Thursday, July 25, 2013

A super-cool thing that is happening

I often, only half-jokingly, say that I started writing poems because I'm tone-deaf and can't sing. Well, it looks like I might have unintentionally become a song-writer.

Back in December, I got an email out of the blue from a baritone singer named Phillip Addis. He had come across my poetry and wanted to have some poems set to music so that he could sing them. I was, of course, enormously flattered. Addis said that it would be several months until anything happened, as funding would have to be sorted out, etc. Since then, I wondered occasionally where things were, but I figured that the most likely outcome would be that nothing would come of it.

Shows what I know. A few weeks ago, I got an email from composer Erik Ross, saying that he'd been reading my work and was zeroing in on a shortlist of poems to score. And then he followed up a few days ago, saying that he has selected my poems "I" and "Waypoints," both of which will also be published in my forthcoming chapbook, Baffle. The score is supposed to be finished by September 1. Not sure yet what's happening with Addis' performance.

Essay online






My essay on David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is now online for your reading pleasure at The Critical Flame.

Monday, July 22, 2013

ESSAY IN PRINT

My essay in appreciation of the poetry of Patrick Warner, "Mr. In-Between," is yours for the reading in the latest issue (# 71) of Arc Poetry Magazine. I've long admired Warner's poetry and think he should be every bit as feted as Babstock, Solie and others of his generation.