Blues Poems

by YOUNG, KEVIN

• ISBN13: 9780375414589
• ISBN10: 0375414584
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-09-02
• Publisher: Everyman's Library

Summary

The blues--a musical tradition uniquely American--has had a powerful influence on American poets, and this scintillating anthology offers a richness of poetry as varied and vital as the music that inspired it.

Author Biography

KEVIN YOUNG is the author of ten books of poetry, including Book of Hours, winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award; Ardency: A Chronicle of the Amistad Rebels, winner of a 2012 American Book Award; and Jelly Roll: A Blues, a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the editor of The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food & Drink and seven other collections. His book The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness won the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and won the PEN Open Book Award. He is currently the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing and English and curator of both Literary Collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at Emory University.

Table of Contents

Foreword	13	(6)
STANDARDS (Blues Poems before World War II)
LANGST0N HUGHES The Weary Blues	19	(2)
LANGSTON HUGHES Morning After	21	(1)
LANGSTON HUGHES Beale Street Love	22	(1)
LANGSTON HUGHES Song for a Dark Girl	23	(1)
LANGSTON HUGHES Midwinter Blues	24	(1)
LANGSTON HUGHES Too Blue	25	(1)
LANGSTON HUGHES Note on Commercial Theatre	26	(1)
FENTON JOHNSON Tired	27	(1)
CLAUDE McKAY The Harlem Dancer	28	(1)
NANCY CUNARD Memory Blues	29	(1)
COUNTEE CULLEN Colored Blues Singer	30	(1)
STERLING BROWN Ma Rainey	31	(3)
STERLING BROWN Choices	34	(2)
NOCOLÁS GUILLÉN High Brown	36	(1)
MELVIN B. TOLSON Sootie Joe	37	(1)
MAXWELL BODENHEIM Street-level Jazz	38	(2)
W. H. AUDEN Blues	40	(2)
W. H. AUDEN Funeral Blues	42	(1)
MURIEL RUKEYSER George Robinson: Blues	43	(3)
LEOPOLD SENGHOR Ndéssé, or "Blues"	46	(1)
OWEN DODSON Guitar	47	(2)
CHARLES EDWARD SMITH Blues Stanzas	49	(1)
RICHARD WRIGHT AND LANGSTON HUGHES Red Clay Blues	50	(2)
RICHARD WRIGHT The FB Eye Blues	52	(2)
VINCENT McHUGH Dicty Blues	54	(1)
WARING CUNEY Down-home Boy	55	(1)
WARING CUNEY Carry Me Back	56	(1)
WARING CUNEY Let Me Tell You Blues Singers Something	56	(1)
GWENDOLYN BROOKS Queen of the Blues	57	(6)
SOME SONGS
W. C. HANDY St. Louis Blues	63	(3)
MAMIE SMITH Crazy Blues	66	(2)
MA RAINEY See See Rider Blues	68	(1)
BESSIE SMITH Empty Bed Blues	69	(3)
BESSIE SMITH Backwater Blues	72	(2)
BESSIE SMITH Gimme a Pigfoot	74	(2)
IDA COX Wild Women Don't Have the Blues	76	(1)
RICHARD M. JONES Trouble in Mind	77	(2)
BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed	79	(2)
SON HOUSE Death Letter Blues	81	(5)
ROBERT JOHNSON Kindhearted Woman Blues	86	(2)
ROBERT JOHNSON Hellhound on My Trail	88	(2)
ROBERT JOHNSON Love in Vain	90	(2)
JIMMY RUSHING Sent for You Yesterday	92	(1)
LEAUBELLY Good Morning Blues	93	(2)
MUDDY WATERS Hoochie Coochie Man	95	(2)
BIG MAMA THORNTON Hound Dog	97	(4)
FORM
JAYNE CORTEZ You Know	101	(3)
AMIRI BARAKA Look for You Yesterday, Here You Come Today	104	(5)
SONIA SANCHEZ Blues	109	(1)
SONIA SANCHEZ Blues Haikus	110	(2)
SONIA SANCHEZ Set. No. 2	112	(1)
