About This Title
As the title implies, Jam features a wealth of poems driven by a distinct music resulting from Joe-Anne McLaughlin’s studies in both jazz and blues. Propelled by strong rhythms and line breaks, McLaughlin’s poems such as “Percussion,” “Half-Note for Hayden” and “Aubade” present a variety of colorful characters trying to get by on the strength of “Waller’s boogies/ or Morton’s rolls, / Hot Lips’ riffs / or Bessie’s groans, / move in tune / and yet alone.” An exciting and original voice, McLaughlin’s poems are introduced by award-winning poet and essayist Stephen Dunn.
Percussion
For Jeff Barr
Or when birds fly smack into a window
by a feeder, mistaking the sky
it mirrors for actual sky... That's what
it's like to mistake every polite
man for one's father. And the sound
their bodies make when they hit—
if one listens, really attends—not a thud,
not a twack, but the percussion
that follows a blow to the belly, that ungh
when the wind gets knocked out
and the loud silence after.
Listen. Harder. Harder.
© BOA Editions, Ltd 2001
Available editions:
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Paperback ISBN: 1-929918-04-6
Price: $12.50
Publishing Date: July 2001