Long-time followers of this Project will know I've proposed an illuminating test for substantial collections of poetry that I call "The Sandburg Test.*" This test is to ask "Within any substantial collection, does at least one poem deal with the world of ordinary work?" Early 20th century Claude McKay's poetry is wide-ranging, and here's one that lets one answer "Yes, certainly" to the Sandburg Test's question. Like much of McKay's poetry the word-music is beautiful, even when in "On the Road" he's speaking of the grinding weariness of working in the dining car of that echt 20th century Modernist object, the train.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry) and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 900 of these combinations, and you can hear any of them and read about our encounters with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
*Like the Bechtel Test my test is emulating, it doesn't mean that poetry collections that produce a no answer and have worth or must be cast out, it's only a tool to point out an important and substantial part of life that is being ignored.
