I'm choosing "The Oven Bird" as my poem. I love the nostalgic feeling of it and I consider myself a rather lyrical composer so the bird material suits me. Here it is:

I suppose you'll take special light of the interesting choice of words in that last line?

F. Figaro,

This was one of my favorite one's on the list of "Mountain Interval" poems.

What do you feel defines lyrical for you personally in your compositions?

I'm looking forward to hearing your musical interpretation of this poem.

Well I as well as others have always felt my strongest quality as a composer is my ability to produce nice, lyrical melodies rather easily; lyrical meaning it's catchy and sticks your head. As I was reading this poem, a sort of pastoral melody immediately popped into my head and I thought I should run with it. I've never really composed anything in a pastoral-esque style so I looked for examples by the masters as to how I should go about composing this piece. One piece that immediately stuck out was Mozart's "The Hunt" String Quartet, where he mimicks bird calls. I thought a similar musical device in my piece would also work well. What I particularly like about this piece is its underlying nostalgia/sadness which could make for interesting modulations and material that contrasts nicely with the pastoral material.