The poem, Skunk Cabbage, was written for Charles Gilmore’s daughter, Pam, when she was a child. Pam and I knew we wanted to use the bass clarinet for at least one setting. The instrument’s smoky, low tessitura captures the humble yet pungent character of this early spring plant that those of us who grew up in the Northeast might recall as the first green in low lying woods.

–https://www.martinhennessy.net/ruminations