Archicembalo

the long version

The poet uses music theory and history to explore the interweaving of language and music. In this verse, he seeks the delicate point between the voice of a singer (music) and that of a poet (language). An archicembalo was a complex sixteenth-century instrument, a successor to the harpsichord. The book is structured after a gamut, a nineteenth-century musical primer. Originally a single note on the scale, a gamut later came to mean a whole range-as in a singer or actor{u2019}s ability to cover the whole gamut. Gamuts were composed in a question and answer structure. Archicembalo is also set up as a call-and-response. Poems take off from each title (the question) and answer in exquisitely musical verses, metaphorical and rhythmical.