"When August Becomes a Whisper" ~ It's a poem, no wait, it's also a song!

 Lake Mohawk, NJ

My poem "When August Becomes a Whisper" was first published in August 2012, on the Your Daily Poem site.  I am happy to announce that this poem is now a song too, composed and arranged by the Virginia-based band, SIGNALS.  Songwriters Greg Wilson and Dan Gutwein worked tirelessly to create a musical arrangement and recorded a track with vocals.  

This exclusive song can be heard in full at the ReverbNation site:

Click HERE to listen to: "When August Becomes a Whisper"

Signals is also on Facebook!  Visit the SIGNALS1234 fb page and "like" them to follow their latest news, album launch announcements and upcoming shows.


I wrote this poem in response to a writing prompt at a FREE WRITE session hosted by poet, Anjie Kokan, at the Delafield Arts Center (Delafield, WI).  It was an unexpected gem that day, and I am grateful that YDP chose to publish it.  The poem is inspired by the small, lake community where I grew up, Lake Mohawk (Sparta), New Jersey.  I spent 4 summers as a lifeguard on the beaches of Lake Mohawk and many summers just as a young kid lying on the beach and swimming.  I don't think I realized at the time just how lucky I was to live in such a beautiful oasis.  Lake Mohawk was small and quiet.  You saw the same people over and over again at the post office, the A&P and Danny's Pizza.  Sparta is about an hour and fifteen minutes away from Manhattan, where I spent many Saturdays taking dance lessons at Broadway Dance Center and Madame Darvash's.  I also spent these Saturdays studying classical voice at the Metropolitan Opera House.  My mother can account for hours spent in the car taking me to these lessons.  (Thanks, Mom!)  As I take my own sons to soccer games now, some over an hour away on the week-ends, I realize the sacrifices my parents made for my education, growth and artistic passions.

 Lake Mohawk, NJ

If it weren't for those summers on the beach soaking up sun, glossed up with coconut oil, and if it weren't for those Saturdays being blessed with the best dance and voice teachers in the country, I might not have had the inspiration or the skills of creative expression to write this poem.  It takes interpretation, passion and reflection to move your body the way a choreographer envisions the dance.  It also takes an artistic mind to sing an aria the way the character in that opera would have portrayed it.  It takes more than English lit. courses and creative writing workshops to write a good poem.  You also have to live.  I feel like I've lived 3 lives so far, at age 41.  I look forward to another 6.  Will that make 9 nine lives?  Good.  I have time then to finish some of my artistic chapters and start some new ones too.  Perhaps, more of my poems are meant to become songs?  I hope so.  This was fun and enriching. 

Below is a copy of the original poem:

When August Becomes a Whisper

Feeling her underwater mermaid hair

brush past her shoulders,

she finds the coldest current

and delves deeper into the darkest green waters.

Water skiers skim the vast width of Lake Mohawk,

taking with them flipbook scenes

of gingerbread houses

and beach bathers glowing with coconut oil.

She always preferred the sleepy calm

of Upper Lake Beach –

the circular stone sculpture

that served as a water fountain,

the lone raft she could swim to

and rest on for hours,

examining every flake of white paint

and weather worn groove

from summers of divers.

When the blue-black nights come earlier and earlier,

she savors the mossy green scent of her towel,

the feel of stray grains of butter yellow sand

that cling to leather sandals,

and the sound that August makes

when it becomes a whisper.

Cristina M. R. Norcross

Copyright 2012

(Published on the Your Daily Poem site on August 27, 2012)

Here is the LINK to my poem on Your Daily Poem.

Check back soon!  I plan on publishing a special interview with the musicians of SIGNALS, that you won't want to miss.  How does a song begin?  Where do songwriters find their inspiration?  What was the creative process for writing "When August Becomes a Whisper?" - I'll find out and share all of the details with you!

Peace & poetry
~Cristina