For the wonderful Summer poetry reading series that Poet Laureate Emerita of Ridgefield, Barb Jennes, puts together each year, we had a visit from one of my favorite poets- Marie Howe.
Marie's poem, Annunciation, came into my life about fifteen years ago and its magic has never left me. Somehow Marie found a way to capture the intimacy of interiority, in this case, of Mary, mother of Jesus, as she reflects on what is what like to be visited by God.
On July 21st Marie would be reading from her newly published collection of New and Selected Poems and Barb asked me to coordinate music for the evening in the beautiful garden of Keeler Tavern. What I settled on were three art songs I had composed in the last few years. These included a setting of Annunciation, but written as a duet between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth (I wondered what it would be like to know that one other person in the world understood this numinous experience). The other two of my compositions featured were a setting of William Blakes, The Lamb, and Jane Hirschfield's Let Them Not Say. I also selected, three movements of Gwyneth Walker's Letters to the World: Reflections of the Poetry of Emily Dickinson for piano, violin, viola and cello.
I've come to think of the relationship between music and poetry as that approaching the idea of cousins who really like each other, despite the differences they possess in character.
On this evening the music was presented first and the spirit of Blake and Hirschfield joined with the presence of Marie to open a door into this familial relationship between the two art forms. Marie got it right away, and referenced music throughout her reading, and announcing, 'William Blake is with us in the garden'. She closed her reading with another amazing poem, Hymn, with introductory remarks that paid homage to the power of music to capture our humanness.
It was a full circle moment for me- one to be treasured often in the coming years.
Comments