THE MUSIC LOVER'S POETRY ANTHOLOGY
EditedbyHELEN HANDLEY HOUGHTON andMAUREEN MCCARTHY DRAPER
A Karen & Michael Brazillef Book PERSEA BOOKS/NEW YORK Contents
Foreword xiii Introduction xvii
LISTENING TO MUSIC In Music I Czeslaw Milosz 3 On Hearing A Symphony of Beethoven / ? Edna St. Vincent Millay 4 from Magnificat / Bill Holm 5 Listening / Dick Davis 6 Listening to the Koln Concert / Robert Bly 7 The Dumka / B. H. Fairchild 8 Fond Memory / Eavan Boland 10 [Bbssoms at Night] / Issa 11 Sonata / Edward Hirsch 12 Muse I Linda Pastan 13 Earphones / Michael Ryan 14 Elevator Music / Henry Taylor 15 Loud Music / Stephen Dobyns 16 Sunday Morning with the Sensational Nightingales / Billy Collins 17 Radio I Cornelius Eady 19 Country Radio / Daniel Hall 21 The Power of Music to Disturb / Lisel Mueller 23 Music / Charles Baudelaire 25 On Hearing a Flute at Night / Li Yi 26 The Eventual Music / Liam Rector 27 [Heart, Not So Heavy as Mine] / Emily Dickinson 28 To Music, To Becalm His Fever /Robert Herrick 29 Evening Music / May Sarton 31 The Victor Dog / James Merrill 32 A One-Eyed Cat Named Hathaway / Henri Coulette 34
SONGS & SINGING The Choir / Galway Kinnell 37 Music I Anne Porter 38 / Ask My Mother to Sing / Li-Young Lee 40 Where the Breath Is / Adam Zagajewski 41 Songs I Philip Levine 42 from Messiah (Christmas Portions) / Mark Doty 44 Joy I Lisel Mueller 45 The Singer's House / Seamus Heaney 46 First Song / Galway Kinnell 48 [I Shall Keep Singing!] / Emily Dickinson 49 Everyone Sang / Siegfried Sassoon 50 The Composer / W.H. Auden 51 Regarding (Most) Songs / Thomas Lux 52 Sonnet / Elizabeth Bishop • 53 Singing Back the World / Dorianne Laux 54 Music Lesson / Jill Bialosky 56 Half Note / Susan Kinsolving 58 Tin Ear / Peter Schmitt . 59 Ooly Pop a Cow / David Huddle 61 You're the Top / Tony Hoagland 63 Blizzard / Bill Holm 65 The Rose: 1984/ Carol Muske-Dukes 66 [His song was about the world] / Gregory Orr 67 from The Wedding ofEktor and Andromakha / Sappho 68 Where Everything Is Music / Rumi .69
THE PIANO & PIANO LESSONS. from Playing Haydn for the Angel of Death / Bill Holm 73 To His Piano / Howard Nemerov 74 The Ebony-Chickering / Dorianne Laux . 75 Kranich and Bach / John Hollander 77 Piano / D. H. Lawrence 79 Variations for Two Pianos / Donald Justice 80 Piano Practice at the Academy of the Holy Angels / Wallace Stevens 81 Piano Tuner, Untune Me That Tune / Ogden Nash 82 The Piano Tuner / Valerie Gillies 83 Piano Lessons / Billy Collins 85 The Pupil I Donald Justice 88 Practicing / Linda Pastan 89 The Music Lesson / Brigit Pegeen Kelly 90 Death of a Pianist / Adam Zagajewski 93 Gradus Ad Parnassum / Muriel Rukeyser 94 Piano Concerto in E Flat Major / Fleur Adcock 95 Woman at the Piano / William Jay Smith 96 The Investment / Robert Frost 98 Under the Piano / Kenneth Weisner 99 Piano Practice / Derek Walcott 103
HORNS, WOODWINDS, & STRINGS Instrument of Choice / Robert Phillips 107 Recital / John Updike 108 Ginza Samba / Robert Pinsky 109 A Belacqua B Flat Trumpet / Kenneth Fields 111 English Horn / Eugenio Montale 112 The Nomad Flute / W. S. Merwin , 113 Stravinski's Flute / Mina Loy 114 Concertina / Carol Muske-Dukes 115 Musician / Louise Bogan 116 Girl with 'Cello / May Sarton 117 The Cellist / Galway Kinnell 118 Instructions to the Player / Carl Rakosi 120 Beethoven's Quartet in C Major, Opus 59 / Linda Pastan 121 Violin I Naomi Shihab Nye 122 Haydn./ Rolf Jacobsen 123 from Ode to the Guitar / Pablo Neruda 124 The Guitar / Federico Garcia Lorca 125 The Twelfth Sonnet / Louise Labe 126
