Here are fifteen music poems that describe the magic and complete power of music.
1. “She Sang My Soul Back Together” by Cleo Wade
A post shared by cleo wade (@cleowade) on Aug 16, 2018 at 8:46am PDT
2. “Latin & Soul” by Victor Hernandez Cruz
Excerpt: 1 some waves a shadow the shadows of dancers dancers they are dancing falling out that space made for dancing
3. “Things I Strongly Believe In” by Rudy Francisco
4. “Piano” by Dan Howell
Excerpt: Her wattled fingers can’t stroke the keys with much grace or assurance anymore, and the tempo is always rubato, halting, but still that sound—
5. “Music when Soft Voices Die (TO –)” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Excerpt: Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory— Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken.
6. “Tell Me How the World Ends” by Amanda Torroni
A post shared by Amanda Torroni (@amandatorroni) on Apr 13, 2018 at 1:04pm PDT
7. “A Poem in which I Try to Express My Glee at the Music My Friend Has Given Me” by Ross Gay
Excerpt: —for Patrick Rosal Because I must not get up to throw down in a café in the Midwest, I hold something like a clownfaced herd of bareback and winged elephants stomping in my chest, I hold a thousand kites in a field loosed from their tethers at once, I feel my skeleton losing track somewhat of the science I’ve made of tamp, feel it rising up shriek and groove,
8. “At Last” by Lang Leav
A post shared by Lang Leav (@langleav) on Jan 29, 2019 at 2:29pm PST
9. “The Everyday Enchantment of Music” by Mark Strand
Excerpt: A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music. Then the music was polished until it became the memory of a night in Venice when tears of the sea fell from the Bridge of Sighs, which in turn was polished until it ceased to be and in its place stood the empty home of a heart in trouble.
10. “A Poem for Ella Fitzgerald” by Sonia Sanchez
Excerpt: when she came on the stage, this Ella there were rumors of hurricanes and over the rooftops of concert stages the moon turned red in the sky, it was Ella, Ella.
11. “#2518” by Tyler Knott Gregson
A post shared by Tyler Knott Gregson (@tylerknott) on Feb 17, 2019 at 6:34pm PST
12. “The Guitar” by Federico Garcia Lorca
Excerpt: The weeping of the guitar begins. The goblets of dawn are smashed. The weeping of the guitar begins. Useless to silence it. Impossible to silence it.
13. “Choir” by William Nu’utupu Giles
(Trigger warning: Suicide.)
14. “Elegy” by Anne Stevenson
Excerpt: Whenever my father was left with nothing to do — waiting for someone to ‘get ready’, or facing the gap between graduate seminars and dull after-suppers in his study grading papers or writing a review — he played the piano.
15. “Tamara’s Opus” by Joshua Bennett
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