Three Poems by Amy Lowell (2018)

I: Absencce; II: Vintage; III: The Giver of Stars

The composer writes: Amy Lowell (1874-1925) was born into a prosperous Massachusetts family. A poet, critic and biographer, she was a leading exponent of the imagist movement, and was for a time closely allied with Ezra Pound. Her obituary stated, "She was upon the surface of things a Lowell, a New Englander and a spinster. But inside, everything was molten like the core of the earth.” In 1926, she was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
 
Some of Lowell’s poetry was written for or about the actress Ada Dwyer Russell, with whom Lowell shared a “Boston marriage” (a 19th-century euphemism for a lesbian relationship) for more than a decade. I have chosen three of Lowell’s love poems for this set of choral songs. All three are concise and emotionally intense; vivid yet elegant in their imagery.