Notes to Make the Sound Come Right — Four Innovators of Jazz Poetry

Poet Anderson (English, Hollins College) examines four writers whose work is informed by the "extemporaneous means of cultural critique" that is jazz. He writes how they use the complex interconnections of old aural and musical forms, such as the work song and the purely vocal spiritual, with blues and regional speech to produce poetry that is performance even if read silently. He examines the jazz impulse in poetry and its history, and then offers essays on four leading jazz writers, Bob Kaufman, Stephen Jones, Jayne Cortez and Nathaniel Mackey, He finds within each a unique mastery of music within and even without language, in interracial as well as African American contexts. He closes with commentary on the "mixtery" of jazz poetry, and how it is an expression and interweaving of music and word, of speaking and listening, and of informed observation and the soul's subjective perception. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)