
Coming Soon
Lisa Reagan’s New Album
What We Need is Here
I have composed songs to ten of my favorite poems written by Shakespeare, Yeats, Frost, Keats, Wordsworth, Berry, and Bel-Moore. This project is very close to my heart because I have loved poetry all my life. I find that it takes me into worlds that often lie submerged below the surface of my normal waking life. Poems give expression to the unexpressed in me and the poets have become my dear friends. When I thought about composing music to these poems, I felt a great responsibility to honor them. When I started writing the music, I began with how the poem made me feel. It was like creating a painting that “looked” how the poem felt to me. I wanted to set a mood, creating a tonal palette for the words. The poems are already a song, so I had to bend my musical compositions to their world.
As I sat with the poems and meditated on their meaning, melodies would often come.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud – William Wordsworth
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day – William Shakespeare
The Peace of Wild Things – Wendell Berry
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost
The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost
The Two Trees – William Butler Yeats
Bright Star – John Keats
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven – William Butler Yeats
The Wild Geese – Wendell Berry
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