Poetry Postcard 36: Singing the Blues

One of the most important things I have learned from the Poetry Postcard Project is that I love research.

The postcards have taken me to new places (City of Rocks, New Mexico; Fort McClellan, Alabama) and introduced me to fascinating lives (Vera Ellen, Debra Paget, Sarah Bernhardt).

Postcard 36 came from the book, Women Who Dared. I’d heard of blues great Bessie Smith (on the cover), but didn’t know anything about her.

Step 1: Listen to Bessie Smith recordings on YouTube.

I’ve only written one intentionally blues-influenced poem. It is a tribute to Etta James, who died last year. You can read the found poem, taken from a Women In Jazz interview with James, at the SPARK website. Several artists used the poem, “Feel What I'm Singing,” as an inspiration piece. Check out the cool art!

Step 2: Read some online biographies.

I thought I might write about Janis Joplin’s obsession with Smith, which led Joplin to buy a gravestone for the singer. But I abandoned that idea. I wanted the poem to focus on Smith.

Instead, I ended up using lyrics from several of Smith’s songs to structure a new poem, inspired by the hat she holds in the photograph. (Another feathered hat appeared in postcard poem 33.)

The Day You Quit Me

I got a hat made of feathers,

put it on and men start to cry.

I got a hat made of feathers

and someday they’re gonna fly.

If you ever quit me, honey,

they’re gonna lift me to the sky.

I’ll put on a red dress,
I’ll put on my hat,
I’ll sing like a robin
if you’ll just stay

where you’re at.

I got this hat made of feathers
bluer than the empty sky.

The day you quit me, honey,

is the day I’m gonna die.

Laura Shovan

The person who received this postcard suggested setting the poem to music. What do you think?

Here's another intersection between postcards and music, sent to me by poet Allan Roy Andrews:

Violinist Hilary Hahn's online "Postcards From the Road."

Hahn started the project fifteen years ago as a way to communicate with a group of third graders. Her project includes photographs from her travels accompanied by postcard-length reports and musings.

Allan suggests great listening if you track Hahn’s performances on YouTube. Here, Hilary Hahn performs Ernest Chausson "Poeme" Op. 25 in October of 2012.

Postcard Information:

WOMEN WHO DARED

Bessie Smith (American, 1894-1937) made her first recording in 1923 (“Downhearted Blues”), and it quickly established her as the most successful black recording artist of her day. Her personal and musical power as a blues and jazz singer pushed out the boundaries of both female and African-American expression for a new mass audience.

Prints and Photographs Division

©Library of Congress

Pomegranate, Box 6099, Rohnert Park, CA 94927

Links for Bessie Smith:

Biography: http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/smit-besx.htm

Biography: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/jarvis6.html

Inspiration Lyrics, "Downhearted Blues": http://www.lyricstime.com/bessie-smith-downhearted-blues-lyrics.html

Poetry Friday: Love to Langston

It's just over one month until the 2012 presidential election. Among the many children's books related to the presidency and the election is poet Tony Medina's The President Looks Like Me. It will be out from Just Us Books in time for the election.

 

Tony Medina reading at the Bethesda, MD Writers Center.

Dr. Medina, who teaches at Washington DC's Howard University, is best known as an award-winning poet for adults. However, he --  like poet Lucille Clifton, who I blogged about last week -- is also a prolific children's author.

As we count down to the election, I am going to feature several of Tony's children's books. On November 2, the Friday before election day, the good Doctor will stop by for an interview about The President Looks Like Me.

Let's start with Love to Langston (Lee & Low Books, Inc., 2002), Tony's wonderful verse biography of poet Langston Hughes.

The book opens with "Little Boy Blues." Young Langston is bored at home with a snoozing grandmother, unable to play outside because the "white kids chase me/ 'cause of my brown brown skin." 

But it is that same grandmother who tells Langston stories about Africa, slavery, the Underground Railroad and John Brown. We watch the poet navigate racism at school, his troubled relationship with his father, and a trip to Africa. He finds solace in libraries, "beautiful words/ keeping me company/ taking my loneliness/ and blues/ away."

My favorite poem in this biography, which extends through Hughes' adult life, is "Harlem Is the Capital of My World."

I read this poem to a group of fifth graders when we were writing odes together. They were caught up in the music of Tony's poem. A poem that sounds like they sound, that talks the way they talk! Whether or not these kids had been to Harlem, they understood what it meant to love a place that's "black and beautiful and bruised."

Harlem Is the Capital of My World
by Tony Medina

Harlem is the capital of my world
black and beautiful and bruised
          like me

Harlem has soul -- it's where black people
care about black people and everybody's
child belongs to the community

Where we be stylin' and profilin'
with concrete streets stretched out
under our feet and boulevards broad
and spread like a red carpet for royalty

The King of Swing
The Duke of Ellington
The Empress of the Blues

Harlem is a bouquet of black roses
all packed together and protected
by blackness and pride

Harlem is where I reside
where I work and stride
my dark community
from the East River to
St. Nicholas Avenue with
nightclubs and cabarets
spilling over with jazz
and bluesy urban spirituals
(it's not miracle we survive!)

Why I fell in love with Harlem
before I ever got here!

Yeah, Harlem is where I be --
where I could be
                            Me

Harlem is the capital of my world

Poem posted with permission of Tony Medina. All rights reserved. Thanks, Tony.

Next week, we'll look at another verse biography by Tony Medina, I and I Bob Marley. 

Enjoy this week's Poetry Friday posts. You'll find them at the other Laura S's blog, Writing the World for Kids. Thanks, Laura!