Hokku - (2007)
E. E. Cummings

originally for medium voice and piano

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I care not greatly
Should the world remember me
In some tomorrow.

There is a journey,
And who is for the long road
Loves not to linger.

For him the night calls,
Out of the dawn and sunset
Who has made poems.

[ 1 page, circa 1' 10" ]

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E. E. Cummings

 

Published in the Harvard Monthly, in April of 1916, this three sentence statement seems quite the credo for Cummings' later work. There is is the act of creating a pressure and urging on which is not content to revel in what was just done. Stravinsky suggests much the same in his response to the question as to which was his favorite work. The correct answer is "the one I am working on now." That is the journey and the creative soul "loves not to linger."

 

 

For medium voice, this gentle setting of the three statements lie symmetrically across a seven-measure period in the accompaniment, with the last period extended into a final cadence, D-flat in the accompaniment forcing the D in the vocal line to move, suggesting that the creative process "loves not to linger."

 

 

 

The score in the medium key is available as a free PDF download, though any major commercial performance or recording of the work is prohibited without prior arrangement with the composer. Click on the graphic below for this piano-vocal score.

 

Hokku