Five Poems of Stevie Smith

Like so many composers, I was drawn to Stevie Smith's poetry because of its clarity and apparent simplicity: many of her poems were indeed meant to be sung (usually to hymn tunes), and her ability to express the deepest thoughts in the most touching and transparent language is a gift to a composer. My approach to song writing is uncomplicated: in these poems I enjoy Stevie's word repetitions and preference for monosyllables and plain speaking: I seek simply to give 'natural' expression to (how I understand) the meaning of the words.The five poems are: 1. Avondale: a fresh, cheerful, ingenuous and spring-like opening song evoking the songs of birds and the cries of children in a north London suburban street (Avondale Road in Palmers Green where Stevie lived for much of her life.). 2. La Gretchen de nos jours, a lament for unrequited (or at least frustrated) love and inevitable regret: perhaps about lost religious faith? 3. Le singe qui swing: a monkey at midnight on a garden swing, treated as if it were most natural thing in the world. 4. Tender only to One, a childish-seeming 'counting game' (with a typically 'Stevian' sting in the tail). 5. Will Ever? I'm not entirely sure I fully understand this poem, but I have heard and set it as a description of a storm-tossed, forever-rotating world forever rotating to eternity, oblivious of mankind.