Love Songs is my new songwriting project that pairs sonnets by William Shakespeare with contemporary poems. Each collaborating poet selects one sonnet and pairs it with something of their own—either an existing poem or one written especially for this project. The nature of each pairing is left to the poet so that the works may compliment, contradict, or simply co-exist.

I am setting each pair simply, drawing on the structures and sensibilities of familiar love songs from popular music idioms. The goal is to compose in that small slice of common ground where art song and pop song overlap. This will lead to multiple versions of each song.

http://5of4.com/love_songs/