Poetry

For many years now, poetry has been a part of my daily life. As a composer of primarily vocal music, I have worked with living poets, searched the corners of dusty book shops and libraries, plumbed the depths of internet archives – all in search of texts that hold deep value and that can be brought to new light through music. My exposure to such works of art has naturally led me to compose texts of my own, often for use in my own musical compositions but increasingly as standalone expressions or as libretti for select composers.

I feel the time is now right to begin offering my poetry publicly. It is something I have long wanted to do, but for one reason or another I have put off taking this step into the unknown. My recent work has elicited strong enough responses from the organizations or composers they were written for that my confidence has grown; I now feel that these texts deserve a wider audience. Some of the words I will share on this website will be standalone poems or prose, others will be texts that were written for my own compositions. Still others will be texts written in collaboration with living composers.

The link below will take you to my Poems on the Hill blog, so named for my publishing company, Hewitt Hill, and my current neighborhood of Cathedral Hill in St. Paul, MN.

I also feel it is time to offer composers the opportunity to work with a poet who knows the needs, desires, and workflows of music creators intimately through nearly two decades of working with text. I understand that minor changes to an existing text often become necessary in the compositional process; that one syllable that causes a beautiful musical line to become too long, that repeated consonant that requires haplology. While I cannot guarantee that I will sign off on any particular change to my words, I am amenable to certain adjustment circumstances as long as the text appears as it was written in any printed or digital context. I am not the poet who refuses all change. My goal is the same as yours; to see that these words are used to create beautiful music.

In addition, I am acutely aware of the different styles and working habits of composers. Some want to run with a text without any input from the poet, others like the process to be more collaborative. As a composer myself, I have worked both of these scenarios and find that each can lead to success. As far as I’m concerned, once a poem has been delivered to a composer, they are free to approach their creative work however they see fit. The level of my involvement is highly flexible.

If you are interested in collaborating with me in this way, or would like to request a poem be written for any other occasion, please fill out the form below or contact me directly at thomasrosinlavoy@gmail.com.