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
You'll sometimes find Edward Thomas' filed under "War Poets," but his best-known poem "Adlestrop" is an unique peace poem written a few days before war broke out in Europe. In it, "nothing" happens -- the sweetest nothing. This re-release of our performance of the poem with a rock band is part of our celebration of National Poetry Month 2022.
We continue our celebration of National Poetry Month with the re-release of this beautiful short love poem by William Butler Yeats, performed with our original music.
The Parlando Project has over 600 other examples of this, available in our archives at frankhudson.org
Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem of love and respect lost performed to original music by an acoustic band. For more about this and other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music go to frankhudson.org
Just suppose that back in the 1920s someone wanted to record a Blues song based on Emily Dickinson's "A Soul selects her own Society," and so they waxed a 78 rpm platter. Well, it might sound a little like this. And if you're unusual enough to listen to that, you might enjoy some of the more than 600 other performances we have in our archives at frankhudson.org
Emily Dickinson's poem is performed with our original orchestral setting as we continue or celebration of National Poetry Month by re-releasing some of our favorite performances from the early years of the Parlando Project. Want to hear more combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music? Visit our archives at frankhudson.org
I translated Dada founder Tristan Tzara's surprisingly moving elegy to the important early French Modernist poet and artist Apollinaire. I then created/performed this musical setting.
To hear more than 600 other combinations of various words with original music, go to frankhudson.org
My Modernist revision of one of the last poems of noted WWI War Poet Rupert Brooke performed with my musical setting. For more about this and more than 600 other combinations of various words with original music visit frankhudson.org
Commemorating our previous NPM series that serially performed the entire Modernist landmark in a variety of musical contexts, here's a re-release for NPM 2022 of the opening part of "The Fire Sermon."
The entire "The Waste Land" series is available in our archives at frankhudson.org, along with over 600 other audio performances.
The LYL Band tweaks Frost with their performance of this parody. More about this and more than 600 other examples of various words mixed with original music at frankhudson.org
Here's American poetry's National Anthem and its reader's Bill of Rights performed by the Lake Street Writer's Group. Re-released to celebrate National Poetry Month and the opening day of the baseball season.