Welcome, Spring (as imagined in August) [by David Lehman]

Search

March 20, 2017

Welcome, Spring (as imagined in August) [by David Lehman]

"It Might As Well Be Spring":

Hammerstein's best lyric. Note the similes. The perfect song for Dick Haymes. Rodgers explained the music by saying that

it depended on the movement of a puppet on a string. Once he established the musical phrase for that, everything else

fell into place. Spring, we've been been waiting for you a long time and the difference between poetry and prose is the

difference between speaking voice and the singing voice.

Posted by The Best American Poetry on March 20, 2017 at 09:01 PM in Feature, Music | Permalink

Comments

"Lively and affectionate" Publisher's Weekly. Now in paperback.Click image to order your copy.

Radio

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark

from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman