What if you paired poetry and music? (Yes, you say, a song already is poetry.) I mean paired a poem with music. Not in the sense that the poem becomes the lyrics. More in the way that a cello, which sounds like a human voice to me on some level, creates space for a poem to reside, to open up, to live.
Daniel Sperry plays such a cello, and reads such a poem. Along with a few other instruments, here is the poetry of William Stafford.
A Story That Could Be True
If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling you the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.
He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by —
you wonder at their calm.
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”
–William Stafford
See more spoken word poetry and music from Daniel Sperry
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Photo by nosha, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Performance by Daniel Sperry.
Will Willingham
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Mark says
I feel you. Here’s another perspective.
Poetry and music in nature.
The Rain’s Symphony
When I feel the rain upon my face
I feel Your mercy and Your grace
As the rain falls all around me
The countless sounds surround me
The sound of the rain’s symphony
Lord, it’s Your majesty
The leaves of the trees become instruments
As the raindrops play their song
A melody from Heaven, rains on and on and on
The softest song ever heard – Rain falling through the trees
Unlike a song you only hear – God lets this song be seen
The drops of rain that sound surreal
A song that Heaven lets me feel
As the rain falls all around me
The sound of the rain’s symphony
Lord, Your melody rains upon me
The most beautiful love song
Isaiah 55:10,11
From my book: “Surrounded by His Love’
available at markssong.wordpress.com
Deborah Batterman says
Even if poetry is its own music, there’s no escaping what an exquisite collaboration of music/voice/text brings to a poem.