Appalachian Spring Poem by gershon hepner

From Hart Crane the title,
though given by Martha
to Aaron’s recital;
there’s nothing he’d rather
have chosen. Entrancing
the music, that smiling,
has beats that keep dancing,
and spring while beguiling.

Denis Bartel on KUSC this morning played a recording of Aaron Copeland describing how he came to write “Appalachian Spring”. The work was commissioned by Martha Graham but when he played it for her six months later he told her he had no title for it. “Appalachian Spring, ” she said, and told him that that phrase appears in a poem by Hart Crane:
O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;
Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends
And northward reaches in that violet wedge
Of Adirondacks!


1/10/08