Program Note

I was immediately drawn to Jackson Bilss’ sensual and romantic language in his poetry and knew I wanted to set his text to music some day. When soprano Lindsay Kesselman approached me about composing a song cycle for her upcoming album, I immediately knew I wanted to use Jackson’s poetry for our collaboration. Depicting the dark but sexy and sultry tone of Bliss’ Arson, the piano part acts as part of the drama to the dramatic scope of the text and all movements are played attacca.- Sarah Gibson

Arson
1.
Love is arson, the
Slow violence of desire.
Kisses spark in darkness,
Like stains of electric art.
Through lips, we become fire,
Inhaling cities of paper and
Kindle. Our tongues are a
Slow infantry, defending
A nation of flesh.
2.
Our legs rub together, flint turns
To flame, our skin igniting a war
Of amnesia underneath the sheets.
Struck by the timpani of your
Fingertips, my mouth, your mouth,
Locked together like
fairytale plots.
3.
Love is a chemical burn,
But underneath your canopy of hair,
Our kisses feel like melting wax, and
If we are victims, we are victims of
Our own pyromania, almost saviors of
Disregard, almost stencils of divinity.
4.
Cynical bodies: they claim
We are dusty jukeboxes, crushed
Halogen bulbs and butcher paper
Cranes. But when our skin burns
In unison, naked as a flame,
Flickering in the thick paste of
Night, we become avatars of dead
Language, coddling words that
Lovers kill when lovers speak.
-Jackson Bliss