Name: I Am Learning To Abandon the World
Duration: P00H03M37S
Description: Responding to its sense of world weariness, the composer constructs this setting of Pastan’s “I Am Learning To Abandon the World” over a single iteration of a standard 12-bar blues progression — here in super slo-mo.

I Am Learning To Abandon the World

from The White Album by Mark Kilstofte

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Responding to its sense of world weariness, the composer constructs this setting of Pastan’s “I Am Learning To Abandon the World” over a single iteration of a standard 12-bar blues progression — here in super slo-mo.

lyrics

I AM LEARNING TO ABANDON THE WORLD

I am learning to abandon the world
before it can abandon me.
Already I have given up the moon
and snow, closing my shades
against the claims of white.
And the world has taken
my father, my friends.
I have given up melodic lines of hills,
moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.
And every night I give my body up
limb by limb, working upwards
across bone, towards the heart.
But morning comes with small
reprieves of coffee and birdsong.
A tree outside the window
which was simply shadow moments ago
takes back its branches twig
by leafy twig.
And as I take my body back
the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap
as if to make amends.

Linda Pastan
(b. 1932)

Rights granted by Linda Pastan c/o the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, Inc. The work was originally published in “PM/AM” (W.W. Norton, 1982).

credits

from The White Album, released December 16, 2021

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about

Mark Kilstofte

Mark Kilstofte is admired as a composer of lyrical line, expert text setting and keen sensitivity to sound, shape and event – qualities stemming in part from his many years of vocal study. Winner of the Rome Prize, his honors also include ASCAP’s Rudolf Nissim Award, the Copland House Residency Award and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. ... more

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