Build Me a Boat

Words for Music 1968 – 2018

Browne Michael Dennis

"Build Me a Boat" gathers a selection of the words that poet Michael Dennis Browne has written for music over the past fifty years. Working with a number of different composers, Browne has ranged widely across forms; what we discover here are lyrics, song cycles, songs for children, excerpts from libretti – some of them in free verse, some of them formal – as well as poems that, while not written to be part of specific musical works, were nonetheless written with music in mind or under the influence of particular works. The result is a volume that sits comfortably between poetry and music, lyrical and rhythmic and memorable.

About the Author

Michael Dennis Browne was born in England, of mostly Irish ancestry, in 1940, and came to the United States in 1965. He taught at the University of Iowa, Columbia University, Bennington College and, for thirty-nine years, at the University of Minnesota, where he is an emeritus professor.

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