“memories….like burrs,” a performance featuring poetry of Gertrude Halstead

“memories….like burrs,”

A performance of the Poetry of Gertrude Halstead set to music composed by Mauro DePasquale
Thursday, October 26 at 7 p.m.
Alliance Francaise Auditorium at Assumption College

Poetry Oasis, a non-profit arts organization, today announced it will present “memories….like burrs,” a live presentation on the life and work of 90-year-old Worcester resident, Gertrude Halstead. The program will combine her poetry and history with an original score created by local composer, Mauro DePasquale. The event will be held at the Alliance Francaise Auditorium at Assumption College, 500 Salisbury Street , on Thursday, October 26 at 7 p.m.

Halstead’s work now is gaining national notice. Her poem, “here in front of me,” recently appeared in the Columbia Poetry Review and her first book of poetry, “memories like burrs,” was published in April. Her work also has appeared in national poetry journals including Diner and she has twice been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Award. Halstead writes of war and nature, art, love and illness. While her poems speak of her history as a Holocaust survivor, they do not indulge in sentiment or assault the reader with sorrow or anger.

The music composition presents a traditional romantic song cycle form which blends classical and neo classical elements, including art song, tango, and post romantic and modern harmonization. Mauro’s composition makes use of contrapuntal and neoclassic elements to emphasis the physical and spiritual resonance that binds the music and the poetry. “Like her experience, in the past, the music illuminates the tremendous conflict of emotions, struggles, antagonism, desire, and life of a survivor as a whole. It was an honor to have this opportunity to compose a score to Gertrude’s poetry” said Mauro. In end, the postlude, the work offers a sense of repose and hope. The persistence of hope is reflected in the piano part and provides a foundation to the pastoral and emotional landscape represented in the cello melody. The spoken word pieces are a bit different. Here the composer chose a completely different medium, more modern and atonal a-centric free form.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and students. To reserve seats in advance, please call Eve Rifkah at 508-853-4143 or by email or Jayne Wilson at 508-229-8898.