Discovering the connection between poetry and music

Milford resident, David Richard, himself a poet, gave a talk at the Milford Library on Oct. 25 in one of their Saturday sessions on the connection between poetry and music. The talk was called “Words Sing, Languages Dance.”

Many of the people in the audience were poets themselves or people involved in language. In fact, one of the people in the audience was Susan Diamond, the widow of Dr. John Diamond, an Australian doctor who was an authority on holistic healing and creativity. In many of his 35 books, he talked about “Life Energy,” the healing power we all have within ourselves. Much of his philosophy had to do with language and how our bodies react to language. He said that all languages have intrinsic rhythm and song.

Richard spent many years promoting Diamond’s teachings. He has worked together with Susan Diamond to help preserve and expand Diamond’s thoughts, especially on the relationship of language to the body.

“Language arose out of our bodies, and the need to rebalance ourselves correlates with the acupuncture meridians,” Ricard said.

Richard demonstrated what he called the creative process of reading a poem and then singing those same words. He did this while standing up, swaying to the rhythm, and swinging a “Poi” to help convey the rhythm of the words. A Poi is an object handed down from an ancient Māori cultural practice. It is used for storytelling, rhythmic performances, and skill development. Māori performers use it to express emotions like joy, sadness, or anger.

The movements can range from slow and graceful to fast and energetic. In contemporary settings, Poi has become a way for people from diverse backgrounds to connect with each other and express their creativity. Richard had several Poi with him which differed in size, shape, and color. The audience seemed to sway with each reading.

Richard is very well-informed about poetry, both free and metered verse. He read from a great variety of poems from William Blake’s “Ah Sunflower” about lost innocence, and longing for a more perfect existence to William Ernest Henley’s “Invictus,” an ode to having courage.

He included works of Christina Rosetti, known for her romantic, devotional, and children’s poetry, to the Harlem Renaissance’s Langston Hughes who incorporated the rhythms of jazz and blues into his poems. Richard even read and sang some of his own poetry.

The audience was totally engaged with Richard. “That a lovely way to spend a Saturday morning,” one woman said.