A number of years ago, while reading a copy of The Atlantic Monthly, I came across a remarkable poem: Marie Howe’s incredibly rich and powerful What The Living Do. The intense, poignant, yet elegant words leaped off the page and I immediately purchased her volume of poetry (of the same name) and contacted Ms. Howe for permission to set her words. Recently Ms. Howe’s poem has received the acclaim it so justly deserves: it has been included in The Penguin Anthology of 20th-Century American Poetry.

Howe’s What the Living Do has both textual length and a dramatic weight that led me to create more miniature “operatic monodrama” than art song. My setting is a “big” song, but then the subject matter demands such.

Everyday mundane, even annoying tasks and sensations – dishes waiting to be washed, buying a hairbrush, spilling coffee on your sleeve – become painfully poignant reminders as these are things that only the living do. The poem was written about the death of Marie Howe’s brother Johnny. 

The song was composed for, and dedicated to, Susan Narucki who has performed it numerous times with pianist Alan Feinberg at such venues as the 92nd St. Y in New York and the Monadnock Festival. Their performance is available on the Americus CD Extraordinary Vistas. 

Originally What The Living Do was the second song of a larger cycle (One Into One) but these days I prefer it to be performed alone. 

What The Living Do 

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensils probably fell down there. 
And the Dräno won’t work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up 

waiting for the plumber I still haven’t called. This is the everyday we spoke of. 
It’s winter again: the sky’s a deep headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through 

the open living-room windows because the heats on too high in here and I can’t turn it off. 
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, 

I’ve been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those 
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, 

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning. 

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass, We want 
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss - we want more and more and then more of it. 

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, 
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep 

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless: 
I am living. I remember you. 

“What the Living Do”. Copyright © 1997 by Marie Howe, from WHAT THE LIVING DO by Marie Howe.
Used by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.

“…the real treats are the handful of surprises… Friedman’s epic “What the Living Do,” based on the title poem of Marie Howe’s 1998 collection, clocks in at nearly seven minutes and feels much larger than an art song. But who says art songs must be brief and aphoristic?”    Frank Oteri, NewMusicBox