Of course you can, and sometimes should, judge a book (or, in this case, a literary magazine) by its cover. The latest issue of Sequestrum, a journal I admire and endorse, features three of my poems. It’s always an honor to have any respectable publication champion your work, but it’s extra meaningful when it’s one that, by mere association, elevates your humble writing.
I encourage anyone to visit their website; just a cursory review of previous issues (look at the artwork on those covers!) should convince you to support them, and Sequestrum makes quarterly subscriptions available for as little as $2 a month.
This is a journal that goes the extra mile for its contributors, and I appreciate the opportunity to explain these poems, and how they are part of a collection I’ve been working on the past few years.
Tell us a little more about this set of poetry.
These three poems are of a piece, and part of a larger project that discusses (and celebrates) some personal heroes who remain far less celebrated than they deserve to be. As it happens, they’re all musicians, and were all hampered in various ways by discrimination, ranging from old fashioned racism to institutional and cultural indifference. They fought their battles bravely, in their art and in their lives (Nevertheless, they persisted). Though there’s an elegiac sadness suffusing these pieces, there’s also acknowledgment of their defiant genius.
What was the most difficult part of this particular piece(s)?
It’s challenging to take brilliant careers that should be (and have been) subjects of biographies, and distill them into a short poem. As such, I’m trying to capture something (or, hopefully, more than a few things) essential about their lives, bearing witness in my way while also paying homage. As a writer, I always wrestle with how artists who were treated so terribly provided us with such effulgent, inspiring music.
Howlin’ Wolf’s Arena
On occasion he would crawl across the stage,
not like a dog but a soldier trapped in a trench.
Avoiding sharp rim shots and blasts of brass or
the iced-over stares of bewildered civilians.
This, for him, was the front-line, something to abide
every night under those lights, and like any war,
it was more or less safe as the stretches of peace:
Wherein difference or friendly fire could kill you,
while the maître d’, forever smiling, counted
the bodies, cleaned up, and served last call.
Bud Powell’s Brain
Was it that hard-boiled cop’s unindicted Nightstick
that scrambled your system, sending misfired messages
into the soft-wiring that polices ungovernable impulses?
Or was collateral damage already done? Chemistry coalescing
the onset of sickness, like a chick pecking through its shell?
Un Poco Loco: an epitaph for stillborn souls that can’t
escape the yoke of adversity; Nature’s always improvising,
uninterested in excuses, or anything that could plausibly explain
the roots of Squares—and circumstances of those serving them.
Poached forever by the eyes of the White and the Other
Color, printed in numbers on top of paper pyramids:
E Pluribus Unum—a private club you’re forbidden entrance,
even decades after your death, a pitch black Ever After
that tastes and smells like vanilla extract and crackers, Jack.
This world’s never been accommodating to hard cases, helpless
to understand languages they’re confusedly fluent in, and
like a conjoined twin, it smothers thoughts and steals oxygen
from a disobedient brain, inflamed by anger or alcohol or
something stronger, risky antidotes for those inscrutable squawks
you’ll transcribe for anyone, willing to open their ears
and better still, their wallets:
Fat fortresses dispensing the only justice
served after last call.
Something you can score, like love
or junk in any back alley.
Unless you can’t
afford the going rate.
Which means, like always:
You’re broke.
Sun Ra’s* Spaceship
I’m not of this world, Ra insisted, and it was obvious
to everyone: He ain’t one of us. You see, he swore, I am
from out there: I conjure up other worlds that could break your brain.
And to be Blount? This claim was only scarcely less credible
than faithful suckers talking to an old man in outer space.
Listen: magic’s a trick when these cities are always the same,
suits suffocating fools and men calling you son, not Sonny—
an alien in their eyes—with black holes for hearts and their ears
stuffed with corn, that slop discreet folks covet for colorless meals,
when earthlings turn on machines to distract them from inner space.
(*Sun Ra (born Herman Poole Blount) was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his experimental music, “cosmic philosophy”, prolific output, and theatrical performances. Born and raised in Alabama, Blount would eventually become involved in the 1940s Chicago jazz scene. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian God of the Sun) and developing a complex persona and mythology that would make him a pioneer of Afrofuturism: he claimed he was an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, and throughout his life he consistently denied any ties to his prior identity.)
Howlin’ Wolf, How Many More Years:
Bud Powell, Un Poco Loco:
Sun Ra, When There Is No Sun:
