Triad

When I had the opportunity to work with Asia, I had another text in mind to set. I loved the poem but had struggled to set it for months. Then, I came across Adelaide Crapsey's “Triad,” and immediately I could hear it in my head. I think sometimes the work finds me and taps me on the shoulder to bring it to life.

Adelaide Crapsey was an American poet best known for inventing the American cinquain, a five-line form inspired in part by Japanese haiku and tanka. Her concentrated poems bring precise sensory imagery to encounters with beauty, longing, and mortality.

These be three silent things: The falling snow . . . the hour Before the dawn . . . the mouth of one Just dead.

— Adelaide Crapsey