Parlando - Where Music and Words Meet

Longtime followers of this Project will know that I'm a proponent of early 20th century Chicago Afro-American poet Fenton Johnson. The "elevator pitch" for Johnson is that he slots in between Paul Laurence Dunbar and the slightly later Harlem Renaissance. Back then, prominent contemporary Black critics such as the remarkable polymath James Weldon Johnson categorized Fenton Johnson's work as altogether "radical" and "full of despair," enough so that they were of mixed feelings about the value of his verse.

Fenton Johnson's poetry does speak at times of hardship, even hopelessness, but he also wrote of persevering through adversity, and I think some of his poetry shares elements with the Black Gospel music tradition which was forming up in Chicago while he was actively publishing just before WWI.

His poem "Revery" may have a little of that latter: it might even be a hymn to the Creator. Or one could read it as a recounting of the "oversoul" that passes in an out of human lives, which is how I cast it when I revised Johnson's literary poem for my sung performance. My version could even be performed at a funeral or memorial service.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

In writing about Sara Teasdale last time over at the Parlando Project blog I mentioned that she has been grouped with a set of 20th century female poets as a "Songbird Poet." The implied charge here is that these poets are less concerned with the deep meaning of poetry and are content to just make pleasant word-music.

Upholding up the deeper meaning school I'd have an opening to report that the songs of birds are not all pleasant and meaningless. They sing for desire, for companionship, and for defense, among other things; though as a person in this Project I have to say that making a song, something one appreciates uttering, might be a worthwhile thing. Here's another minor poet who I'm sure we've kept in a parlor cage as a songbird, one William Shakespeare. This tidy little song from his play The Merchant of Venice talks about idle, surface-deep, love ("Fancy"). But wait, like is often the case with the Songbird Poets, there's a more complex message inside it.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Here's a sensuous poem for the season written by Sara Teasdale. In it she gets as close in as Emily Dickinson might while listening to the more subtle nature's chorus of Autumn.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

This is the shorter ("single-length") version of my annual Jimi Hendrix memorial observance. As such, it celebrates loud, expressive, electric guitar, but scattered in there are a few words I remembered from Eric Burdon's 1967 LP cut "Yes, I Am Experienced" praising Hendrix.

The Parlando Project takes various words (usually literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Concluding our series of musical performances of fresh English translations early poems by French Surrealist Paul Éluard, I present this short Dada piece made up of outrageous statements.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Another musical performance of a fresh English translation in my series presenting French Surrealist Paul Éluard. The poet seemingly wanted to write an ekphrastic poem about his Surrealist contemporary, the Greek-Italian painter Giorgio De Chirico, and I've been writing a bit about how modern culture retains more interest in Surrealist art than it the Surrealist poets of the same era – but weeks after I completed this translation, composition, and performance I re-listened to the words in the context of the 25th anniversary of 9/11 and found unintended, yet striking resonance.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

In America this is the Labor Day weekend, and here's a performance of a thought-provoking Kenneth Patchen poem that I'll say is about work and workers.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Here's another poem by French Surrealist Paul Éluard that I've translated to English, set to music, and performed.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Here's another new English translation of an early poem by the French poet Paul Éluard. The music for today's poem is quite different that the last one. This poem, though written without a trace of extravagant Surrealist imagery, retains an elusive quality that I found attractive.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org

Here's a short, early poem by the French Surrealist Paul Éluard, that I translated and adapted into English this month. I plan to write more about my translation and my impressions of reading some other early Éluard poems at the Parlando Project blog linked below.

The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org