Official Review: Music Speaks by Bill Cushing

[Juliana_Isabella]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "Music Speaks" by Bill Cushing.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Music Speaks by Bill Cushing is a collection of poems centered around music and musicians. Each poem is inspired by a different aspect of music, like a notable artist, the feelings music inspires, or the style of a birdsong. The collection is united by the author’s unique style and his clear love for jazz.

When I began reading this collection of poetry, I was surprised by how clearly this author differentiates himself from other poets. Like most poets, Cushing uses rhyming words and carefully selected punctuation to create a rhythm is his poems, but he also makes uses of the space on the page. He may place only one word on a line, separating it from the rest of the thought and forcing the reader to focus on it, or he might arrange words like stair steps, altering how the reader perceives their rhythm. Cushing understands that the visual presentation of the poems can affect the reader’s experience just as much as word choice or punctuation can, and he uses this to create an extra dimension of rhythm, which complements his musical theme.

My only complaint about this collection is that it isn’t as professionally constructed as I would expect a published book to be. This may have been more obvious because I received a pdf copy, but the poems and pictures didn’t seem to be professionally arranged on the page. For example, each picture accompanying a poem was a different size. Also, I couldn't always discern if the picture accompanied the poem preceding or following it based on how the different elements were spaced. After seeing how much thought the author put into the arrangement of each poem, I was surprised he didn’t put more thought into the actual construction of the book.

Overall, I would rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. I truly enjoyed the author’s original style, and I liked that all the poems in the collection were unique but united by a common theme. Unfortunately, I had to remove one star because the book was not formatted professionally, although I was happy to see that there were no grammatical errors.

I would recommend this book to lovers of both poetry and music. Those who are especially interested in jazz will recognize many of the musicians mentioned in the collection and will enjoy the rhythm the author creates in each poem. This book is appropriate for all ages in terms of the content within it, but I believe adults who enjoy both jazz music and poetry are the most appropriate audience for this work.

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Music Speaks
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[kandscreeley]

I love music, but poetry just isn't my thing. I like the thought of this, but I don't think I'd like it in reality. I enjoyed your review, though. I'm sure it'll find its intended audience. Thanks.

[Jaime Lync]

I like poetry and music, so this might just be to my liking. I also appreciate the formatting techniques you mentioned. I have seen a poem entitled Tale formatted to resemble a Tail once, and that inspired me to try different formatting techniques as well in my poetry. I didn't dabble in it much, so I would like to see this poet's take on it.
Thanks for the informative review.

[KatCguD]

This sounds like something that would be right up my alley. Thanks for a great review!

[Twylla]

I recently started reading poetry and this book sounds great. Excellent review. The poetry sounds beautiful. I will plan to read this book!