The Poet as Comet

Valentine.jpg
In my first semester at Oberlin in 1973, I set to music a poem called The Knife, by Jean Valentine. By chance, the poet came to campus the following spring to give a reading. I walked up to her after her reading and showed her my piece. Not dreaming how impressed a famous poet might be by a young man's adolescent homage, I hadn't made a copy of the score, but she was so visibly touched by my effort that I impulsively gave her my only final copy. I've never minded the loss: it was an angularly atonal, poorly thought-out piece for soprano, flute, and piano, written under the influence of Berio's Circles, and not a good imitation at that (though I must say that my schoolmates thought it an impressively noisy piece for a freshman).

This weekend I noticed that Jean Valentine - now the New York State Poet, it seems (anyone know who our state composer is?) - was giving a reading at Bard. I couldn't resist going, walked up afterward and reintroduced myself. I managed to quote the last two lines of the poem, which seem typical ones for her:

And every molecule of every object here will swell with life,
And someone will be at the door.

I'm not sure she really remembered me, though she certainly remembered the poem, but she introduced me to her daughter, who teaches part-time at Bard. It turns out that Valentine's first husband was the late James Chace, Bard's star political historian for many years. I guess I can get used to her streaking through my life every 35 years.

February 24, 2009 8:52 AM | | Comments (0) |

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Sites To See

Postclassic Radio! - Kyle Gann's internet radio station that accompanies the blog; see the playlist at kylegann.com

American Mavericks - the Minnesota Public radio program about American music (scripted by Kyle Gann with Tom Voegeli)

Kalvos & Damian's New Music Bazaar - a cornucopia of music, interviews, information by, with, and on hundreds of intriguing composers who are not the Usual Suspects

Iridian Radio - an intelligently mellow new-music station

New Music Box - the premiere site for keeping up with what American composers are doing and thinking

The Rest Is Noise - The fine blog of critic Alex Ross

William Duckworth's Cathedral - the first interactive web composition and home page of a great postminimalist composer

Mikel Rouse's Home Page - the greatest opera composer of my generation

Eve Beglarian's Home Page - great Downtown composer

Just Intonation Network - a meeting place for people interested in alternative tunings

Erling Wold's Web Site - a fine San Francisco composer of deceptively simple-seeming music, and a model web site

The Dane Rudhyar Archive - the complete site for the music, poetry, painting, and ideas of a greatly underrated composer who became America's greatest astrologer

Utopian Turtletop, John Shaw's thoughtful blog about new music and other issues

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by PostClassic published on February 24, 2009 8:52 AM.

Top Six Reasons to Wander in the Wilderness was the previous entry in this blog.

The Symphonic Temperament is the next entry in this blog.

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