home | current affairs | bio | music | culinary interests | buy music Poetry Corner What happens when a brave writer of verse submits his or her poetic efforts to an unknown writer of music to do with as he pleases? Well, it just so happens that below are some tunes I have written using lyrics submitted to me over the internet by such brave souls. For awhile, I was making an aggressive effort to solicit lyrics for these efforts, but as of late the number of submissions has been what one might call disappointing. Or, one might say that I haven't received any for months. In any case, I certainly encourage you to enjoy the tunes below. On the other hand, if you are inclined to participate in some collaborative songwriting, please send your poetry or prose with all due haste, and I shall deploy it in a zippy 60-second musical excursion with equally due haste. Finished examples will be posted on this page, and you will receive a special CD with your song along with more of my musical musings. Plus you will own all the rights to the song and text! Additionally, I will thank you and pay compliments. SEND
US YOUR TITILLATING TEXT Thoughts on "How Haiku Works" - February 13, 2003 A splendidly self-referential work by Kai Esbensen, very dog-chasing-its-own-tail, Escher-woodcuttish if viewed in the right light and held at the correct angle. I included as many apropos metric jokes as I could, which is really not very many, considering the wealth of the source material. I think that if you try to dance to the out-solo, you will probably throw your back out. But if you try, please make a videotape and send it to us. Thanks again to Kai for submitting such a metrically masterful text. In Windows Media Format: How Haiku Works Thoughts on "The Role of the Bagel" - May 1, 2002 This was another offering from Notallwhowander of the ProgEars forum. In my mind, I imagine a scene in which the camera is going down some New York street where steam is coming out of the manholes and guys are just hanging out on the walks and sitting on the stoop - it's gotta have a real '70s Superfly sort of look about it; imagine everyone in leisure suit jackets and corduroy bellbottoms - and one of them just turns around and starts delivering this monologue to the camera. I was trying to cop sort of a Quinn Martin vibe. Again, an enthusiastic salute to notall for supplying me with engaging source material. In Windows Media Format: The Role of the Bagel Thoughts on "I Hate Haiku Haiku Song" - October 13, 2001 This selection headed toward a more contemplative sort
of setting, and the resulting piano and voice piece is really not from the rock and roll
portion of my vocabulary at all. Harmonically, the song starts out very sparse and
fills out as the lyric - uh, - gains resolve. In Windows Media Format: I Hate Haiku Haiku Song Thoughts on "Kirchenrahmen" - August 23, 2001 Since the lyric was submitted by a member of a
progressive rock internet club, I decided that a mini-epic, a suite if you will, would
lend the appropriate flavor to the text. I toyed with the notion of naming the
minuscule instrumental breaks between sections, the first being "The Revelation of
the Starchy Strands" and the second being "The Other Dance of the Starchy
Strands". I really should have, in the respect that it would amuse me greatly
to have written a minute-long song with five titled parts. Oh, what the heck.
Let's make it five parts. In Windows Media Format: Kirchenrahmen
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