Recordings

Outer Space, Inner Light – Words AMS, Music Mari Alice Conrad, Premiere performance by Pro Coro Canada At First Light – Words AMS, Music Mari Alice Conrad, Premiere recording by Exultate Choir Journey Song – Words AMS, Music Mari Alice Conrad, Premiere recording by BaBel Choir Alasen Matieg – Words and Music, AMS Goodnight Amerika…

Outer Space, Inner Light

As midwinter shows the first hints of spring to come, I’m excitedly awaiting the premiere of Outer Space, Inner Light; I wrote the text in response to a choral score by the amazing Mari Alice Conrad, who wrote that score in response to a different poem, Book of Songs,* which was the title and text…

At First Light

Here’s Toronto’s Exultate Choir performing a morning meditation of mine, set for choir by Mari Alice Conrad. Her setting received the Stephen Chatman Award for student composition this spring at Podium, Canada’s national choral symposium, when this video was recorded. Here’s the original post of At First Light, which I wrote in May 2020 as…

Poetry Video

Back in 2021, the Edmonton Poetry Festival responded to the pandemic by commissioning poets to create recordings of our work. This is my “virtual chapbook” (to quote Dr. Don Perkins): This video was recorded on GarageBand and iMovie, using my own music (tracks 2 and 3) and open source Apple Loops arranged by me (all…

Coming Soon!

Hi Prairiepomes readers. I’m currently writing a big project, so not on here much. But this I had to share: I mean, look at the company I’m in! Fantastic, and a dream come true: https://www.exultate.net/our-music Also thrilled to announce that Journey Song is now available for SATB from Cypress Choral.

Choral Collaboration News

In just over 2 years of collaboration, Mari Alice Conrad has composed a number of remarkable settings for various of my poems. Beyond delighted to announce that Journey Song has arrived for purchase on Cypress Choral Music. Meanwhile, in Toronto, Exultate Choir will feature the Stephen Chatman Award winning At First Light on May 23rd…

Journey Song Arrives!

After a pandemic-induced wait of about 16 months, it’s here! The World Premiere of composer Mari Alice Conrad’s SATB Choir setting of Journey Song, sung here in a live recording in Toronto by commissioning choir Babel, under the baton of Elaine Choi. I first published a version of Journey Song in my 2009 collection, Fifth…

Words made Song: another collaboration

Canadian composer Mari Alice Conrad’s latest piece, The Peculiar Dances of Shifting Minds, inspired in part by this poem of mine which honours my late mother. Also on the program, new works by composers Athena Loredo and Alice Ping Yee Ho; all performed by Vancouver’s Allegra Chamber Orchestra, under the leadership of Janna Sailor. Congratulations…

Day 27: when day and night is a short story

To define a nameless haunting: what would you call the feeling of loss, on finding out only now, a grandpa’s span later, about ‘a skeleton of my granny’? To learn a thing that, as a child of the seventies, passed by: how people wanted rock and roll so much, that lacking vinyl platters, they recorded…

Day 7: Secret Recipe

What makes a good secret? Purity of ingredients, you say and freshness: Paul is stale his dead or alive status moot. For better secrets, rely on imperishable things: old Bigfoot holds its flavour. Loves unspoken, too can last, if you remember: open the jar freely, and inhale. Exactitude matters, though when using Area: 49? 52?…