Here’s a sample from my current work in progress, a book of jazz poetry. This one focuses on Billie Holiday singing the saddest blues song ever written. Formatting doesn’t like to stick the way I enter it here, so to see this in the final revision, hold out for the book. I’ll keep you posted on the process. Release date is still a ways away.
The Color of Fruit
When Billie takes the lead
it no longer matters
the color of her dress
the color of her skin.
The room melts away,
leaves me suspended
in her melodic embrace.
Sorrow rushes in.
Each chord strains
against the tide of emotion.
I smell magnolias
and the burning flesh.
A white man’s response to the news
is transformed
when lady sings the blues.
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There is such a beautiful mood conjured by this. Love the line ‘…leaves mesuspended/ in her melodic embrace.’
Thanks so much, Sarah Ann. I wish I could spend the time to work out the proper formatting here on WordPress as this poem reads better broken into stanzas. Unfortunately, in order to eat, I have to attend to the paying work this week instead of mucking about here.
I have a publisher on the hook for this one and plan to check with the American Jazz Museum for marketing. Wish me luck!
Cheers!
Marie Gail
Very best of luck!!!
By the by, the poem was in stanzas in the version in my email inbox. It only merged when I clicked through to your post. (I have found the same formatting probs with wordpress – a ‘return’ in draft does not appear in the final version. I’ve found copying wholesale from WP to Word, formatting and then copying back again can fix the problem.)
Excellent. Thanks so much for the feedback. Perhaps I can get it to go right on the webpage again using that tip.
Cheers!
MG