This post explores a poem (Julia Johnson Davis’s “To My Little Son”) and a musical setting of it (Florence Price’s song of the same title) in a purely audio format. Inspired in part by the podcast Poetry Unbound, I adopt a simple structure—hear something, hear a brief commentary on it, and hear it again—with the aim of immersing listeners in the words and the music and revealing the connections between them.
Monica Ohuchi Arwen Myers
The post includes a recording of Price’s song (beginning 8 minutes in), performed by soprano Arwen Myers and pianist Monica Ohuchi.
Below is a copy of Julia Johnson Davis’s poem:
In your face I sometimes see
Shadowings of the man to be,
And eager, dream of what my son
Shall be in twenty years and one.
But when you are to manhood grown,
And all your manhood ways are known
Then shall I, wistful, try to trace
The child you once were in your face?
