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Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
James Baldwin, 1969
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Baldwin in Istanbul
………………“I can’t breathe.
I have to look from the outside.”
………………– James Baldwin
In postcards to his sister Paula
He described what it felt like
To feel free
In America, he was
A disrupter of the peace
In a thickly-padded FBI dossier
In the Istanbul of the ‘60s
It was easier to be Black and gay;
His stance? “One sees America
Better from a distance”
The erotica of exile; the labyrinth
Of cobblestone streets in a world
Built by artists: collaborative!
At dinner parties with Brando
And Don Cherry, with his life
Becoming a form of free jazz,
It must have felt like the city
Itself was saying to him:
“Just breathe, brother;
Just breathe.”
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Connie Johnson is a Los Angeles, CA-based Pushcart Prize nominee whose poetry has appeared in Jerry Jazz Musician, San Pedro River Review, Cholla Needles, Rye Whiskey Review, Glint Literary Journal, Iconoclast, Sport Literate, Exit 13, and Writing in a Woman’s Voice. Everything is Distant Now (Blue Horse Press), her debut poetry collection, is available on Amazon.
Click here to read the Jerry Jazz Musician-published In a Place of Dreams: Connie Johnson’s album of jazz poetry, music, and life stories
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Listen to the 1969 recording of Don Cherry (with drummer Ed Blackwell) playing “Sun of the East” [The Source]
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Click here to read The Sunday Poem
Click here to read “A Collection of Jazz Poetry – Spring/Summer, 2024 Edition”
Click here to read “Ballad,” Lúcia Leão’s winning story in the 65th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
Click here for information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction
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Jerry Jazz Musician…human produced (and AI-free) since 1999
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