AFTER READING SONGLINES IN MICHAELTREE AGAIN
WALKING THE HOUSING
DEVELOPMENT WHERE I LIVE,
LISTENING TO YOU
READ FROM THE LANGUAGE LABORATORY, 1971,
AFTER AGAIN SAYING
HOW YOU ARE NAMED BY YOUR GODSON,
HOW YOU OPEN TO ME
NOW AS ONLY MUSIC, MICHAEL S. HARPER
Notes to poems in
Songlines in Michaeltree
might be Liner Notes
on a blues collector’s LP’s,
written in third
person. Arthur Schomburg was best friend
of poet’s
grandfather, Roland Schomburg, read the entire
note on page 384.
Sit there. Turn now to My Father’s Face.
Embrace the lesson
in soul. A given. Now what?
Fastidious hands are
found in the archives of watering eyes.
Count references to
what’s handwritten. This is a temple.
Did you think all of
the poems were about Coltrane?
Well, they are.
Before you think otherwise, exaggeration,
Hear what Elvin
Jones says about Coltrane chemistry,
You have to die for
the motherfucker. You have to walk
in his shoes. This
is only one story. After the doors
lock up they won’t
return to the melody until sunrise.
How was the service?
After Harper reads Sterling A. Brown’s
Strong Men at the
University of Zululand in South Africa,
he is asked to
repeat it as a man writes the poem out
in ink on both arms
writing with both hands. In another
place, still opening
Brown’s stature, Harper refers to him
as a poet/reconteur,
stealing from him in conversation
for the short poem,
Black Cryptogram.
I would not have
found Michael S. Harper for myself
had it not been for
Pittsburgh University Press,
whose poets had an
ear for the spoken human voice.
Dear John, Dear
Coltrane, chosen by Gwendolyn Brooks
for publication at
the Pittsburgh Press (OK, the title
had that going for
it) before Harper had met Brooks.
Do you want to hear
a poem, For the Moment, say
for the mature poet
in his prime with no cover?
Poet singing from
the mercy side of the lost cause.
There is no
automatic to Resolution.
We’re you
listening to Elvin Jones earlier?
In his poem
dedicated to Paul Lawrence Dunbar,
1872-1906, Harper
raises up headrags, repeats
Double-conscious
brother in the veil,
three times in
italics like that.
Harper listening
without having drums
for protection.
Playing/
is possible/
only when you’re
ready to die.
*
5 February 2021
CODA
Saturday, 6 February
2021
Notes from the
notebook a month out
from January 6, (31
days ago) Day of Insurrection,
day of counting
electoral votes confirming election of
President Joseph
R. Biden and Vice-President Kamala Devi Harris,
The
Donald Trump presidency ends in carnage.
Today
is the 18th day of the Biden Presidency.
Donald
Trump’s second impeachment trial begins
in
two days. It will be short. The background.
ICE
flights deporting asylum seekers continues
after
a Texas judge filed a lawsuit against President Biden’s
cancellation
of the flights. A hundred thousand
Americans
have died of the Covid-19 virus
during
the past 31 days. The American story, changed.
During
half-time of the SuperBowl game, tomorrow,
Amanda
Gorman, 22, African American
Youth
Poet Laureate will read her poem,
We
Shall Rise, the poem she read at the Inauguration
of
President Joseph Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Karen
and I were driving home in our car as Amanda Gorman
read
into my notebook, It’s a past we step into, followed by
this:
How could
catastrophe prevail over us?
500,000
Americans have died during this pandemic.
Charles
Blow, reporter for the New York Times,
has
a new book: The Devil You Know: A Black Manifesto.
You
are present, Michael S. Harper, aka Michaeltree,
in
the project of African American Poetry,
and
in your poems, Songlines, threading
families,
cities, and neighborhoods. Who,
among
the musicians surrounding you,
sends
the song back to us? Is Bud Powell
playing
‘Round About Midnight?
Do
all the musicians follow Coltrane?
Jim
Bodeen
5-6
February 2021
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