Cammy Thomas
Welcome!
My new book, Tremors, can be ordered now from Four Way Books.
Reviews of Tremors can be found here.
Excerpt from a review of Far Past War, a choral work composed by my sister Augusta Read Thomas, to my text, which premiered at the National Cathedral in Washington DC on Sunday, March 13, 2022:
“The most successful world premiere on the program was Augusta Read Thomas’s Far Past War, set to a two-part poem by Cammy Thomas, the composer’s sister. Read Thomas used the forces on hand, a large orchestra and chorus, more effectively, opening with a heraldic fanfare in the brass. The chorus built up vast, yearning clusters of sound, shadowed by the strings and interwoven with brass and bells. Surprising harmonic shifts, often begun by destabilizing notes in the low brass, added an aura of mystery.
"Fox conducted…with admirable care, marshaling his ensemble in the Thomas work to a triumphant climax on the words 'drop far past war.' Soft echos on the words 'take us take us too,' answered by a dulcet violin solo, offered a prayer on behalf of all people.”
By Charles T. Downey, Mar 14, 2022
Washington Classical Review
(Full review is here.)
Some recent and upcoming events:
Sunday, March 13, 2022, 4 pm.
Two of my poems are the text of Far Past War, a new choral work by my sister, composer Augusta Read Thomas, premiered by the Cathedral Choral Society in the Washington National Cathedral
3101 Wisconsin Ave., NW, Washington DC
Monday, April 4, 2022, 7 pm.
Reading with Regie Gibson
Cary Library Poetry Series
Cary Memorial Library, 1874 Mass. Ave, Lexington MA
HYBRID reading.
Sunday, April 10, 2022, 2 pm.
ZOOM reading with Ilene H. Rudman, with open mic to follow
Brookline Poetry Series sponsored by the Brookline Public Library
Fall, 2022
Performance of musical settings of Emily Dickinson's poems
Annina Hsieh, soprano
Tom Daley will recite poems
I will read from Dickinson's letters
This is a rescheduled event, date TBA
Lexington Community Education
Fall, 2022
Teaching Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra
Lexington Community Education
Seven Thursday evenings at 7:30
Begins Sept. 15
https://lexingtoncommunityed.org/
(Fall information will be posted at end of summer.)
. . .
Poem of the Month:
Infant Joy
by William Blake
I have no name
I am but two days old.—
What shall I call thee?
I happy am
Joy is my name,—
Sweet joy befall thee!
Pretty joy!
Sweet joy but two days old,
Sweet joy I call thee;
Thou dost smile.
I sing the while
Sweet joy befall thee.