EP: E.E. Cumming’s Heart Failure

For many years now poetry and song have entertained and influenced the masses through good times, bad times, and times of sheer boredom or creativity.  Music that we hear today is obviously not how it has always been.  Perhaps the most essential piece of understanding how the two (poetry and music) come together is the fact that both possess a quality of rhythm and harmony.  Rhythm can simply be perceived as a form of human expression. Interestingly enough, I found that a common action of the human nervous system is to put things into rhythmic action as a consequence of manifesting the nature around oneself.  Harmony can be described as ways to depict the world around someone as well. For example, trying to convey different colors and sights through another form of expression, usually artistic. The combination of these two perception methods results in the music as a mixture of poetry and melody, following similar rhythms and sticking to particular harmonies in the form of musical “keys” to properly convey sounds that go together (Raymond). Poetry actually originated from folk songs made in order to tell epics such as the Iliad and the Odyssey (Morley).  Lyric has long been associated with the lyre, a stringed musical instrument to which poetry was often sun in ancient Greece.

In the Ancient World poetry and music were said to be of the same concept, more specifically, ars musica. In fact, epic poems had music play along side them to make particular parts easier to remember while capturing one’s attention.  When this would happen, it would be crucial that the reader was aware of the underlying rhythm and remained with the pace of the song. An original argument made to support this style suggests that what attracts our attention helps us learn better, especially with the emotional attachments that both music and poetry can provide. Put them together and it only helps the learning process.  A member of the audience along with a poet himself would agree that these concepts combined strike attention and may have affect on ones memory.

Since ancient times, there has obviously been a lot of growth in both the realm of poetry and music, although it seems like a logistic curve has been hanging over the arts since “everything seems to already have been done.” This is a view held by many people today implying that creativity remains stifled or is having a hard time persisting (Weisberg). That is only a relative, common opinion. Many modern poets have opted to place their poems alongside music to give it another element.

One poet in particular I have decided to focus on is E.E. Cummings. The small poetry CD I made contains five songs all-deriving from his poetry. In putting these songs to music, I am joining a long tradition: in face, 63 of his works have been put to music by some world-renowned composers such as Dominick Argento, Luciano Berio, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, John Cage, Aaron Copland, Ned Rorem, and Peter Schiekle (Bachland).

Some poetic works are easier to fit into music, although this depends on what style of music you are shooting for. Many poems can have an orchestra played along side, but a poem that holds consistent rhythm and meter is very different. I find that poets such as E.E. Cummings and Langston Hughes are the easiest to use in such rhythmic patterns. Of course every single poem is a unique entity, but collectively I would argue that their writing styles, in terms of literary devices and content generally would be better for my style of musical interpretation.

There is much to consider when recognizing how to combine to similar realms of art. Many poems of which, were not intended to be combined with music, and were done so anyways thanks to their beautiful texts such as many of E.E. Cummings’s poems and many others. This idea of combination originated from how the Iliad and Odyssey epics were delivered long, long ago. This tradition of music and poetry continues into the present. I have put five E.E. Cummings poems to the test up against music that is considered post-modern. I am sure his beautiful texts will only prevail, as they have seemed to stand the test of time so far.

Just click to listen:

• “All in green went my love riding”
• “In Just”
• “Thy fingers make early flowers”
• “Where’s Madge then”
• “This is the garden”