ABOUT THE BOOK
Alicia Keys released her novel, Tears for Water: songbook of Poems & Lyrics, in 2004. Keys stated, “All my life, I’ve written these words with no thought or intention of sharing them. Not even with my confidants.” This novel consists of her innermost thoughts about everything; life, observations, emotions, her past, modern society, etc. “Some of them are painful; some of them are just observations, some silly, some that have affected me so deeply and with such frustration that they only way to express the confusion was to write it down.” Tears for Water is filled with a wide variety of poems, with various categories and topics, for instance, there are poems on war, prostitution, strippers, landscapes in Spain, democracy and politics, and more.

She says she calls this novel Tears for Water because, “…everything I have ever written has stemmed from my tears of joy, or pain, of sorrow, of depression, even of question.” Keys has a common style of writing throughout all of poems which permits the reader to relate to her poems without struggle. All of her poetry lacks a form of alliteration and assonance, the effect created when words with the same initial letter, either constants or vowels, are used in close proximity. Also, she uses a free verse structure, the lack of a formal meter or rhyme pattern and instead relies upon natural rhythms of her everyday speech. In certain poems, a form of dissonance is used, the deliberate use of inharmonious syllables, words, or phrases in order to create a harsh-toned effect. Along with the poems in this novel, she includes the lyrics to her first albums Songs in A minor and The Diary of Alicia Keys, and a few excerpts explaining the meaning behind some of her poems and why they were written.

Text and photographs by Alicia Keys

Umbrage Editions, New York, 2006. 112 pp., 10 color and b&w illustrations, 8½x11″.

ABOUT THE BOOK
A deeply personal photographic story told by Grammy Award-winner Alicia Keys as she journeys into the lives of the three million children affected by AIDS in Africa today. Keys, in association with Keep A Child Alive, present powerful, dignified photographs of families and children before and after they receive retroviral treatment, illustrating the transformative nature of medication.

The lives of these children and hundreds more has been dramatically and positively impacted by treatment. There is much to do, but it begins with one life, and then another, and yet another. Alicia Keys and her colleagues tell the story and show us the way.