“the lady of shalott” by alfred tennyson; song “the lady of shalott” by loreena mckennitt “because i could not stop for death” by emily dickinson; song “because i could not stop” by natalie merchant “promises like pie-crust” by christina rossetti; song “promises like pie-crust” by carla bruni “the two trees” by william butler yeats; song “the two trees” by loreena mckennitt plan to read the text version of the poem and listen to the song version a few times to get a good feel for the rhythm of each of the two versions. then, think about how it contributes to the feeling and meaning of the poem in both situations. write a short essay (200–400 words) comparing the two versions of the poem, considering the following questions: how does the meter of the poem change, if at all, when it is presented in song form? does the original poem have a meter that lends itself well to song lyrics? how, if at all, is the poem changed or presented differently as a song? why might the artist have made changes to the poem? does the poem take on a different meaning in song form than in poetic form?

The song “Promises Like Pie-Crust" by Carla Bruni has a pattern of meter that is different from the poem of the same name by Christina Rossetti. Fortunately, the original poem does have a meter that lends itself well to song lyrics and Carla Bruni created a romantic song adapting it!  

The stressed and unstressed syllables in the song form are arranged in a song structure that includes three separate parts. The first part becomes the verse, the middle has to be the chorus and then the last part is going to be the ending or break-down of the song.  

In order for Carla Bruni to be able to adapt the poem she needed to consider rhythm and meter as well as  the patterns of sound within “Promises like pie-crust".  The chages were made to the patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables that were used in the song form. This is the reason slight changes were made to the poem in the song form.  

The poem is changed and presented differently as a song because the chorus in the song structure is repeated several times during the song break-down.  

In conclusion Carla Bruni took a poem that didn’t have to take on a different meaning in song form than in poetic form and did a wonderful job! As stated previously, the poem already had a meter that lent itself well to song lyrics so the artis just needed structure and followed some steps. She first broke down the piece of poetry into smaller bits and in doing so imagined them as verse 1, pre-chorus, chorus, verse 1, chorus, break down. The next step was creating the melody for guitar patterns. The final step was a bit more of a detailed process and was basically taking the structure of the poem and turning it into basically a song structure taking some parts and then matching it up with melodies!