Last week I went to an Irish friend's Bloomsday celebration, writes John L Walters. Food, drink, music and readings from the work of James Joyce (Bloomsday, June 16, is the day of the fictional Leopold Bloom's odyssey through the Dublin of 1904 in Ulysses). I didn't know quite what to expect, having only ever attended one Bloomsday event in the past, an afternoon lecture by Anthony Burgess at University College.

This was more relaxing, but also stimulating, as guests dug out their copies of Ulysses and Dubliners and read out extracts. Someone played a fiddle; another played guitar. There were jigs and songs such as She Moved Through The Fair. There was even a pub-style Bloomsday quiz. I felt a bit out of depth, having read Ulysses when I was too young to understand it, but it was a privilege to hear people take delight in words in this way.

My contribution was to read a couple of poems from Chamber Music. I feel quite possessive about these works because I once set four of them to music. When Susan Abbuehl's album Compass (ECM) turned up for review in the Guardian I had mixed feelings. One of Abbuehl's settings is Chamber Music number II, the one that begins: "The twilight turns from Amethyst, to deep and deeper blue," but I can't help thinking of that as mine.

Joyce's words are a gift for musicians - in metre, timbre, meaning and "singability" - which is why they are so often turned into songs. Chamber Music I, which begins "Strings in the earth and air," was set by Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band; also Syd Barrett, Luciano Berio and Samuel Barber. And it's possible that the catchiest piece John Cage ever wrote was The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs, for "voice and closed piano" (the pianist thumps the instrument). Robert Wyatt, Cathy Berberian and even Joey Ramone recorded it once. And there's Samba do Joyce, a charmingly non-avant-garde homage to the writer by his namesake, the Brazilian singer-songwriter Joyce.

I suspect that musicians like James Joyce because they recognise him as one of their own. Sound obsessed, single-minded, a bit bonkers. His words are more than mere words.

In his lecture, Burgess said that Joyce wrote like a composer: a phrase used early in the book might become a motif that could be repeated, developed, inverted, transposed and re-used later in the work. With Joyce, it's not about words and music - the words are music. That's why we love him. Even when we're baffled, he sounds great.

But next year, if I get invited to a Bloomsday party, I'll be more adventurous. I'll play Samba do Joyce. Or maybe I'll track down that Joey Ramone recording ...