Jivin' and A New Metered Riff by Mary Jo Balistreri

Painters and poets have developed a synergistic relationship over the years.  The classical author Ovid was known as "the painter's poet" for all of the art that his Metamorphoses had inspired over the years.  W.H. Auden's "Musee des Beaux Arts" is probably among the most well-known of the poems written in response to these paintings.  In any case, the modern ekphrastic poem survives and thrives.  (As the author of Poets.org's article on ekphrasis in poetry notes, " Ekphrastic poems are now understood to focus only on works of art—usually paintings, photographs, or statues. And modern ekphrastic poems have generally shrugged off antiquity’s obsession with elaborate description, and instead have tried to interpret, inhabit, confront, and speak to their subjects."  Mary Jo Balistreri's "Jivin'" fits very well into this category; moreover, it interprets, inhabits, confronts, and speaks to Stuart Davis' painting that interprets, inhabits, confronts, and speaks to jazz of the 1940s and 1950s.  "Premier," the painting shown above is but one of his responses to jazz.  Interestingly, "Premier" is composed of words as well as line, color, and shape, and, as Mary Jo commented, writing her poem involved "just unscrambl[ing] the words and [making] them play as I would notes on a page of piano music."

Jivin’

     after Stuart Davis: Premier, 1957

The cool cat juiced

on rhythm

zigzags

skit-scats

rides his horn’s wail

until sound bits blow

large as a wind-pumped

 bag

jumpin’ ‘round

corners, glidin’

‘long gutters, slicin’ hard-edged

color in billboard sass

rappin’ tappin’

in Manhattan, 

Harlem snappin’

moo cows happen

blow it man, snap to the beat

move those feet

dance any street

Meet it, man, treat it free

a music spree

come jive

                                            with me.

Below are other jazz paintings by Stuart Davis (1892-1964):

Mary Jo's next poem is more directly inspired by music, that is, by a local group of musicians she and her family "just happened to hear."  After that, she recalled that "this time the words came from the sound, pitch, register, melody. . .clarinet, sax, bass, piano."  This poem appeared in Kind of a Hurricane Press' recent anthology Tic-Toc under the title "Riffing on an Old Tune."

A New Metered Riff

Three adults and a newly minted teenager

   linger over lager

and lemonade  

    taco salads and quesadillas  

The moon hangs

 round and full

and we’re sure summer’s flavor is blueberry

Relaxed tonight, his words

 are open windows 

Paris light

champagne bubbly

whirling dervish of sound

bringing brio 

and abandon to the high

polished table

exploratory fire

free jazz

the old licks   quoted

in double-time

Here is a 1950 jam session with Coleman Hawkins, Ella Fitzgerald, Hank Jones, and Charlie Parker for Stuart Davis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B9tznrdsys

You may enjoy the link to "Parker's Mood" as well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nn_Nghem60&list=AL94UKMTqg-9BWiycabO1Z2Hp--1-Y_b1U

Some of you may be more familiar with King Pleasure's version with lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQffIjUOACo

Or as "Moody's Mood for Love":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ4xFBs08mQ

I will finish up with "Orinthology":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LphuCadyQi0

and with Mary Jo Balistreri's bio:

Mary Jo was a concert pianist and harpsichordist for most of her life, but with the death of her grandson in 2005, music, for the first time, did not help transcend grief. It could not give witness to the life of this child. With the help of other writers, Mary Jo began writing poetry and has never stopped. She now writes as much as she once practiced. She has two books of poetry, Joy in the Morning  and gathering the
harvest  published by Bellowing Ark Press and a chapbook, Best Brothers, published by *Tiger's
Eye Press.* She has three Pushcart nominations, and two Best of the Net. She is a founding member of Grace River Poets, an outreach for schools, women's shelters, and churches.

Enjoy!