The Amazing World of Song Poems: What is a song poem?

I can think of no better way to introduce you to song poems than through the words and music of an artist who is actively engaged in the process. The clips above are taken from an amazing documentary called Off The Charts, by Jamie Meltzer, which can be found on Amazon and Netflix, and help tell the story and present the work of Caglar Juan Singletary.

Singletary, like many song poem artists, stumbled across an ad in the back of a magazine that encouraged writers to submit their work, and the obligatory fee, to a company that will set their words to music with the promise of promotion through the music industry as a songwriter. What I find wonderful about many of these artists is that fame is usually not the primary goal for engaging in the song poem process. The artist's desire is to create a piece of work that expresses some heart-felt message that the artist is not able to create independently.

More to follow through the week as I will be introducing you to song poem organizations, artists, musicians and ultimately some of my own personal collection.

Tip of the hat to KEANON, whose comment over on Boing Boing led me to begin speaking about song poems with Singletary's story.