Singer Creates Musical 'Conversation' with Poetry

By Melissa Block

Published November 16, 2006 at 6:33 PM EST

Each song on singer-songwriter Kris Delmhorst's new CD, Strange Conversation, has its genesis in a poem, by writers such as Lord Byron, George Eliot and Edna St. Vincent Millay.

The singer-songwriter took the words of some poems verbatim and set them to music. For others, she worked from the essence of a phrase and transformed the original work into something else entirely.

Delmhorst also worked to match poems to certain musical styles: Beatles-esque pop for Whitman, a Dixieland band for Eliot.

Delmhorst says she got the idea after reading Robert Browning's "A Toccata of Galuppi's," which is the poet's tribute to a Venetian composer.

Melissa Block

As special correspondent and guest host of NPR's news programs, Melissa Block brings her signature combination of warmth and incisive reporting. Her work over the decades has earned her journalism's highest honors, and has made her one of NPR's most familiar and beloved voices.

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