[Music intro]

LYNNE THOMPSON: Hello! My name is Lynne Thompson, Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles and I’m so happy to welcome listeners to this installment of Poems on Air, a podcast supported by the Los Angeles Public Library. Every week, I’ll present the work of poets I admire, poets who you should know, and poets who have made a substantial and inimitable contribution to the art and craft of poetry.

LYNNE THOMPSON: I was a student at Scripps College in Claremont, California when Jayne Cortez came there to read her poetry. It isn’t hyperbole to say it was life-changing for me. I had never seen a young, African American woman read her own poetry which was, in large part, unpunctuated, lacking in capitalization, and utterly unlike anything I’d been taught to believe poetry had to be. What she gave me on that occasion was permission—permission to be a poet comfortable with my own voice. Although Jayne passed away in New York in 2012, she grew up in Watts, was a founder of the Watts Repertory Theater Company, and is considered a trailblazer for black female writers. She was an early performance artist with the Firespitters, a band she formed with her son, and her poetry was surreal and evocative as it tackled racial and sexual oppression.

LYNNE THOMPSON: Today’s poem is “Rose Solitude” by Jayne Cortez.

Rose Solitude

for Duke Ellington

I am essence of Rose Solitude
my cheeks are laced with cognac
my hips sealed with five satin nails
i carry dreams and romance of new fools and old flames
between the musk of fat
and the side pocket of my mink tongue

Listen to the champagne bubble from this solo

Essence of Rose Solitude
veteran from texas tiger from chicago that’s me
i cover the shrine of Duke
who like Satchmo like Nat (King) Cole
will never die because love they say
never dies

I tell you from stair steps of these navy blue nights
these metallic snakes
these flashing fish skins
and the melodious cry of Shango
surrounded by sorrow
by purple velvet tears
by cockhounds limping from crosses
from turtle skinned shoes
from diamond shaped skulls and canes
made from dead gazelles
wearing a face of wilting potato plants
of grey and black scissors
of bee bee shots and fifty red boils
yes the whole world loved him

I tell you from suspenders of two-timing dog odors
from inca frosted lips
nonchalant legs
i tell you from howling chant of sister Erzulie
and the exaggerated hearts of a hundred pretty women
they loved him
this world sliding from a single flower
into a caravan of heads made into ten thousand flowers

Ask me
Essence of Rose Solitude
chickadee from arkansas that’s me
I sleep on cotton bones
cotton tails
and mellow myself in empty ballrooms
i’m no fly by night

look at my resume
i walk through the eyes of staring lizards
i throw my neck back to floorshow on bumping goat skins
in front of my stage fright
i cover the hands of Duke who like Satchmo
like Nat (King) Cole will never die
because love they say
never dies

LYNNE THOMPSON: The Los Angeles Poet Laureate was created as a joint program between the City’s Department of Cultural Affairs and the Los Angeles Public Library and this podcast will be available on the Library’s website. In the future, episodes will be available on iTunes, Google, and Spotify. Thanks for listening!

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• Back to Poems on Air: Episode 3



DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a certified or verbatim transcript, but rather represents only the context of the class or meeting, subject to the inherent limitations of real-time captioning. The primary focus of real-time captioning is general communication access and as such this document is not suitable, acceptable, nor is it intended for use in any type of legal proceeding. Transcript provided by the author.