SOURCE: A review of "I Live in Music," in Publishers Weekly, November 14, 1994, p. 65.

In the following review of "I Live in Music," the reviewer emphasizes the musical elements of the poems and makes note of the "mixed-media art" by Bearden which complements the poems.

This galvanic fusion of poetry and mixed-media art in "I Live in Music" leads readers on a dreamy stroll though a jazz-and-blues-drenched universe, from an urban setting to a bayou, Novelist/playwright Shange provides the synaesthetic text, imagining music through all the senses: "sound / falls round me like rain on other folks / … / i cd even smell it / wear sound on my fingers." Visually melodious collages by Bearden (1912–1988) offer a lyrical counterpart to Shange's verse. A biography at book's end quotes the artist as saying that as a painter, "You must become a blues singer—only you sing on the canvas"; his dynamic compositions, listed...