Four-time Grammy winner Rosanne Cash is something of a music legend. She's also an author whose memoir Composed was a bestseller and whose influences range from Laurence Olivier to Madeline Castaing. For this week's New York Public Library Podcast, we're proud to present Rosanne Cash discussing Shakespeare, performing, and a favorite poem.
Cash is a great Shakespeare fan and spoke about the reasons she admires the Bard. She also shared a surprising way that Shakespeare helps her:
"That's why Shakespeare moves me so much: not just that it's the most beautiful language ever written but that the depth of a soul that could that, his facility with language aside, the depth of a soul that could come up with those characters and those stories and this deep understanding. When I can't fall asleep at night, I have this-- you know you have a scene you come up with to fall asleep?... I imagine Shakespeare being rode across the Thames from the Globe on the south bank to the Master of the Revels office on the other bank in what's now Islington and taking his manuscript of Hamlet up to get permission to stage it. I just go over and over that. Yes, it makes everything make sense."
As many know, Cash's father was the legendary Johnny Cash. She related his advice to her as a performer:
"He taught me to respect my audience, and a lot of the integrity is in that as a performer. You know, he said, 'Never forget which town you're in. Never forget that people have used their hard-earned dollars to buy a ticket to come see you. Show up on time. Show up when you're performing, really show up.' So that has its own integrity and then ruthlessness as a writer is a separate integrity."
One of Cash's favorite poems is "Wait" by Galway Kinnell, a poem written for a student who was considering committing suicide. She discussed why she finds it beautiful:
"The way he circles around music, all of the things that are musical that aren't music: I love that. He gets to these very mundane things: 'Hair will be interesting again.' Pain will be interesting again, but so will hair! The gloves will fit again. There's a lot of kindness in that poem, to write it for someone who was thinking of suicide, and compassion: 'Just wait.'"
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