Poetry has always been a tricky form of writing for me. On the one hand, I love it and think it’s beautiful, but at the same time I feel like some poetry is solely for the poet, and nobody else can really feel what they were feeling when the text was written. I’ve always found that I connected with poetry most when I was singing it. When I sing poetry I feel it; I feel the rhythms of the words and the emotion behind it and become so moved by the text I sometimes find myself in tears because the lyrics, the poetry, is so beautiful you give it everything you have just to do it justice. When I performed pieces by Eric Whitacre, this feeling was overwhelming. My senior year, our director introduced to us a piece called “Sleep.” We fell in love with it, and later found out the music was originally written for Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.” Although it was basically illegal, we printed off Frost’s poem during class one day and performed the piece in it’s original glory, and it was absolutely breathtaking, although I do love the lyrics for sleep. However, nothing would beat my first Eric Whitacre piece, “A Boy and a Girl.”
This piece is about nature giving life, nourishing love, and how we become one with the earth when we pass. When you only look at the lyrics it seems to be a very short poem, but when performed it’s four and a half minutes of exquisite art.
Stretched out on the grass,
a boy and a girl.
Savoring their oranges,
giving their kisses like waves exchanging foam.
Stretched out on the beach,
a boy and a girl.
Savoring their limes,
giving their kisses like clouds exchanging foam.
Stretched out underground,
a boy and a girl.
Saying nothing, never kissing,
giving silence for silence.
a boy and a girl.
Savoring their oranges,
giving their kisses like waves exchanging foam.
Stretched out on the beach,
a boy and a girl.
Savoring their limes,
giving their kisses like clouds exchanging foam.
Stretched out underground,
a boy and a girl.
Saying nothing, never kissing,
giving silence for silence.
To me, this is where the poetry comes alive. So much is said with the chords, the dissonance, the pauses, and the expansion of phrases to show me what the text can’t. When poetry is combined with music, I get it, and it will stay with me forever.
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