E. E. Cummings’ poetic style—with its unconventional syntax and word usage—often conjures a sense of raw, inexpressible passion that, in a poem so deeply spiritual as “i thank You God…”, manifests like the voice of someone praying in tongues. My musical setting is an attempt to capture that same sense of unbridled praise, alternating between ebullient cascades of quartal harmonies, leaping polyphonies, and declamatory pillars of sound.

***

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

– E. E. Cummings (1894 – 1962)