Above: Catherine Carter

A poem by professor Catherine Carter will enjoy a new life as a musical creation on the London stage this summer.

Arlene Sierra, an American composer living in London, selected Carter’s work “Hearing Things” as the basis for a piece for soprano and piano. Sierra has composed for and her works have been played by the BBC National Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic, London’s Schubert Ensemble and the London Sinfonietta among others. “Hearing Things” will be performed by internationally acclaimed soprano Claire Booth and award-winning pianist Andrew Matthews-Owen.

“Naturally, I was very pleased to hear about it, and hope it may be possible for me to hear a recording of the performance in London,” Carter said.

Carter is director of the English education program; teaches education, writing and literature courses; and publishes and researches in poetry, American literature and English education. Her work “The Memory of Gills” “exudes a genuinely classical quality - cool-eyed and clear-eyed, intelligent, unsentimental, self-aware and witty in the fullest and best sense,” hails publisher Louisiana State University Press. It won the Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry and was nominated for a National Book Award.

Currently, Carter is circulating a chapbook tentatively titled “The Swamp Monster at Home” and working on a second full-length collection of poems.

The composition of “Hearing Things” will premiere June 10 at the Louise Blouin Institute in London.

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Last Modified: Wednesday, May 6, 2009