Street Music: City Poems

by Arnold Adoff, Karen Barbour (Illustrations)

A richly varied collection of poetry celebrates the sights, sounds, people, and rhythms of the city, from a skyscaper that touches the clouds to a Sunday concert in the park to the noisy honking of horns during a traffic jam.

Genres: Poetry, Childrens

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 3, 1995

Reviews

[Jeimy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Whoever designed the book itself did such a horrible job! I should have loved these vignettes of city life and the colorful illustrations that accompany them, but my eyes were fighting with the background colors so much that reading this book became a frustrating experience.

[Daniel Kleven · Rating 5 out of 5]

A free verse poem from this book ("Street Music") is referenced in Sharon Creech, Love That Dog, and both are part of Wit & Wisdom 4th grade. I enjoyed the whole book, and I think the illustrations add a vital component to engaging the text. A great book engaging urban sights, sounds, and experiences through the eyes of a young person.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adoff’s poems in this collection provide wonderful sensory images and play with rhythm and form in a manner appealing to young readers and reminiscent of e.e. cummings. This work provides an excellent platform for teaching poetic concepts of imagery, form, assonance, onomatopoeia and other traditional literary elements to elementary, middle school and even high school* students. While the image of a busy city would be familiar to many readers, the author also provides an alternate view, often looking at the city in a way which makes the city come alive and fill with magic (“the / magic / of tall buildings / pushing through the clouds”). Despite this appreciation for the magic and vivacity of the city, Adoff does not ignore the darker side of city life, with poems which refer to a homeless woman and her two daughters and “Pigeons with red eyes / [who] peck at empty crack vials.” Each poem is printed in the colored negative space of Barbour’s two page vivid, colorful and boldly outlined illustrations. Barbour’s use of color (ex. red for a poem about fire trucks) helps draw out the tone of Adoff’s poems and her boldly delineated figures create a sense of motion and life to echo the rhythm of the words. Although the figures in the illustrations are culturally diverse, Barbour tends to be quite stereotypical in her use of gender. In fact, overall the figures are overwhelmingly male. Despite this, the illustrations reflect and add to the poems.
*I have used poems from this book in both 8th and 10th grade English classes. Students enjoyed the strong sensory images and the use of rhythm, often comparing them to music they listened to.

[Vianey Sanchez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Street Music by Arnold Adoff
Genre: Poetry
Summary: this is a collection of poems by Arnold Adoff using the theme of cities and urban areas. Each poem highlights a different aspect that can be identified in the city such as lights, different people, buildings and even homeless people found in the city and each raises a different issues or theme. It also includes colorful pictures that correlate to each poem.

Classroom use: When I looked through this book, I immediately made the connection with the city of Chicago which led me to think that this collection of poems can be used in a unit about Chicago, which I know is the case with the curriculum in third grade social studies. I think poems in this collection can be used to create visuals for students given the rich language in each poem, they can be used to build connections or unearth prior knowledge and it can also create a fun learning environment for students.

[Dorothy Carder · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had poems about the sounds of a city, and linked the sound of a garbage truck to an alarm clock for the narrator. I felt a lot of the poems were just words, even though they were still used to describe the sounds of the city. The illustrations showed the crowding of a city and the voice of the poems was that of a child who lived in the city. I also noticed how the title of each poem was also the first line in the poem. The book was chronological in nature, because it started with a poem about morning, then went into the seasons of summer, fall and winter, and ended with a poem about the night time.

[Gwendolyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Street Music: City Poems is a collection of poems about all the different sounds in the city. The poems compare the sounds to music, and the book is super colorful. There are so many different fonts in this book to show the importance of different lines and words in each poem. Many of the words are also spaced differently to place emphasis on them. The poems use a ton of imagery to take the reader to the heart of the city where their is all the hustle and bustle.

[RLL 22016 Shaquetta · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't too fond of this book but that might be because I'm not really interested in poetry. It could also be because the poems in this book didn't peak my interest. It's a book of poems that are talking about the streets, the weather and the days. It goes through these different things and gives vivid details about what happens morning, noon and night and when it's hot, warm or cold! Small children might be excited about it because it's colorful and has nice pictures.

[Lauren Richards]

After reading lots of poems that glorified nature and the rural country, I was interested to see a book that highlighted the city. Although I hold the country closer to my heart, I think a book about the city is a great resource. My favorite poem was "On Our Avenue of the World."

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

"On the way to Breakfast Sunday"

[Sarah Sammis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not sure what age this book is aimed at. The pigeons playing with empty crack vials took me by surprise.

[Randie D. Camp, M.S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adoff's poetry depicts life in the city across several seasons. Barbour's illustrations are warm and help the reader visualize the neighborhoods described.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I support independent bookstores. You can use this link to find one near you: http://www.indiebound.org

[Katy Pitrucha · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book of poems that describes the sights, smells, and sounds of living in the city.