Opera and Poetry

Poet, reviewer, and opera buff Karren Alenier has written a review of the opera Carmen. Entitled "Finding the Russian in Carmen," the review has been published at The Dressing. Alenier zeroes in on the jealousy theme in the opera. Her reviews usually end with a poem that picks up a theme of the opera under review. This particular review ends with my poem, "My Husband Discovers Poetry."

I really like it when different forms of art mingle. One of my favorite readings was given with jazz musicians Spencer and Nancy Reed at Northampton Community College in Pennsylvania. I read for twenty minutes, Spencer and Nancy played and sang for twenty, and then we had a second round. A reading I gave this past summer at the Brockton Library in Brockton, Massachusetts, had an art show in the back of the reading room. So while I know not one thing about opera, I'm really pleased that Alenier saw a connection between my poem and the opera.

I also like it when one thing leads to another fortuitously. It turns out that as Alenier was writing her review, she read my blog post about the poem and then read the poem. And that's how my poem ended up sharing the stage with Carmen.