New Jersey
Dorset
I recently went to Nice, France for a concert at the Chagall Museum, where the chamber orchestra of Opera de Nice performed 3 songs which Robert Waechter has composed using 3 poems of mine under the collective title 'Hidden Mothers'. Christina Greco was the mezzo soprano. It was an amazing experience and one which I will never forget.
For now you might enjoy listening to Robert playing his own composition which I was fortunate enough to title, called 'loving kindness' - it's on his page.
A bit of background detail I am an English poet. I have written quite a number of BBC Radio plays under the name Max Hillman and my plays have been broadcast in over 70 countries worldwide - for poetry, choral and classical music collaborations I write musical lyrics, poems for choir and libretti under the name Mark Hillman.
Since July 06 I have been collaborating with Choral composers Morten Hansen and Christian Hildebrandt, Christian Hildebrandt – Choices (2006 version) two of the founding members of Komvest (choral composers collective) from Copenhagen in Denmark, as well as Thomas Hjort Jensen Thomas Hjort Jensen – Esto Perpetua and Morten Poulsen. We are all involved in a project called Listenwell from a text and a series of poems I wrote in 2006'7 - Listenwell also involves the Austrian Composer and concertmaster for the Nice Philharmonic orchestra - Robert Waechter.
Mr Waechter is also featuring songs he has composed from my poetry at The Chagall museum in Nice, France performed by the chamber orchestra of The Nice Opera on May 22nd 2008.
You can find these composers and the site for the Listenwell project on my front page. I have also been collaborating (they needed a poet believe it or not) with my friend Matt Johnson and the musicians of Jamiroquai for an album in France which has been a fantastic experience. Matt and the band are such brilliant musicians - truly, it has been my honour.
I contribute words to these projects.
You can take a listen to some examples of these collaborations on my music page: click on the link below to go to my music page.
Mark Hillman Poetry
'open' was published in The National Poetry Anthology 2007.
If you view all blog entries you can read my poetry. Thank you so much for visiting me. Have a lovely time.
Poems were written between 2006 and the present day©
muse Mrs Gloria James of New Jersey Literary Agent Judy Daish Associates Ltd 2 St. Charles Place London W10 6EG
MettÄ is the sublime practice of loving kindness
Dive
With you
Unknown hedges
Long rain in her field
Made places of rest
To accompany us
You
Stark and a white moon
Yep and he don't catch us
We're in this
State of the tight lipped frogman
Everything's cooshtie yet
Still the old instinct
To hold our breath
Close for a second your eyes
And dive sugar
Dive with me
Deep in the earth of this field
Plant with me
Here is a recent poem called 'No grail'.
No grail
Next, to a static stone we stayed, immobile
Groaning
I held her head
And she wailed, slammed her tongue on the ‘no’ of her palette
No grail
No miracle phial
Can you see?
The long lane of books, a thousand steps
Marching men with complaints
Women carrying blood on clothes
Now treasured little shrouds
They are wailing
Breaking the spines of my learning
Scattering my page
Like bad blossom over day, next
To a bland root
We stand, expect no flowers
Give palms to what’s there and starve for alms
And a prayer
And we don’t mind anymore
We don’t even care
This place is ours
It hums our tune
Like a madman and his memories
Solid space
First we came through the wild old night
Land was vast – it was a seeming place
It teemed with space
Seemingly nothing was there
In the wild, bearded night
One of us spotted some walls
Discussion aroused us
The worn bricks, could they be pushed?
Could we climb over?
But you were the child who said
Isn’t there space – even in a wall?
Four climbed over, twenty four pushed
With you, I went to the space in a wall
From there we walked the cracks
Marvelled at your wisdom
Indeed – indeed there was this space in a wall
But the space became wall
All this space!
And then
‘Oh for a wall!’
That granite-grey day
We made wall after wall with our hunger for comfort
Now we searched the space again
For walls for walls
And found one and called out
‘Space’
Weightless so precious
Weightless so precious
Her face is paper
With what can acceptance be written?
She tells me
She tells me
Like the wind tells
Rain lined sky
She moves me over
As she tells me
So the heart goes
Slower
And slower
Faith
Long from you
An unwalled heaven
Spread a view down
Under you
Vast
And the fierce blue water
Faith