aspect to Dickinson's poetry, and this performance manifests that as her spring poem is re-woven into something that you'd hear on a Sixties vinyl LP. Surely something different for Poem in your Pocket Day today.

For more about this, or more Parlando, visit frankhudson.org. There are over 600 other examples of how we combine words (mostly poetry) with original music we compose and perform in our archives there.

Warning: this 1919 poem by too-little-known Chicago Afro-American poet is disturbing. "Tired" was controversial from the start for it's bleak view, but there's internal evidence that Johnson was intending to present a "persona poem" portraying only one outlook on America's situation.

From his landmark 1916 Chicago Poems, here's Sandburg writing about summer nights and the immigrant experience then. I perform it in a way that I hope comes unstuck and drifts in time. 

The Parlando Project has done over 600 of these things: combinations of various words and original music. You can find this, and others like and unlike it, in our archives at frankhudson.org

Here's a performance of Dickinson's gothic aubade re-released as part of our National Poetry Moth celebration this April. 

The Parlando Project has been combining words (mostly poetry) with original music (as varied as we can make it) for six years now. and has over 600 of the results available in our archives at our blog https://frankhudson.org

In 1911 Hilda Doolittle visited her old school flame Ezra Pound in London and came out “HD, imagiste.”  Branding!

H.D. never liked her last name for literary reasons anyway. And her short mysterious early poems were pioneering works of what became known as Imagism. Here's my performance and original music setting of one of her revolutionary early works as part of our celebration of National Poetry Month.

More about this, and over 600 other pieces in various styles are available in our blog archives at frankhudson.org

Here's a performance of an overlooked masterpiece of early Imagist poetry written by Irish poet Joseph Campbell (Seosamh MacCathmhaoil) in 1909. In just a few well-written words he portrays a situation from rural Irish life.

For more about this and other combinations of various words with original music, visit frankhudson.org

Celebrating Shakespeare's birthday and National Poetry Month with this performance with original music.

The Parlando Project has lot like (and unlike this) in our archives, more than 600 pieces combining words (mostly poetry) with original music. To find those, or read more about this and the other pieces go to frankhudson.org

Black Ohioan Raymond G. Dandridge was a little-known link between Paul Dunbar and Langston Hughes, and this short poem about an alienated dancer who has taken on an exotic persona might be seen as a "danced near-nude" pair with Dunbar's "We Wear the Mask." 

We have over 600 other performances of various words (mostly poetry) combined with original music in our archives at frankhudosn.org

Our performance of Jean Toomer's incandescent Afro-American love poem is re-released today as part of our celebration of National Poetry Month.

Wand more Parlando? Our archives have over 600 other combinations of various words with original music available at our blog: frankhudson.org

e. e. cummings rapturous poem is performed with original acoustic music in this re-released version as part of celebration of National Poetry Month. 

My own extended English translation of Du Fu's poem performed by The LYL Band. Du Fu (also spelled Tu Fu) is one the masters of classical Chinese poetry, and this is one my favorites of his works re-released now as part of our celebration of National Poetry Month. More about this or more Parlando? Go to frankhudson.org

Eleanor Farjeon and Robert Frost both wrote elegies for their mutual friend and poet Edward Thomas killed on Easter Monday during WWI. Which one is the more effective poem? The one I perform today by Farjeon. 

Since it's National Poetry Month you may be interested in more about Thomas and this poem, or in the more than 600 other performances with we have in our archive at frankhudson.org

British poet Edward Thomas' meditation on war's absences performed with an original setting using acoustic guitar and orchestra instruments. This poem sometimes goes by the title "The Blenheim Oranges"

We're re-releasing performances like this from this Project first couple of years to celebrate National Poetry Month.  If you like this, there are more than 600 other combinations of words (mostly poetry) with original music at frankhudson.org