NIKKI GIOVANNI Master Charge Blues	113	(2)
MARGARET WALKER Inflation Blues	115	(3)
QUINCY TROUPE Woke Up Crying the Blues	118	(2)
ELIZABETH ALEXANDER Letter: Blues	120	(2)
A. VAN JORDAN Cheating Woman Blues Haiku	122	(1)
ETHERIDGE KNIGHT Feeling Fucked/Up	123	(4)
FACING OFF
JAMES C. MORRIS The Blues	127	(1)
KENNETH REXROTH Married Blues	128	(1)
KENNETH PATCHEN Lonesome Boy Blues	129	(1)
HENRY DUMAS Concentration Camp Blues	130	(1)
HENRY DUMAS Outer Space Blues	131	(1)
DEREK WALCOTT Blues	132	(2)
SHERMAN ALEXIE Reservation Blues	134	(1)
GUSTAVO PÉREZ FIRMAT Bilingual Blues	135	(1)
MARILYN CHIN Blues on Yellow	136	(2)
CARL PHILLIPS Blue	138	(2)
GAVL JONES Deep Song	140	(2)
CALVIN FORBES Soledad	142	(1)
CALVIN FORBES Some Pieces	143	(2)
DARRELL BURTON Broom Song	145	(1)
ALLEN GINSBERG Sickness Blues	146	(2)
SANDRA McPHERSON Bad Mother Blues	148	(2)
AFAR M. WEAVER Rambling	150	(2)
JUNE JORDAN Uncle Bull-boy	152	(2)
TRACIE MORRIS Get Away 1928	154	(2)
SEAN HILL Joe Chappel's Foot Log Bottom Blues 1952	156	(2)
ALAN DUGAN Swing Shift Blues	158	(1)
BILLY COLLINS The Blues	159	(4)
FIGURES
SHERLEY ANNE WILLIAMS Any Woman's Blues	163	(2)
CORNELIUS EADY I'm a Fool to Love You	165	(2)
CORNELIUS EADY Muddy Waters & the Chicago Blues	167	(1)
CORNELIUS EADY Leadbelly	168	(1)
KEVIN YOUNG Langston Hughes	169	(2)
WILLIE PERDOMO Song for Langston	171	(1)
STERLING PLUMPP Muddy Waters	172	(2)
HONOREE FANONNE JEFFERS Big Mama Thornton	174	(1)
CHARLES WRIGHT Poem Almost Wholly in My Own Manner	175	(3)
JOHN BERRYMAN Dream Song [no, 40]	178	(1)
DAVID WOJAHN John Berryman Listening to Robert Johnson's King of the Delta Blues, January 1972	179	(1)
FORREST HAMER Arrival	180	(1)
DAVID RIVARD Not Guilty	181	(2)
ALFRED ENCARNACION Bulosan Listens to a Recording of Robert Johnson	183	(4)
FREIGHT
AL YOUNG The Blues Don't Change	187	(2)
G. E. PATTERSON Cinderella	189	(1)
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Annabelle	190	(1)
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA For You, Sweetheart, I'll Sell Plutonium Reactors	191	(2)
YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA Woman, I Got the Blues	193	(1)
CATHERINE BOWMAN Hard-Luck Resume	194	(1)
THOMAS McGRATH Gone Away Blues	195	(2)
ROBERT CREELEY Broken Back Blues	197	(2)
JOSEPH BRODSKY Blues	199	(1)
WILLIAM MATTHEWS Narcissus Blues	200	(1)
RAYMOND R. PATTERSON Special Pain Blues	201	(2)
TOI DERRICOTTE Blackbottom	203	(2)
MAJOR JACKSON How to Listen	205	(1)
JANE COOPER Wanda's Blues	206	(2)
ALBERT MURRAP From Aubades	208	(2)
NATASHA TRETHEWEY At the Station	210	(2)
JEFF FALLIS Nosferatu Blues	212	(2)
CHARLES SIMIC Bed Musk	214	(1)
JOHN YAU Domestic Bliss	215	(2)
BOB KAUFMAN Blues for Hal Waters	217	(2)
BOB KAUFMAN Heavy Water Blues	219	(3)
WANDA COLEMAN Heavy Daughter Blues	222	(3)
TERRANCE HAYES The Things-No-One-Knows Blues	225	(2)
ANTHONY WALTON The Encyclopedia of Rhythm and Blues	227	(4)
FINALE (For Bessie Smith)
ALVIN AUBERT Bessie	231	(1)
ROBERT HAYDEN Homage to the Empress of the Blues	232	(1)
JACKIE KAY Twelve Bar Bessie	233	(2)
MYRON O'HIGGINS Blues for Bessie	235	(3)
WARING CUNEY Bessie Smith	238	(1)
COLLEEN J. McELROY Mae West Chats It Up with Bessie Smith	239	(2)
MICHAEL S. HARPER Last Affair: Bessie's Blues Song	241	(2)
List of Authors	243	(4)
Acknowledgments	247