Mother Goose for Grown ups

One of the true joys of setting a text is having the opportunity to ride the coat-tails of another person’s genius. I was paging through an inconspicuous anthology of poetry that I had picked up, rather by chance, while taking a break from studying in Linderman library, when I came across the poetry by Guy Wetmore Carryl. Immediately, I knew that I wanted to set his poetry, but it took me several years to decide how to do it. This is one piece in which I am confident that my contribution is secondary to the brilliance of the original text, so I have largely tried to stay out of its way. This poem comes from a collection called “Mother Goose for Grownups” which was originally published by Mr. Carryl in the Harper’s Magazine, the Saturday Evening Post, and the London Sketch.

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