Poetry Monday: the first of all my dreams

I've had Ellen Mandel's exquisite the first of all my dreams on an endless loop in my car. The CD is the most wonderful musical rendering of the poetry of ee cummings, W.B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Glyn Maxwell and some of Mandel's own work too. That kind of line up would be enough to entice me. However, Mandel has managed to enhance the beauty of the work through richly extraordinary musical compositions, and the most amazing vocals by tenor Todd Almond. You can read my full, detailed review of the CD here at The Compulsive Reader.  Then check out, just for example, the ee cummings poem "stinging gold": 
http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/10128/

and listen to what Mandel does with it here: http://www.ellenmandel.com/audio/TODD_ALMOND_AND-stinging_gol_hifi.m3u

You can check out more of her amazing work with tons of sample tracks at http://www.ellenmandel.com/music.html.  This is truly music for poetry lovers.  Go, now, and get yourself a copy. You can thank me later.