Not long ago I received a text message asking the question, “WHO ARE YOU?” I might have simply laughed and hit delete, but this message wasn’t spam from some unknown number. The sender was, in fact, a musician with whom I have maintained a close friendship for the better part of three decades, and she had just picked up my recently published book of poetry, Not a Violin (Kelsay Books, 2025). Few of my colleagues are aware that I’ve been writing short fiction most of my life or that over time, my literary interests expanded to include poetry. The publication of Not a Violin was a culmination of more than seven years spent studying and practicing poetry, both as a craft and an artform. And while one could say the resulting collection is a memoir of sorts, the reality is more nuanced.

Like any professional musician, I’ve been at times haunted during my career by inner demons, both inherited and self-inflicted. Not the least of these included growing up in a cultural and familial atmosphere that claimed to value artistic endeavor, but at the same time assigned great importance to matters of personal gain, possession and wealth. Somewhere inside of me a voice was asking: after all those years in practice rooms and after a lifetime in music, what tangible thing do we as musicians have to show for it? If the essence of music is the shared experience between performer and listener, what happens when the symphony ends and the concert hall goes dark? Is all that’s left just our memory of it? As performers we may collect file cabinets full of programs and, if we are lucky, have some recordings to our name, but I would argue these are nothing more than facsimiles of the shared human experience that live music, in all its forms, provides us with.

With these questions in mind, I set about writing poetry that tried to capture, on some level, the experience of performing, of listening to—concerts, recitals, ballets, operas, chamber music, and Broadway shows. Drawing from personal experience, my goal was to put into writing a record of sorts, of all the many performances I’ve shared or been a part of, and just as importantly, the road we as musicians must take in our lives to attain excellence.

There came a point when a writer friend (also a violinist) speculated that I had accumulated enough work to put together a collection for submission to publishers. She was right, and I turned to the daunting task of paring my work down into a well-thought-out manuscript and the frightening prospect of sending it out to publishers. I knew almost nothing about the publishing world and wasn’t prepared for the extraordinary and eye-opening experience I was about to embark upon. With some perseverance and luck, there came a day in April 2025 when I opened my inbox and found a contract for book publication from the highly respected Karen Kelsay of Kelsay Books. Less than a year later, Not a Violin became reality.

In addition to my publisher, I am indebted to countless friends, family members and colleagues, both musical and literary, for their tireless help and encouragement in this endeavor. Without them, it would never have happened.

Of the book itself, I like to think there’s a little something in it for everyone, from the sentimental to the surreal. I’ve referred to one poem as the centerpiece of Not a Violin: “Adagio for Strings.” (It could just as easily have been entitled “Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony No. 41,” or “Coltrane’s Giant Steps.”) In this poem, the Barber Adagio appears repeatedly, each time reimagined in physical form—a postage stamp, for example. A bright light. A Lamborghini. A pair of scuba fins. A paper airplane. Thus, every performance in history of the Barber Adagio has been laid out on a kitchen table. More than just a memory now, the piece has taken physical form and will remain once we are gone, for the world to own and cherish.

“Who am I?” I am not a violin, and while I am certainly not a book of poetry, this collection was born out of a yearning to hold every performance, every piece of music any of us have ever played, in my hand and say this belongs to us. It belongs to you; it belongs to me. We must treasure every performance, every note of a lifetime in music. And it must be our duty to pass down our overtures, our symphonies and Broadway shows, in the hope they may remain alive in every concert hall of tomorrow.

I Am Not a Violin

Nothing unreal exists and yet
I lie in pieces:
spruce, maple, rosewood, cuttings of ebony.
Alongside fine chisels and sandpaper, I wait

for the artisan’s glue so that I may rise again
and wander the world to protect you.
Like air, I’ll rise.
I am your canopy of trees.

Coltrane took his sax out of the case
and made it look easy.
With butterflies and ravens
his fingers flew

rising like moons and suns—
the Coltrane riffs, they kept
bending the blues, waggling the improv
with the certainty of tides,

the alto, the tenor, the real, the unreal
existing in pieces, in riffs
made up. I never could make shit up
but still, I fly. I am your compass—

I am not a violin, I am not a sax,
more an orphan sold by nuns
to Sephardic Jews. They glued me together
and sent me out to wander the world.

Copyright © 2025 by Martin Agee

Martin Agee’s career as a violinist has brought him to the major concert venues, recording studios and theatres of New York City for over 35 years. “Not a Violin” is his first full-length poetry collection. He’s been a member of Local 802 since 1981.

Personal essays published in Allegro (including MEMBER TO MEMBER) do not necessarily represent the opinions of the union or its members, officers or staff. To give feedback on this article or submit something to Allegro for consideration, send to allegro@local802afm.org.