[New-Poetry] Langston Hughes/ W. Dixon, Robert Johnson, etc--

[Jeff Newberry]

Terry Hummer's latest book, *The Infinity Sessions*, is organized as
"suites" (or, perhaps, sequences--though he won't call them sequences) for
different jazz and blues musicians.  Hummer took the poems' titles from the
titles of actual songs by these artists.

He came to one of my classes last term and talked about the sequence itself,
and how he felt that his suites weren't sequential at all.  He eschewed any
narrative reading of the poems--even telling us that the poems were inspired
by the songs and the musicians and not "about them."

My problem--or perhaps "problem" is too strong a word--my conondrum is that
the book rather begs for an autobiographical reading, in the way that it's
set up.  If I write "Suite for Jim Finnegan" and use the titles of Jim's
poems for my own titles, then you'd probably expect that the poems had
something to do with Jim's life, right?  Perhaps I'm a hard-headed reader,
but that's what I'd expect.

That said, I like the book, a lot.  Hummer has these little 12-14 line poems
that aren't quite sonnets but still, nontheless, seem to set up a
quasi-form.

Jeff Newberry


On 7/5/06, JforJames at aol.com <JforJames at aol.com> wrote:
>
>   I'm sure there are a slew of poems based on Robert Johnson's life
> and songs. One extended example comes to mind:
> Forrest Gander wrote a 'libretto' based on Robert Johnson's life.
> It appeared in one of his books of poems...a while back, I think a book
> from Pittsburgh Univ. Press.
> Jim F
>
> In a message dated 7/2/2006 7:43:47 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> cstroffo at earthlink.net writes:
>
> Hey, I got in a really good discussion the other day about Langston
> Hughes' blues poems
> (and yes I know that he recorded quite a few of them) and their
> relationship to the blues lyrics
> of, for instance, the folks above, or John Lee Hooker, Big Mama
> Thornton, Ma Rainey, etc---
>
> And if anybody else here would maybe be interested in talking about
> that relationship here--
> Does it matter that Hughes worked primarily in a different field (in
> the artistic specialization sense) than these other folks?
> Is it somewhat analogous to the difference between, say, million
> selling hip hop artists today vs. a slam poet aesthetic which
> utilizes many devices of rap/hip hop?
> Or, for that matter, even the difference between say Bob Dylan and
> Allen Ginsberg's songs?
>
> There's alot of room for discussion (and, sure, bring on the "blues
> bashers" though I'm definitely trying to
> avoid the tired argument "it doesn't stand up on the page" and will
> try not to engage it here if it comes up)--
> Also, if anybody knows of any good essays on the subject----
> specifically about Hughes and some of the other recorded bluesmen of
> the 20th C---that'd be a nice supplement, but I really am not a big
> fan of posts that just send LINKS
> without any commentary as to why I'm supposed to check out the
> link......
> a discussion might be nice (but be careful what you ask for, Chris---)
>
>
>
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-- 
"Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death."
                                                   --Miguel de Unamuno

Blog:  http://museoffireblog.blogspot.com/
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