love words
for concert band (grade 4)
love words is inspired by the poem “Romance” by Harlem Renaissance poet Claude McKay (printed below). While many of his poems deal with typical poetic topics like love, McKay was anything but typical. A Jamaican immigrant who lived most of his life in the US, an activist involved in socialist and communist movements, an atheist who later converted to Catholicism, and a bisexual, McKay’s life bucks the traditional narrative of Black male identity in the 20th Century.
In poems like “Romance,” love is viewed through a complicated lens, one that ignores obvious distinctions like gender, and embraces the messiness of sexual desire and impermanence. love words is an expansion of my previously-composed setting of this poem, which served as the opening of my work Love Words | Mad Words, a cycle of McKay’s poetry for countertenor and chamber ensemble.
love wards was commissioned by the Pride Bands Alliance (formerly the Lesbian and Gay Bands Association) for their 2022 conference in my hometown of Chicago, IL, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of their formation in the city. McKay’s work is therefore fitting, as he spent his final years in Chicago.
"Romance" by Claude McKay
First printed in Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay, Harcourt 1922 (US Public Domain)
To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;
To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;
To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak
Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;
To hear you ask if I shall love always,
And myself answer: Till the end of days;
To feel your easeful sigh of happiness
When on your trembling lips I murmur: Yes;
It is so sweet. We know it is not true.
What matters it? The night must shed her dew.
We know it is not true, but it is sweet--
The poem with this music is complete.
In poems like “Romance,” love is viewed through a complicated lens, one that ignores obvious distinctions like gender, and embraces the messiness of sexual desire and impermanence. love words is an expansion of my previously-composed setting of this poem, which served as the opening of my work Love Words | Mad Words, a cycle of McKay’s poetry for countertenor and chamber ensemble.
love wards was commissioned by the Pride Bands Alliance (formerly the Lesbian and Gay Bands Association) for their 2022 conference in my hometown of Chicago, IL, celebrating the fortieth anniversary of their formation in the city. McKay’s work is therefore fitting, as he spent his final years in Chicago.
"Romance" by Claude McKay
First printed in Harlem Shadows: The Poems of Claude McKay, Harcourt 1922 (US Public Domain)
To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;
To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;
To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak
Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;
To hear you ask if I shall love always,
And myself answer: Till the end of days;
To feel your easeful sigh of happiness
When on your trembling lips I murmur: Yes;
It is so sweet. We know it is not true.
What matters it? The night must shed her dew.
We know it is not true, but it is sweet--
The poem with this music is complete.