Jazz Poems

by Young, Kevin

• ISBN13: 9781400042517
• ISBN10: 1400042518
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-11
• Publisher: Everyman's Library

Summary

Ever since its first flowering, jazz has had a powerful influence on American poetry; this scintillating anthology offers a treasury of poems that are as varied and as vital as the music that inspired them. From the Harlem Renaissance to the beat movement, from the poets of the New York school to the contemporary poetry scene, the jazz aesthetic has been a compelling literary forceone thatJazz Poemsmakes palpable. We hear it in the poems of Langston Hughes, E. E. cummings, William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara, and Gwendolyn Brooks, and in those of Yusef Komunyakaa, Charles Simic, Rita Dove, Ntozake Shange, Mark Doty, William Matthews, and C. D. Wright. Here are poems that pay tribute to jazz's great voices, and poems that throb with the vivid rhythm and energy of the jazz tradition, ranging in tone from mournful elegy to sheer celebration.

Author Biography

Kevin Young is the author of three previous collections of poetry and the editor of Library of America’s John Berryman: Selected Poems, Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets anthology Blues Poems, and Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers. His most recent book, Jelly Roll: A Blues, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and won the Paterson Poetry Prize. A recent Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, Young is currently Ruth Lilly Professor of Poetry at Indiana University.

Kevin Young’s Jelly Roll is available in Knopf paperback.

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. 11
Vamping (Early Jazz Poems)
Jazzonia	p. 21
Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret	p. 22
The Cat and the Saxophone (2 a.m.)	p. 23
Trumpet Player	p. 25
Jazz Fantasia	p. 27
Poem	p. 28
The Jazz of This Hotel	p. 30
"god pity me whom (god distinctly has)"	p. 31
Ol' Bunk's Band	p. 32
Cabaret	p. 34
Bringing Jazz	p. 39
Homage to Literature	p. 41
Jazz Band	p. 42
We Real Cool	p. 45
Swinging (Jazz Origins, New Orleans & Ellingtonia)
Touching the Past	p. 49
The Buddy Bolden Cylinder	p. 50
In Praise of Buddy Bolden	p. 52
Black and Blue (What Did I Do to Be So Black and Blue?)	p. 54
Louis Armstrong	p. 57
"Jelly wrote"	p. 59
The Fantastic Names of Jazz	p. 60
For Sidney Bechet	p. 61
Bix Beiderbecke (1903-1931)	p. 62
"Sure," said Benny Goodman	p. 63
Rose Solitude	p. 65
Lush Life	p. 68
Billy Strayhorn Writes "Lush Life"	p. 70
Four Bongos: Take a Train	p. 71
The Syncopated Cakewalk	p. 72
Mood Indigo	p. 74
Bop (Bird & Beyond)
War Memoir	p. 79
Walking Parker Home	p. 81
Crootey Songo	p. 83
Eleven from Velvet Bebop Kente Cloth	p. 84
Charles Parker, 1920-1955	p. 85
May 12	p. 87
Yardbird's Skull (for Charlie Parker)	p. 88
Chasing the Bird	p. 90
Charlie Parker Birthday Celebration, Tompkins Square Park	p. 91
Charlie Parker: Almost Like Being in Love	p. 93
Parker's Mood	p. 94
Victrola	p. 96
Filling the Gap	p. 97
Horn Section
Jazz	p. 103
Jazz Is My Religion	p. 104
Lester Young	p. 106
String of Pearls	p. 107
Pres Spoke in a Language	p. 109
Prez in Paris, 1959	p. 111
Personal Poem	p. 112
For Miles	p. 114
Blue in Green	p. 115
The Blues of This Day	p. 117
Melody Forensic	p. 119
Almost Blue	p. 121
Art Pepper	p. 125
Snake-Back Solo	p. 128
Body and Soul II	p. 130
Listening to Sonny Rollins at the Five Spot	p. 133
February in Sydney	p. 135
Sheets of Sound (Coltrane & Co.)
John Coltrane	p. 139
Dear John, Dear Coltrane	p. 140
Here Where Coltrane Is	p. 143
Reuben, Reuben	p. 145
Coltrane, Syeeda's Song Flute	p. 146
After the War; When Coltrane Only Wanted to Play Dance Tunes	p. 148
Alabama, c. 1963: A Ballad by John Coltrane	p. 150
William Carlos Williams	p. 152
Photo of John Coltrane, 1963	p. 153
Fall Down	p. 154
For Eric Dolphy	p. 155
Don't Cry, Scream	p. 156
Am/Trak	p. 162
Trane	p. 170
Blues for John Coltrane, Dead at 41	p. 171
Soloing	p. 172
"John Coltrane Arrived with an Egyptian Lady"	p. 174
Rhythm Section
Jazz	p. 179
Mingus at the Showplace	p. 180
Bud Powell, Paris, 1959	p. 182
One O'Clock Jump	p. 183
For Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers	p. 185
Shaking Hands with Mongo	p. 187
Copacetic Mingus	p. 188
Elegy for Thelonious	p. 190
Crepuscule with Nellie	p. 192
Snow	p. 194
Thelonious Sphere Monk	p. 196
Listening Images	p. 197
Ruby My Dear	p. 201
Free Jazz
Dark to Themselves	p. 205
Leaving Saturn	p. 207
C.T.'s Variation	p. 210
from Written to Music	p. 211
Music for Homemade Instruments	p. 213
Gyre's Galax	p. 214
Epistrophe	p. 218
Muting (for Billie Holiday)
Song for Billie Holiday	p. 221
Strange Fruit	p. 222
God Bless the Child	p. 223
Stardust	p. 224
The Secret Life of Musical Instruments	p. 227
Lady Sings the Blues	p. 229
Poem in Which I Make the Mistake of Comparing Billie Holiday to a Cosmic Washerwoman	p. 231
For Our lady	p. 234
What I'm Wild For	p. 235
The Day Lady Died	p. 237
Canary	p. 239
The Journey	p. 240
List of Authors	p. 243
Acknowledgments	p. 247
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