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Lisa Reagan’s
What We Need is Here
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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.

Lisa Reagan © 2023