I started doing an English translation of a poem from Chilean poet Pablo Neruda's youthful series of love poems, and in that process I thought of something else on my mind, and so began to connect the poem with two husbands taken from the US and their families based on dubious charges this Spring.
This poem from Neruda's series speaks of lovers separated. It was not so wild a leap to finish the translation and set it to music as a song regarding this fresh injustice. I note too that Neruda notes that his poem was after a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, so the poem is already an adaptation.
The Parlando Project takes various words (mostly literary poetry, and combines them with original music in differing styles. We've done over 800 of these combinations and you can hear any of them and read more about our encounter with the words at our blog and archives located at frankhudson.org
