Forever Words, Johnny Cash
Forever Words, Johnny Cash
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Forever Words
The Unknown Poems

Author: Johnny Cash, Paul Muldoon, John Carter Cash

Narrator: Milton Bagby

Unabridged: 1 hr 25 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 10/09/2018

Synopsis

A collection of never-before-published poems by Johnny Cash, edited and introduced by Pulitzer-prize winning poet Paul Muldoon with a foreword by John Carter Cash. Illustrated with facsimile reproductions of Cash’s own handwritten pages.Since his first recordings in 1955, Johnny Cash was an icon in the music world. In this collection of poems and song lyrics that had never been published before, we see the world through his eyes and view his reflection on his own interior reality, his frailties and his strengths alike. In his hallmark voice, he pens verses about love, pain, freedom, and mortality, and expresses insights on culture, his family, his fame, even Christmas. Forever Words confirms Johnny Cash as a brilliant and singular American literary figure. His music is a part of our collective history, and here the depth of his artistry and talent become even more evident.

About Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) was an American icon and country music superstar. He performed everywhere from Folsom State Prison to the White House. In 1980 he became the youngest living person to be chosen for the Country Music Hall of Fame; he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1977, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2010. A recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors as well as the National Medal of Arts, he won nineteen Grammy Awards, four of them posthumously.

About Paul Muldoon

Paul Muldoon is the author of twelve collections of verse, including Moy Sand and Gravel, for which he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. He is Howard G. B. Clark Professor at Princeton University, and between 1999 and 2004 he was Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Since 2007, Muldoon has been poetry editor of the New Yorker. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Literature and of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

About John Carter Cash

John Carter Cash is the son of Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash. He is an award-winning record producer, singer-songwriter, and author.

About Milton Bagby

Milton Bagby, winner of the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration in 2017 and an AudioFile Earphones Award, has done radio and TV commercials for over twenty years. In 2011 he began recording voice-overs for audiobooks and to date has recorded over forty books for Audible, ACX, Books in Motion, and Radio Archives, among others.

Reviews

Goodreads review by julieta

Hay algo muy tierno en estos poemas, algo como sencillo y claro. Me hizo pensar en Jose Alfredo Jimenez, en esas canciones que tienen pocas palabras, pero al ser tan aterrizadas son muy sinceras y hermosas. Me tomó muy por sorpresa este libro, no soy particularmente fan de JC, y no sé exactamente có......more

Goodreads review by Sean Barrs

Johnny cash was much more than he seemed, as the “Man in Black” he acquired a reputation. Such a label does nothing but reduce his personality down to a dark and sombre state, which is drastically unfair. Indeed, as indicated by John Carter Cash’s forward, none of us really knew his farther. Most of......more

Goodreads review by Kris (My Novelesque Life)

FOREVER WORDS: THE UNKNOWN POEMS Written by Johnny Cash and Edited by Paul Muldoon 2016; 144 Pages (Blue Rider Press) Genre: poetry, songwriter, nonfiction ★★★ Since I was a kid I have been listening to Johnny Cash via my dad. It wasn't until I saw the movie Walk the Line that I came to appreciate Cash's......more

Goodreads review by Jeff

Earlier this school year (after Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for literature), I had my eighth grade honors students debate the question, "Is there a difference between poetry and song lyrics?" Furthermore, I asked them if they could tell the difference if they read them on a page. The consensus was......more

Quotes

“In some ways the poems mirror Cash’s songwriting, with terse ballads of outsiders in love and parables drawn from the Bible…Yet another look at a legend of American music.” New York Times

“The Man in Black was also an incredibly productive poet who was just as happy to let his pen do the talking…Love, mortality, addiction, humor, spirituality, pain, wonder, hope, heartbreak, freedom, and resignation all weave in and out of Cash’s poetry—just as they did in his songs—in an attempt to paint the most accurate portrait of his true self.” Rolling Stone

“In retrospect, we should have assumed that outlaw country musician Johnny Cash was leading a double life as a secret poet.” A. V. Club

“Johnny Cash left behind quite a trove of writings, his son John Carter Cash reveals, and from it this selection of song lyrics, both apparently finished and probably incomplete, has been drawn. Introducing them, editor Muldoon, a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, touches the right bases for appreciating both them and the recorded balance of Cash’s legacy. Those touchstones are the Scottish border ballads and Scots-Irish traditional song in general, the King James Bible, the cowboy song (especially, its humor and exaggeration), and the assurance of Christian faith; and Muldoon adduces the evidence of those influences directly from pieces in this book. He also argues the timelessness of Cash’s lyrics.” Booklist

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