Thursday, April 24, 2025

News and Ideas Worth Sharing

William P. Perry

William P. Perry is a composer and producer. Born in Elmira, NY he attended Harvard University and studied music with Paul Hindemith, Walter Piston and Randall Thompson and literature with George Sherburn and Walter Jackson Bate. After a stint in the military, he joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency as a composer, script writer and television producer, working with such entertainment icons as Arthur Godfrey, Ed Sullivan and Jackie Gleason. The next career move, somewhat unexpected, took him to the Museum of Modern Art where he became music director and composed and performed more than two hundred scores for the Museum’s silent film collection. His subsequent PBS television series, “The Silent Years” hosted by Orson Welles and Lillian Gish, won an Emmy Award. Perry is often credited with having played a major role in the revival of interest in classic silent films. Continuing his association with PBS, he created and produced the “Anyone for Tennyson?” poetry series and thereafter produced and scored the Peabody-Award winning Mark Twain Series of six feature films for Great Performances. His stage work has included a musical biography of Mark Twain that ran for ten summers in Elmira and Hartford and a Broadway musical version of “Wind in the Willows” starring Nathan Lane. In recent years Perry, a long-time Berkshires resident, has concentrated on a Naxos series of CDs of his orchestral works.

written articles

I’m bidin’ my thyme . . . Poems for planting and gardening

For certain, we in the Berkshires are proud of our gardens, and there is a delight in the air when spring weather invites the first turning of the soil and for poets, the traditional putting of pen to paper.

Philip Larkin . . . the poet-librarian

Larkin was a librarian his entire adult life. He wrote in common language about every-day experiences, a true People’s Poet.

Sara Teasdale . . . There Will Come Soft Rains

The shape and formatting of Teasdale’s poetry tends to be classic and charmingly unsophisticated. But the subject matter is ever romantic and offers a woman’s perspective on life and love.

The Poet Laureate of Twitter

Bilston’s approach to poetry is humorously inventive, and his connection with Twitter ingeniously captures the rhythm of today’s daily life.

On With the Dance: Poems about ballet

Poets have long been drawn to ballet, and not surprisingly, they write about their favorite dancers and ballet companies.

Marianne Moore…Ballads and Baseball

But love of baseball is not the reason this column celebrates Marianne Moore. She was a Big Leaguer of modernist poetry.

Frank O’Hara: Street smarts and lunch poems

Frank O’Hara’s poetry is almost entirely autobiographical, so we get to know New York through his highly personal observations and activities.

We’ll take a cup of kindness yet

Let me now wish you a Very Happy New Year and offer the most moving performance of Auld Lang Syne I have ever heard. The singers are the Choral Scholars of University College, Dublin.

A Carol for Christmas Eve

Author and composer William P. Perry dedicates this original composition to carolers the world over.

Edwin Arlington Robinson . . . His characters live on

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) was one of America’s finest and, may I say, strangest poets. As you’ll see, he often walked on the dark side.

Occasional Poetry…Now all you need is the occasion

The definition of Occasional Verse is poetry written to describe or comment on a particular occasion or event. It could be real or imaginary, public or private, somber or jovial, fleeting or memorable. But specific.

Emma Lazarus . . . A Sonnet for a Statue

Probably no sonnet has ever meant so much to so many people as the one by Emma Lazarus that adorns the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor.

Rudyard Kipling . . . a New England poet?

In his life Kipling traveled extensively but said, “There are only two places in the world where I want to live – Bombay and Brattleboro.” He then . . . whoa! . . . did he say Brattleboro as in Brattleboro, Vermont? Yes.

The first two great American poets…both women

The first two great American poets were both women. Neither of them was named Emily Dickinson, who came later. And one of them was a black slave born in Africa.

Poems for a Sunday Morning

Whenever you might be reading this, please pour a cup of coffee, butter a croissant and enjoy some noteworthy Sunday Morning poetry.

When all is said and Donne . . . One of the greats

John Donne is recognized and studied today as the father of what came to be called Metaphysical Poetry.
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