Ten Poems About Music

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