This mini-anthology is one half of our double album of music poems. Musician and broadcaster Cerys Matthews’ lively selection celebrates the power of music in a dizzying variety of ways.
 
Some poems capture how music makes us feel – the irresistible urge to dance is brought vividly to life, for example, and there’s a merry gathering of poets and musicians with assorted instruments.
 
Others explore the emotions that music can stir, as in the poem about listening to a Frank Sinatra record:
 
“If love is some kind of dissolving,
I wanted to melt into the vibrato of your vocal chords,
to be carried, to be carried in your arms.”
from ‘Frank Sinatra’ by Jehane Markham
 
This selection spans the genres and the centuries – evidence (if needed) that music has been with us since we lived in caves and that it may well be true that we sang before we could speak.
 
Poems by Mandy Coe, Hafiz, Adam Horovitz, Michael Horovitz, Jehane Markham, Roger McGough, Kei Miller, Kim Moore, Siegfried Sassoon and Belinda Zhawi.
 
Cover illustration by Melissa Lhoirit.