So, it is National Poetry Writing Month, and many people are talking about writing a poem a day for the month of April. I did something similar back in Lent 2015, so I figure I’ll give it a shot this April.

I decided to participate a few days into April, but I already had my first poems underway. I wrote The Incomplete Garden in response to a prompt from a poetry group I’m part of.

The view from your favorite or least favorite window.

I started the poem on the first and edited it on the second, sending it to the group, since had to miss the get together.

On the second, I drove up to and unconference in Western Mass. I had been listening to some podcasts on creativity and in one of them there was a suggestion to the effect of “look for three things that you don’t see every day on your way to work”. This idea was the starting point for Road Poem 1. As I drove, I noted things along the way and remembered others and wove them into a pieces of a poem which I recorded on my cell phone as I was driving. The next morning I edited the pieces together.

I hesitated about naming it Road Poem 1, because that implies that there should be a Road Poem 2. I will be keeping my eyes open for subsequent road poems. We’ll see.

It was around the time that I was editing Road Poem 1, that I looked out the window described in The Incomplete Garden, and I saw the April Snow which I started working on Sunday morning and edited and posted Monday morning.

On my way to work on Monday, I was listening to a poetry podcast, and the podcast is what made me think of The China Tea Cup. Like with Road Poem 1, I composed the first draft in my mind, then recorded it on my cellphone. In the evening I edited and posted it.

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The Edna Project

Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 01/07/2016 - 22:04

I can’t remember when I first came across Edna. It was probably during a high school poetry class, or perhaps scanning through an anthology. She didn’t make much of an impression. Years later, I saw a one person play about her. It was at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which I went to regularly back in the 80s. It was a long time ago, and I would often see five or six plays a day, so I must admit, I don’t remember much about the one person play, other than that I enjoyed it.

My next encounter with Edna St. Vincent Millay was as I was listening to the emerging artists selected to play at Falcon Ridge in 2015. One group, was Liz and the Family Tree. I had problems finding them; eventually finding Liz Queler and Seth Farber and their album, The Edna Project. Like with my experience of Edna at the Edinburgh Festival, the songs from the Edna project blended into the mix of the twenty four emerging artists. I enjoyed them, but couldn’t especially remember any of them. In my notes about the emerging artists, I shared a link to their webpage and Facebook page, and simply stated that I hadn’t found a favorite song from them yet.

In December, Liz contacted me on Facebook saying she had just come across my blog post and offered to send me a CD. I must admit, I don’t listen to CDs much anymore. Most of the music I listen to is streaming, but I accepted and when the CD came, I had to figure out where to play it. My laptop doesn’t have a CD player and the CD player in the family room hasn’t been set up for years.

It turns out, however, that my car does have a functioning CD player, and I was looking for something new to listen to on my commute. So, for the past several days, I’ve been listening to The Edna Project repeating on the CD player for an hour and a half each day as I drive to and from work.

I guess a good way to start to think about The Edna Project is to wonder, what would it be like if Edna St. Vincent Millay were a twenty first century singer songwriter? What would it be like, if she trekked from her place in Austerlitz over to Hillsdale?

My teenage daughter has grown up going to Falcon Ridge. She kicked along to the music of Jian Ghomeshi in her mother’s belly. Later, probably when she was around five, she ran up to Dan Navarro to tell him that her favorite song was “Teacher Teacher”. Then, it became Freebo’s “She Loves My Dog More Than Me” that was her favorite song. As she approached her teen years, she started listening to Katy Perry and Taylor Swift and has now moved on to My Chemical Romance, Fallout Boy, and Panic at the Disco. Their music surrounds her just about everywhere she goes.

As I listened to The Edna Project, I could not help but think what a better place this world would be if more teenaged girls listened to Liz Queler and Seth Farber singing the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. There is a nuance and subtlety in their music that is missing from most pop music, and there is at least as much romance and intrigue.

So, what songs do I like best from The Edna Project? I’m still not clear. They mingle together in my mind. “There will be rose and rhododendron … The chilly apple from the grass warmed by your living hand … Blessed be death that took my love… like a fish scale or a butterfly’s wing…but, oh, the little hill they took, - I think I am its mother…wonder what sort of people could have had this house before … I will plant bergamot at my kitchen-door…we neither kissed nor spoke …If I can’t be sorry, why, I might as well be glad…scattering the blue dragon-flies… I knew her for a little ghost …”

The CD is still in my car player, and I’m wondering, what other collections of sung, or even read poetry can I find next? I’m listening to Billy Collins read his poetry aloud, and looking for other poetry to listen to in the car.

Not only would the world be a better place is more teenage girls were listening to The Edna Project, but more poets and songwriters should too, and there should be more projects like The Edna Project. It seems like putting Emily Dickinson’s poetry to music other than the Yellow Rose of Texas might be a good step.

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