More than 50 poems and an accompanying CD introduce poetry with a beat.

Includes index.

Things /Eloise Greenfield -- Hip hop rules the world / Jacqueline Woodson -- I think I'll call it morning / Gil Scott-Heron -- Aloneness / Gwendolyn Brooks -- The girls in the circle / Nikki Giovanni -- From "Ham n eggs" / A tribe called Quest -- Music for fun and profit / Gary Soto -- Audition / Hope Anita Smith -- from "Hey Mama" / Kanye West -- Dream Boogie / Langston Hughes -- Funky snowman / Calef Brown -- Oh words / Eloise Greenfield -- from "Rapper's delight" / Sugarhill Gang -- from "Ladies first" / Queen Latifah -- People equal / James Berry -- from "It's love" / Jill Scott -- from "Umi Says" / Mos Def -- Taking action / James Berry -- Dream variations / Langston Hughes -- Allow me to introduce myself / Charles R. Smith, Jr. -- Me / Elizabeth Swados -- Dat dere / Oscar Brown Jr. -- Books / Eloise Greenfield -- For word / Benjamin Zephaniah -- Waitin' on summer / Ruth Forman -- Jimmy Wall, 14, boy evangelist / Walter Dean Myers -- from "Principal's office" / Young MC -- Love poem for my people / Pedro Pietri -- why some people be mad at me sometimes / Lucille Clifton -- from "Love is ..." / Common -- Harlem night song / Langston Hughes -- Harlem hopscotch / Maya Angelou -- from "The Creation" / James Weldon Johnson -- Ego tripping / Nikki Giovanni -- from "No regrets" / Aesop Rock -- First signature / Angela Shannon -- No images / William Waring Cuney -- Everything is everything / Lauryn Hill -- The Rose that grew from concrete / Tupac Shakur -- Long track blues / Sterling A. Brown -- from "Talkin' all that jazz" / Stetsasonic -- We real cool / Gwendolyn Brooks -- If we must die / Claude McKay -- We wear the mask / Paul Laurence Dunbar -- Who will cry? / Antwone Fisher -- The song of the smoke / W.E.B. DuBois -- Doubtless by Steve Ericson / Nikki Giovanni -- The negro speaks of rivers / Langston Hughes -- If we forget / Ja Jahannes -- from "I have a dream" / Martin Luther King Jr.