Alice Fulton

The poetry of Alice Fulton combines science and technology with the intangibility of faith and the processes of the human mind. Her verses reveal abstraction to be understandable and relatable--full of associations and willing to uncover memories.

Photo: Alice Fulton, PoetryFoundation.org.
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The audio recording of "How to Swing Those Obbligatos Around," provided in the audio playlist to the right, are made possible through a collaboration between the Hampsong Foundation and SongFest. The performers are Kate Tombaugh, mezzo-soprano, and Bobby Pace, piano, and the performance took place at SongFest 2012 at The Colburn School. To listen, please click on the track name itself.

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    About

    A native of Troy, New York, Alice Fulton began writing poetry in high school, citing a 1979 women’s poetry conference in Amhurst, Massachusetts as an early influence on her poetic life. She has won several fellowships throughout her life, including the Guggenheim, the MacArthur, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Her first full volume of poetry, Dance Script With Electric Ballerina (1983), won the Associated Writing Programs Award, and thus her career as a poet was launched.

    Fulton has published several volumes of poetry since her first book, including Palladium, winner of the 1985 National Poetry Series and the 1987 Society of Midland Authors Award, as well as Felt (2001), which was awarded the 2002 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress.

    Also an accomplished essayist, Fulton’s Feeling as a Foreign Language: The Good Strangeness of Poetry (1999) relates scientific theories with the writing and reading of poetry. While teaching at the University of Michigan, Fulton became friends with composer William Bolcolm, who consulted with her in writing his song cycle I Will Breathe a Mountain.

    –Christie Finn

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    I Will Breathe a Mountain

    Composer(s): William Bolcom

    Song(s): 1. Pity Me Not Because the Light of Day
    2. How To Swing Those Obbligatos Around
    3. The Crazy Woman
    4. Just Once Text: Anne Sexton
    5. Never More Will The Wind
    6. The Sage Text: Denise Levertov
    7. O To Be a Dragon
    8. The Bustle in a House
    9. I Saw Eternity
    10. Night Practice
    11. The Fish

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