Are you short on time but want to celebrate both Jazz Appreciation Month AND National Poetry Month? We can help with that! Click on the name of the poem to read the enire text. And don't forget to let us know what's your favorite jazz poem on the National Endowment for the Arts Facebook page!
"…Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues/ & Blakey drummed militant messages in/ soul of my applauding teeth / & Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones." — Jayne Cortez, "Jazz Fan Looks Back"
"Listening to jazz now, I’m happy/ sun shining outside like it was my lifetime achievement award." — Jimmy Santiago Baca, "Listening to jazz now"
"I can’t help but walk over/ & lean into the doorway,/ & then raise a phantom alto/ to my lips." — Yusef Komunyakaa, "The Last Bohemian of Avenue A"
"…the lights/ lowered, and breath gathered/ for the coming storm. Then nothing,/ not a single note." — Philip Levine, "On 52nd Street"
"...when she came on the stage, this Ella/ there were rumors of hurricanes and/ over the rooftops of concert stages/the moon turned red in the sky." — Sonia Sanchez, "A Poem for Ella Fitzgerald"
"Stone by stone, note by note, atom by atom, noun by noun,/Bird is building a metropolis with his horn." — Campbell McGrath, "Charlie Parker (1950)"
"...Women smoked the boulevards/ with gardenias after-hours, asphalt shower-/ slick, ozone charging air with sixteenth/ notes,.." — Lynda Hull, "Ornithology"
We have lots to celebrate at the National Endowment for the Arts this month! First, join us Monday, April 15 for the 2019 NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert. Then join us April 30 and May 1 for the 2019 Poetry Out Loud National Finals. Watch both events live online at arts.gov.
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