Reviews

The book, Writings for an Open Mind, Volume I, was a sensitive outlook on the writer's thoughts (not necessarily my thoughts) but it did provoke my own feelings in my life. It is not a book that you can just read through easily. The reader does have to digest slowly and think. I believe the writer wanted to provoke the reader into a deeper thought process. I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to a person who likes poetry. 

I recently read a book titled, Writings for an Open Mind, Volume I. I found the book to be both reflective and thought-provoking; sensing the honesty in the writer's rhetoric. This book is suited for an open-minded reader willing to glimpse life through someone else's perspective, which at times seems dark and against the grain. Although the reader can identify with the writer's cynicism there also seems to be an underlying sense of hope and perseverance that the writer is trying to impress upon his audience.

When I first read the title of the poem, Lullaby, I thought, of course, it was going to be a sweet, somewhat child-like poem, which intrigued me. Knowing beforehand, in person, the author of the poem, I thought it was an unusual choice of theme that he would make for a poem of his own. Knowing this, I continued to read it and I was impressed by how not child-like at all the poem is. It's actually quite dark and even bloody! It seemed like a poem based on horror movies that use child references like toys, dolls, and infantile songs. I love the twist he gave to the poem and the excellent use of the title! Especially when I heard a recording of the author reciting it. I loved how he recited it with the melody and rhythm of a real lullaby, giving both a musical and hypnotizing feel. This poem is great! Very artistic. And has an excellent use of very opposite components of a dark and bloody theme with sweet, infantile references like the title, the melody when it was recited, and specially the line "Hush little baby, don't you cry." With this is mind, I decided to make the music for the poem with the melody of the lullaby. I arranged the music to make it sound dissonant, using bitonality in the keys of B and C, which are half step from each other creating a very strong dissonance. I made use of this dissonance to interpret the great irony and very dark feel the poem presents. I also used a 2/4 meter with a "jumpy" Ragtime feel to
it to interpret the strength and presence of the irony this poem plays
with, yet I kept the music in very low octaves to give it the overall
dark, heavy aura that the poem has. Very creative, indeed! A very open poem for lots of interpretations. I definitely recommend reading it as well as listening to the audio.

Winnie Felicano

Student at The Music Conservatory of San Juan Puerto Rico

Music Composer for "Lullaby"