When the stars threw down their spears

Proximity to the Wednesdays at One concert series at Alice Tully Hall is one of the biggest perks of my job. This week's concert showcased 5 amazing singers. My favorite was Benjamin Bloomfield, a Bass-Baritone, who performed three pieces that were perfectly matched to his personality and stage persona.

For me, the standout was "Tiger! Tiger!," Virgil Thomson's treatment of William Blake's The Tyger (from Songs Of Experience). The dramatic text divines the origins of an animal with an extremely contradictary existence -beautiful but dangerous. I was reminded of when we studied Blake in high school and I think I will remember this quatrain for as long as I live.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

image via www.mtholyoke.edu

Making Life

"I wanted to be a torch singer," says poet Lorna Goodison. "Sarah Vaughn, Nina Simone . . .their voices are in my work."

Thus, the selections that the award-winning Jamaican writer chose to share at the reading I attended last week where heavily influenced by music. Poems like "I Saw Charles Mingus" and "Apollo Double Bill" celebrate the jazz and R&B of the late sixties but also describe her experience as a woman in her twenties living in New York City, good AND bad.

She also read some very moving poetry dedicated to her son. My favorite lines came from "My Will," in Selected Works.

May you like me earn good
friends
but just to be sure,
love books.

image from a printed review of Goodison's memoir, From Harvey Road, via www.commarts.com