Mark Twain carved out this heartrending lullaby as an epitaph for his dead daughter. I performed it simply and unadorned with my original music.

This is the 700th audio piece officially released by the Parlando Project in the 7 years since it launched. While I vary the words we use in style and outlook, most of them are taken from literary poetry. I also try to vary the original music we combine with the words, using different instruments and types of expression. You can find the other 699 pieces, along with more information about the words and my experience with them, at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

This passage from Huxley's last novel, Island,  was shared in a social media post this summer, and it seemed to be to have a compelling message. So, here's my performance of that excerpt.

Usually this Project uses literary poetry for its words, but I make exceptions. There are almost 700 other combinations of various words sung, spoken, or chanted with original music available at our blog and archive which can be visted at frankhudson.org

I took William Carlos Williams poem from his early collection Al Que Quiere!  and made into a song performed with a rock quartet. That's kind of what the Parlando Project does (though the music isn't always one kind of thing).  We combine words (usually literary poetry) with original music. 

We've done this just about 700 times in the past few years. To hear more of what we do, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Emily Dickinson's classmate Jackson also wrote poetry, and today we perform this summer poem of hers. Hunt-Jackson's July poem is filled with flowers trying to survive under heat.

We've done almost 700 of these kinds of these short audio pieces, using various words, mostly literary poetry, with original music. To read more about this, or to fine those hundreds of other pieces, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote this as a children's poem, but I'm not so sure that there aren't many adults who feel this way on a long summer's day too.

This sort of thing is what the Parlando Project does: set words, usually literary poetry, to original music.  We perform them in various ways, with various music, and we're nearing our 700th published example of how we do this. To hear other combinations, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Every nature poet writes from their own location for the nature they write about, and so here's a musical performance of one of mine comparing our poems to urban geese. 

The Parlando Project has done nearly 700 of these combinations of various words (mostly other people's literary poetry) with original music. You can read more about this and hear other combinations at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

In 1852 the great American reformer Frederick Douglass gave a speech "What to the Slave Is the 4th of July?" -- but today I cast part of it, not has history, but as questions we can ask today, and in the future, in our country, or in yours. 

To read more about this, or to hear nearly 700 other combinations of various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music, visit our blog an archives at frankhudson.org

Emily Dickinson is a great poet partly because her poetry has several different modes. Here she is playfully looking at flies in this poem I set to music and performed.

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

June 24th is the anniversary of British poet Edward Thomas' train trip that resulted in "Adlestrop," a poem much loved in Great Britain. 

During the 7 years of the Parlando Project, I've sought to bring Thomas to greater attention outside of the UK, and here's an example of why you might want to consider Thomas: a complicated but beautiful love poem sung with a piano trio.

The Project has done nearly 700 other examples combining various words (mostly literary poetry) with original music. You can find out more about this and hear those other audio pieces, at our blog and archives: frankhudson.org

What happens after death? English poet Thomas Hardy had one idea and created this poem of atomic immortality he called "Transformations." I performed it as a song with original music.

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

Emily the Botany Nerd wrote this of mushrooms and I figured out how to sing it, That's what this Project does, it takes words, mostly page poetry and combines them with original music in various ways.

For nearly 700 other examples of this, or to read more about the process and my experience of the poems, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

I'm in Asheville NC this weekend and yet the Black Mountain College center is closed. None-the-less, let me tip my hat to one of the leaders of the circle that became known as the Black Mountain Poets with this short acapella rendition of one of his poems. 

For more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) and original music visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Poet Kevin FitzPatrick helped his WWII veteran father write his memoir of the father's experiences in the Bataan Death March. Later, this poem was written about his aged father's final stay in a care home and adds an unusual twist.

I performed this with original music, remembering Kevin who's gone now too. There's almost 700 other combinations of various words, mostly poetry, with original music at our archives at frankhudson.org

With her very first line, Emily Dickinson gets right to the "minuter intuitions" that too often rule us. I performed this as a song of shared humanity from Dickinson alternative hymnal with a simple acoustic guitar tune.

The opening portion of the final section, "Rooms," of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons performed with original music. I believe she thought of the poems in Tender Buttons as Cubist poems, and this passage seems to me to be a surprisingly sweet Cubist manifesto.

As part of my occasional series this spring looking back at the roots of the Parlando Project I've been writing about things I did back in the 20th century that led up to this. 

The recording is about 25 years old, but I did what I could with the audio recorded onto cassette tape. You can read about the Parlando Project and listen to our nearly 700 more recent audio pieces combining various words (mostly literary poetry) with different styles of original music at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

I still hear poet Kevin FitzPatrick's voice in my ear. That deep sustaining sound leads me to perform his poetry. This ode of his to midlife thoughts starts out with just acoustic guitar which is eventually joined by a string sextet.

Kenneth Patchen's touching poem performed as a song with acoustic guitar. For more about this and over 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music in different styles, go to our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Kenneth Patchen's love poem in the dark performed in front of a three-guitar eccentric rock band. Eccentric/eclectic is essential to what this Project does, so be aware that I don't expect any listener to like everything we do.

What else do we do then? Visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org where there are over 650 examples of a variety of words (mostly literary poetry) performed with original music in different styles.

Here's my musical performance of a poem from a video game. If that's not remarkable enough, it's a piece for May Day, The international workers day. Have I intrigued you? 

The poem appears, spoken by a character in the game Night in the Woods  and the presumed authors are Bethany Hockenberry and Scott Benson. The music is my own composition.

For more about this or to hear the more than 650 other combinations of various words and original music we've done, go to frankhudson.org

Langston Hughes ode to Jazz from his first collection of poetry The Weary Blues  performed with a Jazz combo -- well, not exactly -- it's me doing my best to give this composition a bit of a Jazz feel. 

April 30th is International Jazz Day and the last day of U. S. National Poetry Month, so it's appropriate that today's performance tips our hat to Jazz Poetry.

If you want to find out more about this, or sample the more than 650 combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music (in different styles) we've done, go to our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

Emily Dickinson's wistful speculation on the paths not taken performed with a folk-Jazz musical setting. 

For more about this, and for more than 650 other examples of what we do: combining various words (mostly other people's literary poetry) with original music in different styles, visit our archives at frankhudson.org

Ralph Waldo Emerson was key in bringing elements of South Asian thought to the still forming U. S. culture. For an example, here's a poem of his from 1856 that's an American Transcendentalist appreciation of a Hindu godhead performed as a hymn with acoustic guitar.

For more about this, and for more than 650 other examples of various words (mostly poetry) with original music in different styles, visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org

William Carlos Williams ambiguous poem about first-time parenthood performed. I had to choose as a performer: is he happy or seeking to be happy in this poem? I choose the later in this sorta-kinda shoegaze musical piece that's part of our National Poetry Month celebration this year.

Sandburg tells us about a Midwestern summer night in the Last Decade Called the Twenties. Can he paint the picture well enough that we can see it in ours? Let's see as I perform his poem in front of a rock quintet. 

Want to read more about this, or hear more than 650 other combinations of various words (mostly poetry) with original music? Visit our blog and archives at frankhudson.org