How important is music to your poetry?
Two poets I did not mention above are John Donne and Gerard Manley Hopkins. They taught me how a line of poetry is also a line of music. I am probably most drawn to poems that I think catalyze language’s ability to lift itself out of mere expression and into the realm of music.
In terms of inspiration or interaction, I recently completed a collaborative project with the calligrapher Thomas Ingmire in which I wrote a poem in response to one of his drawings while listening to music. That poem, “Nocturne (Lasciere Sonare)” is itself a marriage of poetry and music.
Also on this note (ha!) a young composer named Sam Melnick put a few poems from Works & Days to music, and I recently learned that British composer Gabriel Jackson is setting my poem from Bullets into Bells, “Self-Portrait in Charleston, Orlando” to music for The Crossing musical ensemble out of Philadelphia. So, while I always think of my work as being first and foremost in conversation with visual art, it is also intimately connected to music.
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