Classical composer looking for poetry?
Hello all! I compose classical music and I will be composing about ten art songs, they will be performed (soprano and piano) and recorded for personal use only- everything is ready, I just need to compose the music and the process can begin. I will have a finished recording by the end of this summer. I am learning a lot about poetry and poets, but I really want to get this off the ground ASAP.
I am looking for 20th Century poetry that is about love and death (what else!) Now, I want the poetry of love to be dark in nature, not so bright and joyous. Bittersweet.
For the subject of death, I would like to find poetry that has a dark-humor feel to it. Kind of like Tim Burton’s sense of humor in darkness.
I am looking for a professional poets and /or amateur… if the poetry moves me, why would it matter how long that person has been writing? I would love to collaborate with a poet here on Y!A. Please contact me and we can discuss details.
Any info is appreciated and thank you for your time!
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I absolutely love Poe, but his material is just too cliché… sad, but true…
Got it, message received, 10-4 and thank you. Any advice about my question?
I meant cliché in the context of art songs, not poetry… too many a composer has set Poe’s text to music.
- Stop and think
Tags: Amateur Poetry, Art Songs, Lot, Piano, Sense Of Humor
November 20th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
If you find his work “cliche” then I would suggest that you have not garnered the point of poetry.
November 22nd, 2009 at 4:04 pm
What about Stevie Smith, ‘Not Waving but Drowning’, Philip Larkin ‘They F**k you up, your Mum and Dad’? There are also dark First World War poets, but possibly Britten said the last word on Wilfred Owen in his War Requiem. But there are others, like Siegfried Sassoon.
November 25th, 2009 at 5:04 am
My favorite poet is not a “modern” writer, and his poems were often used in the way that you have described. (As text for songs). That poet is Johann von Goethe….
Although he is very cliche, perhaps you could look at some of his poems that have not yet been set to music?
Do these poems need to be in English?
Ok… I know you asked for modern poems, but I have thought of something! What about “The Metamorphosis” by Ovidus?. The orignial text is in Latin but there is English translations available, and I am sure you could also find translations in other languages too. These poems are all about characters and “scenes” from mythology. Surely one of them would be appropriate?)#Main_episodes
and the text and translations:=&loc=1.1
(Click on the button that says English to view the translation.)
Perhaps you could find a suitable poem by looking on wikipedia?
Personally, I love the work of Siegfried Sassoon. I realise that this isnt really what you were looking for, but I thought I would suggest it anyway. I love his early poem “The Daffodil Murderer” and “Suicide in the Trenches.”
I am getting off topic now, so I will conclude this by saying Good Luck!
November 27th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I post this – my poem for your consideration – with misgivings; for I’m very sensitive about any of my attempts at creation; so please, don’t laugh.
It, my poem, is not however of a dark nature; but is of love, a tragic one – whether joyous, uplifting, bittersweet or not, is open to interpretation I guess. I composed it to express my great love for the transcendental beautiful music which is its subject.
The piece of music is the “Liebestod”(Love-Death, as generally interpreted) from Richard Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde”. To set the scene, present a context from which the poem should be related to – not part of the poem proper:
Tristan has just died, as Isolde his lover arrives too late to embrace and exchange final farewells. She becomes transfixed, in seemingly a state of delusion, and speaks/sings over his dead body, of those delusions which have taken over her mind; eventually dying from her unbearable grief/happiness(?), from release of the burden of life; thus enabling her to join him, in that life of the hereafter.
——————————————————————————————-
“LOVE-DEATH”
To die from an earthly, unrealizable love,
believing in its transcendental truth
and oh so glorious release, Isolde, at last expires.
While transpiring before
our transfixed, our very ears and eyes,
we as witnesses, can only look on and listen;
not questioning her rapturous exhortations
to join her; to believe as she,
in her at last achieving, sublime, blissful peace.
Enviable, or pitiable?
How do you such a scene perceive?
Isolda’s maid Brangane extolls,
“Dearest! Mistakest thou not the truth?”
Reality, delusion, whether dream or fantasy,
to question which, it no longer matters.
Wagner’s music so enraptures us,
cloaks all around and upwards lift,
so overwhelms with such emotion,
that to even think, is beyond our will, to wish.
—————————————————————————————-
You being a composer, I would imagine that you in all probability would be familiar with the “Liebestod”; but should you not be————:
Alberich
November 29th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yes! I am an English major! Poe is definitely cliché; I memorized the Raven once and then decided I didn’t like it. Beautiful language but cliché… I would look into Dylan Thomas, he’s a phenomenal poet from the 20th century. If you want love and death, he published “The Map of Love” in 1939 and “Deaths and Entrances” in 1940- they’re both great collections.
For “bittersweet” poetry about death, it is hard to beat this poem, it is difficult but one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever read:
“A Refusal to Mourn the Death by Fire of a Child in London”
If you want a poem of love that is not “joyous,” you might check out “Love in the Asylum.” Really, Thomas wrote very few poems that are in any way typical. His most famous poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” is actually a somewhat poor example of his skill. It is passionate and beautiful, written for his dying father, but as far as complexity it pales compared to his other works.
I’m actually having trouble thinking of poets who have a Tim Burton feel to death. Maybe e.e. cummings? I don’t know of any specific death poems, but he wrote really ironic, unusual poems that seemed childish but were serious; when you said Tim Burton it made me think of him right away
Here’s an example, it’s a great poem: