Frank Hudson
@frankhudson.bsky.social
Founder of the Parlando Project — “Where Music and Words Meet.” Composes, records, researches, writes, & those things feedback into each other.
Minnesota State Fair Seed Art has’em lined up out the door, & Princess Kay has the famous carved in butter bust—but now I’m dreaming of a plant-based sculpture exhibit after seeing this.
Bob Fry@bobfry.bsky.social · 8h ago#WyrdWednesday Personification of John Barleycorn from the exhibition John Barleycorn Must Die held at the New Brewery Arts Centre, Cirencester, June to Aug 2019. Created by the artist Matt Rowe with the aide of Carol Partridge, a member of the Guild of Straw Craftsmen.
This explains why this Parlando Project episode is getting a spike in traffic on this morning’s date. Click to hear a musical performance of the Sara Teasdale poem that inspired Bradbury & a link to Wally Wood’s graphic story version. frankhudson.org/2019/03/18/t...
There Will Come Soft Rains
A single work of art can inspire and be reformed by others as it lives—or rather, if it lives, as there is no choice in the matter. No work of art once it has escaped its creator lives for one mome…
frankhudson.org
Granite Geek NH@granitegeeknh.bsky.social · 2d agoThe 1950 Ray Bradbury story "There Will Be Soft Rains" is about life after the nuclear holocaust. As a reddit post pointed out, it is set far in the future: Aug. 4, 2026 - tomorrow. www.reddit.com/r/books/comm...
So there's this guy from Freehold NJ. Wrote about the trauma of war and issues this ringing call for citizens to resist "embroyo monarchs" who'd sacrifice a nation’s strength and renown “to prop a tottering throne,” who'd “seize on nations with a robber’s view,” & “breed eternal hates.” When? 1815.
Burning the midnight lamp on completing a piece & musical performance of a poem by the New Jersey writer known as “The Poet of the American Revolution.” Wonder what he has to say to us today? Well, I’m going to let you know—and there will be loud guitars co-signing his statement.
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." Happy birthday, James Baldwin!
I realize I’m likely asking too much of the busy ears of Bluesky this morning—what with posting 3 musical pieces presenting 3 poems & 3 poets—but this newest one is the shortest song of the 3, a trio with piano & two cello lines, remembering Conrad Aiken remembering lost love. #PoemsAloud #poetry
Nocturne of Remembered Spring
So, who is Conrad Aiken? I don’t fully know yet, but I came upon one of his poems this spring, and found out that as a critic, anthologist, short-story writer, and poet, that he’s one of those firs…
frankhudson.org
A second voice from the ancestors for today’s #PoemsAbout @alanparrywriter.co.uk @thebrokenspine.co.uk This one by a poet raised by the widow of man from John Brown’s raid, Langston Hughes. The quietest #LastTrain poem ever? Like my other ancestor poem today, I add a long musical coda to the poem.
Railroad Avenue, Langston Hughes’ Locus Solus
Returning to the poems published in the 1926 issue of Fire!! magazine which proclaimed it was “Devoted to Younger Negro Artists,” we get this simple seeming, yet mysterious poem by one of Fire’s …
frankhudson.org
Here are two voices of the ancestors combined with music I made for today’s #PoemsAbout #LastTrain The first, the son of a Swedish immigrant railroad mechanic Carl Sandburg’s poem “Limited.” In the essay presenting it I write of how Modernist poets all seemed to have a train poem in them.
Limited
Isn’t it odd that early 20th century Modernists used the locomotive as one of their talismans? After all the railroad train wasn’t particularly new at the time, though like buildings and the airpla…
frankhudson.org
#PoemsAloud Quote posts are disabled on @carynrose.bsky.social link to her post on Glen Hansard, but want to urge you to follow this link & hear Hansard meld Michael Hartnett’s “Death of an Irishwoman” with Patti Smith’s “Beneath the Southern Cross” jukeboxgraduate.com/glen-hansard...
Glen Hansard, 1970-2026
...who walked through the callow mist.
jukeboxgraduate.com
on Glen Hansard & that time he covered "Beneath the Southern Cross" jukeboxgraduate.com/glen-hansard...
Glen Hansard, 1970-2026
...who walked through the callow mist.
jukeboxgraduate.com
Interesting thing today as I thought to look further into the poetry of poet/critic Conrad Aiken. In 1919 he published what he says is the first comprhensive anthology of American poetry. Up until then, he says, American poetry was such a backwater that no one saw the need for such. A 🧵
Bill McGlaughlin, the Peabody-winning host of Saint Paul Sunday and Exploring Music, has died at 82. Over four decades he brought classical music into millions of homes with a warmth few broadcasters ever matched. zurl.co/nPhGd
Bill McGlaughlin, Peabody-Winning Classical Radio Host and Composer, Dies at 82 - That Eric Alper
Bill McGlaughlin, Peabody-Winning Classical Radio Host and Composer, Dies at 82 Bill McGlaughlin, the trombonist-turned-conductor whose warmth on public radio brought classical music to millions of listeners over more than four decades, died on July 23, 2026, at the age of 82. McGlaughlin was born in Philadelphia in October 1943 and grew up steeped in […]
zurl.co
I just learned that Bill McGlaughlin has died. He was the longtime host of the musical program St. Paul Sunday on MPR’s classical music service.
My friend’s bike was stolen! Please keep an eye out for this one.
Just back from my morning bike ride. You can peel back the aluminum foil and baste me now.
Missing Bike in North MPLS! If you see it, reach out so we can reunite it with its owner!! This bike was a primary mode of transportation so its safe return is super important 🥺 cmon Minneapolis bike people, I need you
Let me say right off that some of what I see in this early Emily Dickinson poem may well be unintended by the poet—but I like what I see, and it helped inform my musical performance of it: frankhudson.org/2026/07/22/a...
A Something in a summer’s Day
A wonderful something about Emily Dickinson’s large body of poetry is that there are always “new” poems to discover just by paying attention to them. Take this one for example. It…
frankhudson.org
They had me at the mention of the Björk album. The poem, as it turns out, offers more.
The Slowdown@slowdownshow.org · 2w ago"Today's poem speaks to the way we show up for our friends ... and the ways we can be saved by our friendships, even long-distance ones," @maggiesmithpoet.bsky.social shares in episode 1562. Read “Listening to Vespertine for Twenty Hours Straight" by @paradiselaust.bsky.social: bit.ly/4fr1UWk
Fine work here in this translation by Larry Beckett.
Stuart Anthony@stuartanthony.bsky.social · 2w agoVideo of mine & James Edge's performance of 'Song of the Old Lovers' by Jacques Brel, translated into English by poet Larry Beckett, at the The Annual Nick Drake Gathering 18/7/26. youtu.be/c3XHBLb52k0?... #music #jacquesbrel #musicsky #nowplaying #live #piano #guitar #poetry #nickdrake
Partway thru watching The Odyssey movie this week the Tim Buckley/Larry Beckett “Song to the Siren” came into my mind. I thought I might want to try recording it, but it’s the kind of song that requires a SINGER!! — and I stretch to pass myself off as a stylist “of a subjective quality.”
Off to see some movie adaptation of—get this—some foreign-language poem.
What’s the relationship between art song & the Parlando Project? frankhudson.org/2026/07/15/a...
Art Song and Me
OK, I told you this is my summer plan: fewer readers, fewer listeners, and some of the posts are going to get weirder and deal with specialized topics that diverge from the usual stuff I write abou…
frankhudson.org
I was going to say I admire this level of audacity, but the guy’s got a degree, a book, and a pleasant singing voice—so let’s write that down as jealous instead. He’s earned the right to sing the muse!
Enchanted to see a poem from Mycocosmic reprinted in the summer issue of Fungi Magazine! @tupelopress.bsky.social 🍄🍄🟫 #fungi
This is what happens doing the Parlando Project: I find an interesting old poem that asks to be sung. Then I start asking questions of it. This time it was a short & mysterious love poem by Willa Cather (hey, she wrote poetry too). #PoemsAloud
The Hawthorn Tree
You could put Willa Cather within a group: writers known as novelists who also wrote some worthwhile poetry. I didn’t know she wrote verse, but this poem of thwarted love, “The Hawthorn Tree” char…
frankhudson.org
Lenny Kaye, pioneering Rock critic, pioneering member of the Patti Smith Group before it’s even a group, drops the name of Midcentury SF writer Cordwainer Smith in a podcast. What’s the thru-line there? I sea’s the possibilities.
Drunkboat, Lenny Kaye, Patti and Cordwainer Smith, Rimbaud
OK, I warned you. It’s summer, this is where I get weird, maybe even self-indulgent, since the poetry audience consistently drops off for some reason during this season. We’re going to travel time …
frankhudson.org
I have gathered together some of my own interpretations of #Tang dynasty #jueju #poetry. There is so much I could say about the Tang era, its poets and the form itself, but here, I will let the poems speak for themselves. johnnorthwrites.blogspot.com/2026/07/poet...
Poetry - June 2026 - Tang Dynasty Jueju Poetry
John North. Writer. b.1990. Based in Cumbria
johnnorthwrites.blogspot.com
A little song made from a Sara Teasdale poem, with an unusual but simple chord progression asking 2 minutes of a listeners ear. #PoemsAloud
Sara Teasdale’s “A Prayer”
Just time for a short post presenting a short musical piece made from a short poem by Sara Teasdale. Teasdale’s “A Prayer” goes over some of the same ground (or gravely, below ground) as her bette…
frankhudson.org
![DISJUNCTION
they took the train away
and they tore the lonely station down
left the barefoot pineys
with no way to get outta this town
So I’m talking about the old train station by where I walk the dog, that there’s only a sign now and a vinyl fence in front of an overgrown embankment, and that there used to be a turntable a few yards back because three rail lines met there, and my wife says I’m sorry but I just don’t give a shit.
the boiler is hissing the steam is nice and hot
the blue comet’s departing at nine on the dot
gals in summer dresses guys in linen suits
headed for the boardwalk on the classiest of routes
So we’re on our way to WaWa and my son goes what was all that about with Mom and I’m like I’m looking up shit for the prompt, last train. And then I tell him how my grandfather operated the Public Service trolley from the Hub City to Perth Amboy when he was still a teen. I wish he was still alive so I could ask him about it now. I wish he had told me stories when I was a kid. All I have is an odd quote in a retirement program I found at my mom’s that says, “My greatest thrill (Keasby [sic] Trestle) You ask me how I felt when the trolley went off the track.” I don’t even know who the “You” was, much less the how why and when.
the seriouser I study to me it starts to seem
the world is just a fat man in a trolley problem meme
I’m out of joy I can’t employ anything uplifting
the more I learn the more I turn to multitrack drifting
So I tell my son I looked up the Keasbey Trestle and didn’t see anything about trolleys, but the deadliest US train wreck in the last hundred years did happen in Keasbey when “The Broker” commuter train derailed on a temporary wooden trestle built to accommodate New Jersey Turnpike laborers working on the main line. If my Pop Pop conflated the train and the trolley I wonder why his most thrilling memory would be something he wasn’t involved in and my son says probably because every other workday was boring. Yeah I laughed it p…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:xdsafbyenhkdiwry6znl7bki/bafkreig3schdb5ysatvjlv57dxfasatiejvfsfwivc3zcvhay23hx3im3u)