Build Me a Boat gathers a selection of the words that poet Michael Dennis Browne has written for music over the past fifty years. Working with a number of different composers, Browne has ranged widely across forms; what we discover here are lyrics, song cycles, songs for children, excerpts from libretti—some of them in free verse, some of them formal—as well as poems that, while not written to be part of specific musical works, were nonetheless written with music in mind or under the influence of particular works. The result is a volume that sits comfortably between poetry and music, lyrical and rhythmic and memorable.