music

Gordon Lonethunder's poem The Garden of the Pysbytery at Neunen appears in issue No. 281 (Autumn 2019). Click "Read More" to access his music recommendation!

The most engaging musicians for me lately, are ones who have perfected the art of music as Trojan horse. Unleashing their rage from within a perfect overlay of pop, R&B, or Indigenous drumming, Janelle Monáe, King Princess, Eastern Owl, and U.S. Girls, create sublime melodies and catchy hooks that tackle an array of topics not often captured in song.

Megan Denton Ray's poem "As In Blackjack" appears in issue No. 279 (Spring 2019). Click "Read More" to access her music recommendation!

Mikka Jacobsen 's essay "Parlour Tricks" appears in this fall's Creative Nonfiction issue. 

Jeanie Keogh's essay "Somewhere Over Greenland" appears in this fall's Creative Nonfiction issue. What does she "put on when story ideas are hatching"? 

Šari Dale tells us why she recommends listening to Soccer Mommy's 2018 album Clean.

Look for Šari's essay "Eulogy for Pale Lilies" in this fall's all-creative nonfiction issue, edited by Alicia Elliott. 

Lately I have been listening to John Cage's strangely delightful and thoughtful sonatas as performed by Boris Berman. They are very short, running between two to four minutes. There are sixteen sonatas and four interludes, so even after some twenty-five listens I still don’t feel like I can encompass the scope of the music.

This past month I’ve been obsessing over video recordings of Van Morrison concerts, especially early performances from the 70s and 80s. This is partly because I’ve been thinking a lot about poetic pacing and what I guess I’ll call ‘rawness’ in poetry — moments of risk-taking and truth-telling, registers of feeling that create something almost textural in a poem.

For years I’ve listened to the likes of Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Mary Gauthier, and Chris Whitley while writing, as well as a smattering of classical works, but over the past year — perhaps reflecting a spiritual or emotional change — the focus has shifted almost entirely to classical music, both traditional and contemporary. Works by people like Olafur Arnalds, Ludovico Einaudi, Anouar Brahem, Hildur Gudnadottir, Hildegard of Bingen, and Dijan Gasparyan.