On The Bookshelf
The Jazz Poetry Anthology
Since the turn of the century, poets have responded to jazz in all its musical and cultural overtones. The poems here cover the range of jazz itself: from early blues to free jazz and experimental music. Among the 132 poets included are James Baldwin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Langston Hughes, Jack Kerouac, Mina Loy, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Carol Bergé, Sterling A. Brown, Alice Fulton, and Carl Sandburg.
The poems give the reader a sense of jazz imagery through the history of the music, yet have been lost to so many jazz enthusiasts and aficionados of the 20th century. Many of the names in this publication will be familiar but most one will discover anew.
Each poet has heard, felt the emotion of and experienced the music from a different perspective, writing in that voice. This makes for a pleasurable journey through time for the reader, especially those familiar with the music and the musicians.
This anthology represents the broad appreciation for jazz as poetic inspiration, not only from the Beat movement but from writers across the decades and around the world.
The Jazz Poetry Anthology: 1991 | Sasha Feinstein & Yusef Komunyakaa
Indiana University Press
