Part Songs

These poems were quickly "drawn" on programs during concerts of contemporary music and while listening to the radio or records. They explore the kinds of language that music evokes and the concommitant images that arise while listening and sketching in words. Reversing the usual relationship between composing and writing frees the writer to innovate in both form and theme. The last poem "She'll Be Comin' 'Round" has been widely anthologized.