Amy Speace’s senior university lecture was a discussion on whether Bob Dylan is a poet or a songwriter. Now, Speace is living that dichotomy, as she releases a book of poetry called “The Cardinals” and a single, “Days of Letting Go.”
The line between the two art forms is at play in both pieces that she has released today: the song started as a poem, and a poem in the book began its life as a song. The poet Maggie Smith, whom Speace calls her mentor, encouraged her to turn the poem called “Bluegrass Highway,” written as part of her MFA thesis, into what would become “Days of Letting Go.”