Here’s one of the best-known of Shakespeare’s sonnets, which means it’s clearly one of “Poetry’s Greatest Hits.” Since I’m not a real scholar or expert in such things, let’s take a look at it as if…

YouTube video by Parlando

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 slot…

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 Lau...

In writing about Sara Teasdale last time here 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 p…

Continuing on from my post late last night, and the feelings of insufficiency we as artists may feel in the face of horrible things: cruelty, injustice, the taking of lives, the crippling of souls.…

Well, as more-or-less promised, here’s a return to literary poetry that may probably meet audience expectations: a season-appropriate poem by American poet Sara Teasdale titled “September Midnight.…

Here’s a poem by 20th Century American poet and artist Kenneth Patchen performed with music which manually realizes some ideas often produced by machinery. Patchen is one of the original poetry acc…

I worry some that I’m shorting my appreciated audience its rations of expected poetry, what with the recent series of poorly received short Dadaist French translations – but if there’s one thing gu…

Returning now to my series presenting the early poems of French Surrealist Paul Éluard, you may recall that I was talking about the small contemporary presence early Surrealist poets like Éluard ha…

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 (...

In the U.S. this Monday is Labor Day. I’m not sure how often it occasions particular observances these days. To some degree, it’s the unofficial end of Summer, and is observed as that. I suppose th…

After our Anniversary Month celebrations, I’m returning to performances of some more poems by principal Surrealist poet Paul Éluard. It’s struck me that Éluard is less well-known to English speaker…

YouTube video by John Coltrane - Topic

Remember, I said there was a bias in the top ten most listened to stats for the Parlando Project toward older pieces from the first three years of this Project. That’s due to a long tail effect: a …

Before I reveal this Project’s most listened to musical piece, some short notes about a couple of things that didn’t appear at the top of the stats which informed this all-time (so far) Top-Ten. No…

Here’s another new translation of a poem by pioneering French Surrealist Paul Éluard that I made in order to perform it with music. This one, “A La Minute,” which I’ve rendered as “At This Minute,”…

14 track album

Last time I had a chance to record a new piece using guitar, I rattled the bones of a Jazzmaster amid synth keyboards played with the same guitar. Monday I had another chance. My studio space was q…

YouTube video by The Piano Files

If you’re a long-time reader or listener here, you probably already know that one of the principles of this Project is “Other People’s Stories.” That usually means that the words used here are lite…

I’ve written briefly, here and there, about the time leading up to my late wife’s death, so let me write today about the days immediately afterward. Because this is a blog, and readers’ attentions …

Wang Jibing, a writer and delivery driver, has won one of China's most prestigious award for poetry. Professor Eileen Cheng-yin Chow of Duke University explains why his work has had such huge impact.

YouTube video by Parlando

A single work of art can inspire and be reformed by others as it lives—or rather, if it lives, as there is no choice in the matter. No work of art once it has escaped its creator lives for one mome…

So, who is Conrad Aiken? I don’t fully know yet, but I came upon one of his poems this spring, and found out that as a critic, anthologist, short-story writer, and poet, that he’s one of those firs…

Returning to the poems published in the 1926 issue of Fire!!  magazine which proclaimed it was “Devoted to Younger Negro Artists,” we get this simple seeming, yet mysterious poem by one of Fire’s  …

Isn’t it odd that early 20th century Modernists used the locomotive as one of their talismans? After all the railroad train wasn’t particularly new at the time, though like buildings and the airpla…

...who walked through the callow mist.

...who walked through the callow mist.