Where I come from, we sing poetry.
I come from a short fiction background, and my mom is a poet, so I've always read poetry; I've always had a lot of different influences both linguistically and musically.
Poetry is supposed to be musical. But people don't understand prose. They're so used to reading journalism - clunky, functional sentences that convey factual information - facts, more than just the surfaces of things.
If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song.
Dante Alighieri is a universal poet, and great creators, they are writing for everybody always. Every single verse is very moving, and the beauty - if we don't understand, we just stay listening to the sound and it's like hearing music.
Sound had always been my portal to poetry, but in the beginning, sound was imagined through the eye.
To read a poem is to hear it with our eyes; to hear it is to see it with our ears.
The music of language became extremely important to me, and obvious to me. By the time I was seven I was writing myself. I was a poet.
I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group.
Half a league Half a league Half a league onward With a hey-nonny-nonny And a hot cha-cha.
It just happens to be that people like to associate poetry and rap music. I think that idea is kind of corny.
There is a sense of motion and a concise, immediate image in haikus and Anishinaabe dream songs.
I have the feeling that a lot of poets writing now are - they sort of tap dance through it.
I guess I started writing poetry and stuff and then decided to set it to music.
O, it sets my heart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, when the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.
