Today, as the weather in Rockville, MD cools down for a spell, I'd like to share with you Joan McNerney's lovely, atmospheric poem "Jazz." It is not inspired by a specific artist or song but by her immersion in Greenwich Village's jazz scene. She mentions having read some of her early poetry to the accompaniment of Karl Berger on the vibes as well as experiencing the "startling energy" of Gene Krupa's drumming.
Jazz
the kitchen sits
in fruit soup...
steamed apricot
mango shadow
down thru spinning
smoke into hot light
blink beat
body ends dangle
lead eye skin cement
high on tongue
night pasted among
buildings Styrofoam clouds
moon hung beneath billboard
rolling pass wet
rocked streets
soul tramp
diamond panhandlers watch
paper birds slices of
the daily news drift in air
comes cool ether
whispers up door
climbing dusty corridor
tree windows lapping lisp
door slams again noise again
then none void nothing syncopates
noise again door slams tree bare frozen
caught in the image of 7 candles
within 7 candles flames of air
7 light bulbs growing out of each other
7 silver circles coined from 7 silver rings
clear as blazing sheets
of glass yet
vague as dust
an ice cube on wood table
in front of crushed velvet
melt
poured
peeled
when this sky now boiling with
stars is strapped black
in pinched air thru sucked mind
swimming pass spaced time
will be one silent
note up.
Here are links to Karl Berger's work over the years:
For Gene Krupa's work, see these links:
Joan McNerney’s poetry has been included in numerous literary magazines such as Seven Circle Press, Dinner with the Muse, Blueline, Spectrum, three Bright Spring Press Anthologies and several Kind of A Hurricane Publications. She has been nominated three times for Best of the Net. Poet and Geek recognized her work as their best poem of 2013. Four of her books have been published by fine small literary presses and she has three e-book titles.
Twelve Months, one of her e-books, is available at Kind of a Hurricane Press' bookstore:
http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2013/06/twelve-months-joan-mcnerney.html
http://barometricpressures.blogspot.com/2013/06/twelve-months-joan-mcnerney.html
There is still time to send your poems to this "contest." For more details about what I am looking for, see this entry:
Some possible topics are Latin Jazz, the act of performance, the lives of musicians, women in jazz, and perhaps even musicians who do not play the piano!!
Watch this space for how you can vote in this contest and what the prize will be!!
For the previous poems that I've posted, see the links below:
We'll start with poems by Felino A. Soriano and a haiku by Gabrielle Grunau.
For more of Felino's poems and Kuroda's music, see this link: http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/07/takuya-kuroda-and-kris-bowers.html
Felino and H. Holt are also collaborating on a project linking word and image: http://www.pinterest.com/poetnpractice/experiential-cycles-of-elwood-oris-splaven/
It's really cool that they are using Pinterest to present poetry! (A number of journals are on Tumblr, so it's really not surprising. But it is.)
H. Holt's poem "Meliana exorcism" recently appeared in The Song Is...
http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/07/mehliana-exorcism.html
http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/07/mehliana-exorcism.html
You may also like Avis D. Matthews' "Metaphorical": http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/06/metaphorical.html
Russell Streur's "Johnny James": http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/07/johnny-james.html
Or Ed Schelb's "Blue Logic": http://thesongis.blogspot.com/2014/06/blue-logic.html
Joan's poem definitely evokes the feeling of jazz music or what I imagine it to be like. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by, Sandy. :) Hope all is well with you and yours.
DeleteThank you, Sandy!
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