Charles Simic, former Poet Laureate of the United States and winner of countless other awards, has a vivid imagination, as anyone can tell from his poetry. But one can only imagine if he could have imagined his words being put to music, as Professor of Music Neely Bruce did at the Memorial Chapel last Sunday.
A madrigal troupe (consisting of singers Penney Kimbell, Martha Smith, Toby Twining, and Mark Johnson, under Bruce’s direction) performed “Simic songs”, each one an interpretation of one of Simic’s poems. Simic’s characteristically short and simple poems were transformed into long dramatic pieces, each of them completely different from one another. There was an evident contrast between Simic’s relaxed words, and the unbound emotion of the madrigal troupe (a kind of secular vocal composition originating in the Renaissance and early Baroque periods).
Throughout the event, Simic would read his version of the poem, and the singers would follow him with their interpretation, sometimes with completely different results. Simic, who knows his way around the words, read slowly and with ease; while the madrigals, still exploring the words, were more experimental. One example is the different readings of a poem called “Fear.” Simic recited it calmly, while the madrigal troupe’s interpretation sounded like a horror movie soundtrack.
At the beginning of the night, Bruce made a reference to the exhibit, “The Bizarre and the Beautiful: Fantasy as Visual Pleasure in Renaissance and Baroque Prints,” at the Davison Art Center, highlighting the beautiful images the audience would hear in both the poems and the songs, and the almost bizarre combination of this style of music with Simic’s words. Bruce also noted how the fantasy in Simic’s poems would come to life through both interpretations.
Audience members seemed to agree that the artistic connections made throughout the event proved both unusual and rewarding.
“Hearing the poetry, then hearing the music was like hearing two different pieces of art,” said Lindsay Wright ’10. “And it was baffling to me how the meaning of the poetry, and the poetry with music was completely opposite. That said, they were both beautiful.”
Given the drastic interpretations of the poems, it was not much of a surprise to hear that Bruce had never heard Simic recite his own work. Although the performance was planned out, Simic noted that many things were changed just an hour before the show started.
During the question-and-answer session, Bruce explained how the idea for putting the poet’s text to music came from the personal inspiration he received from Simic’s work.
“I did what I told my students to never ever do, put something to music without permission …” Bruce said. “It was two poems that spoke music to me. Whenever I read a line, I felt a character forming, but many of them wrote themselves. It was an instinctual music connection.”
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