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Joan Szymko
Joan Szymko Music
A Bell Awakened
This stirring, ringing setting of poet Denise Levertov’s is an ode to the power of “I can”.
SSAA, piano
From Szymko’s DARE TO BE POWERFUL choral series; these moderate to advanced choral works are passionate expressions of women’s worth, power and potential. An ode to the power of “I can”, Denise Levertov’s poem pays homage to a poem by Ranier M. Rilke (1875-1926) by invoking the stirring imagery from Rilke’s poem and further exploring and personalizing the notion of “vocation.”
Text
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me—a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic—or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
-Denise Levertov (©1987)
$2.25 per licensed PDF
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