NPR's Take Five Melds National Jazz and Poetry Appreciation Months!

According to NPR, a quite valid source, the first poems conceived (or recorded) were recited to music played on the lyre.

The division of song and poetry came somewhere after.

Songs nowadays are not necessarily poems as they are tunes "seldom read" by the listener. As poet Robert Pinksy noted, "A little poetry can really help a song, but too much poetry will sink a song."

Pamela Espeland writes:

Surprisingly, we're left with relatively few recordings of poetry sung by jazz artists. Speaking truth and emotion, sonic and rhythmic, structured and free, poetry and jazz seem like natural born partners. More often, we do hear poets read their writing to accompaniment by jazz musicians--a form of spoken-word performance. Others write poetry inspired, informed and shaped by jazz.

If you've been under a rock recently, then you may have been missing National Poetry Month, right alongside Jazz Appreciation Month. In an attempt to marry the two ideas, National Public Radio has given us but a sample.

Don't forget about Classicalite's own chapbook.

Robert Creeley Meets Steve Swallow: