Author Archives: Marco Frey

Heartbeat: Setting Poems to Drums

Posted on May 3, 2014 by Marco Frey

Introduction: Musical Poetry, Poetic Music Setting poems to music is as ancient as the chorus of Greek tragedies. Embedded in the very root of words tied to poetry, such as lyric (lyre) and sonnet (little song), is an expectation for … Continue reading →

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Setting Poetry to Music: Initial Thoughts

Posted on April 3, 2014 by Marco Frey

Amiri Baraka was a way in. There’s something to be said also for the Beat poets. There was this one passage in Invisible Man about smoking marijuana and listening to Louis Armstrong and how the blues is both a riot … Continue reading →

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Iris Tree, a Frog, and Modigliani

Posted on February 27, 2014 by Marco Frey

Any archival post is a shot in the dark. The Modernist Journals Project stops curiously at 1922, and many journals held in the UNZ archives were held under copyright. Nevertheless, I took a stab at Iris Tree in the 1923 … Continue reading →

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Imitating William’s Commitment to the Passing Moment

Posted on February 20, 2014 by Marco Frey

For Elu Entering with my mind on nothing in the place but the moon I remember him by rise over the Exxon     — I heard a malnourished he who snickered near the urinal at the smartphone held out– a … Continue reading →

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McKay Sonnets

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Marco Frey

Bill Callahan, in his 2011 song “Drover”, croaks rustily, “One thing about this wild, wild country/ It takes a strong, strong, breaks a strong, strong mind…” but, swiftly, he replies, “And anything less, anything less/ makes me feel like I’m … Continue reading →

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Cummings: His Only Modern Trait is his Medium

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Marco Frey

Haskell Springer, in his 1967 essay, “The Poetics of E.E. Cummings” (South Atlantic Bulletin), argues that Cummings is not revolutionizing subject matter in poetry, mostly running the gamut–sex, scathing critiques of society including science, philosophy, and theology, the idiocy of … Continue reading →

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Crushing the “Sparkling Chips” of Reality

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Marco Frey

Marianne Moore’s poem, “To a Steam Roller”, is strange. The language lets you in, like peeking through a hotel door chain-locked open to a supposed image of a steam roller, but like watching a deft illusion, is it really a … Continue reading →

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