“When I'm stuck, when I'm really stuck and the words can't seem to get out, there are a few things that I do to try to jar myself into action. Every poet has a few bibles of poetry—books that hit them hard upside the heart and soul, and take them to another understanding of the craft again and again. For me, returning to those texts urges me on, making me hopeful and challenged, and allowing me to rediscover why I do what I do. For quite a few years, I held Yusef Komunyakaa’s Neon Vernacular (Wesleyan Poetry Series, 1993) inside my bag like it was a passport to smuggle me into a visual and audible blizzard of blued language, a place with a sophisticated tumble of drawl and line. Another place I would go to was Sterling Plumpp’s Blues: The Story Always Untold (Another Chicago Press, 1989), which introduced me to the sweet spot between music and mayhem, between the political and the funk. I’ve also discovered that, while I remain a constant novice, playing the harmonica and guitar regularly helps to prime the pump for the sound of words flowing onto paper—so I try to pick up each instrument every week in order to remember how breath and fingers can make a story anyone anywhere can moan to.”
—Tyehimba Jess, author of Olio (Wave Books, 2016)
Photo credit: Keliy Anderson-Staley