COMPOSERS The Stillness of the World Before Bach / Lars Gustafsson 129 If Bach Had Been a Beekeeper / Charles Tomlinson 130 God Only Knows / Dana Gioia 131 from Playing the Inventions / Howard Nemerov 132 from Vivaldi / Delmore Schwartz 134 Allegro / Tomas Transtromer 135 From J. Haydn to Constance Mozart (1791) / Edgar Bowers 136 Mozart, for Example / Mary Oliver 137 His Master's Voice / Leonard Cohen 138 Lives of the Great Composers / Dana Gioia 139 Late Beethoven / Adam Zagajewski 141 Heavenly Length / Bill Holm 143 Romantics / Lisel Mueller 144 Brahms' Clarinet Quintet in B Minor, Op. 115 / Jan Zwicky 145 From the New World / Grace Schulman 146 On Rachmaninoff's Birthday / Frank O'Hara 148 Rachmaninoff's Psychiatrist / Diane Ackerman 149 Night Piece / J. D. McClatchy 152
Music IN NATURE Such Singing in the Wild Branches / Mary Oliver 157 Song / Seamus Heaney 159 An Orphic Calling / Anthony Hecht 160 The Breath of Nature / Chuang Tzu 162 Orpheus / William Jay Smith 164 [The temple bell stops—] / Basho 165 Sonnet / Christina Georgina Rossetti 166 The Blackbird's Song / Vasko Popa 167 Benny the Beaver / Susan Wheeler 168 All Things / Hayden Carruth 171 The Darkling Thrush / Thomas Hardy 172
OPERA About Opera / William Meredith 177 from Ode to Anna Moffo / Wayne Koestenbaum 178 To the Voice of Kathleen Ferrier / Yves Bonnefoy 179 Poem for Kathleen Ferrier / James Wright 180 Callas I J. D. McClatchy 182 On a Recording by Maria Cebotari / Charles Gullans 183 Aging Opera Singer / Wislawa Szymborska 184 Va, Pensiero / William Matthews 185 A Night at the Opera / Charles Tomlinson 186 At the Opera / Kenneth Koch 188 An Opera House / Amy Lowell 190 Rosenkavalier / Charles Gullans 192 Orfeo I Louise Gliick 193 Orfeo I James Merrill 194 Death at the Opera / John Smith 195 The End of the Opera / Howard Nemerov 197 Richard Wagner / Richard Howard 198
JAZZ & BLUES The Ability to Make a Face Like a Spider While Singing Blues: Junior Wells / Sandra McPherson, 203 Almost Blue / Mark Doty 204 Billie Holiday / Hayden Carruth 208 Tenebrae / Yusef Komunyakaa 209 Jazz I Nicholas Christopher 212 Jazz in Paris / Jennifer Grotz 214 Satchmo / Kevin Young 216 "Boogie Woogie Blues" / Terrance Hayes 218 Blue in Green / Grace Schulman 219 A Love Supreme / Gabrielle Calvocoressi 220 Thelonious Sphere Monk / Bruce Bond 221 For Bud I Michael S. Harper 223 How Charlie Shavers Died / Harvey Shapiro 224 Bill Evans: Alone / Jan Zwicky 225 Radio I David Lehman 226 Listening to Sonny Rollins at the Five Spot / Paul Blackburn 227 Nightclub I Billy Collins 229 [Bird Was Gone] / Jack Kerouac 231
PERFORMANCES The Handbell Choir / Jane Flanders 235 Seeing Mozari's Piano Quartet in E-flat Major in the Old Whaling Church, Edgartown / Mary Stewart Hammond 237 from Ode to Anna Moffo / Wayne Koestenbaum 239 Lines & Circularities / Howard Nemerov 240 Musicians /Jan Zwicky 242 A Music I Wendell Berry 243 Three Street Musicians / Dannie Abse 245 The Accompanist / William Matthews 246 For Charlene / Nils Peterson 248 Cadenza / Ted Hughes 249 Seaside Sensation / D. J. Enright 251 Nocturne / Kenneth Fields 252 The Broken String / Grace Schulman 253 A Fugue I Ellen Bryant Voigt 255 Farewell / Galway Kinnell 258
Contributors' Notes 261 Acknowledgments 275