.
.
.
.
…..Along with the satisfaction of publishing countless outstanding poems over the years comes my delight in getting to know many of the poets responsible for them. From this experience an active community of writers has taken shape, most of whom share a common vision of communicating their love and appreciation for jazz music and the historic artists they revere. One such poet is Ms. Aurora M. Lewis of Morena Valley, California.
…..I received Aurora’s first poetry submission in January of 2018, a poem titled “Chronicle Of A Love Supreme,” the opening stanza of which reads:
.
He played the sax, so I acclimated myself
to John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme
I was crushing hard, being only sixteen
He was tall and thin, I thought he was cool
black shades above his sly grin
Said I was too innocent to hang with him
.
…..The poem – a blues about a lost young love, reclaimed at middle age only to be lost again – is a fine example of Aurora’s heartfelt work, much of which has been published on Jerry Jazz Musician, and that I am pleased to report now appears in her new book, Jazz Poems: Reflections On a Broken Heart.
Aurora M. Lewis
…..After years working in the finance industry, Aurora became serious about her writing in her late 50’s, when she enrolled in UCLA’s Creative Writing Program and eventually graduated with honors. In addition to Jerry Jazz Musician, her work has appeared in many journals, including The Literary Hatchet, Gemini Magazine, The Blue Nib, and Flash Fiction Magazine. She has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and The Best of the Web.
…..Aurora’s poetry consistently communicates her rich understanding of love, loss, joy and heartache, and frequently in the vivacious rhythms of jazz music and the blues. Her charismatic soul connects with her reader in a deeply personal way in virtually every interaction and experience, while also revealing the influence the music and its historic figures have had on her life. Her writing is spirited, provocative, and deeply rewarding.
…..Her love of jazz, garnered from her mother, is a testament to that relationship and the effect her experiences listening to jazz had on her. That love is evident throughout the book’s 49 poems, which touch on the likes of Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie.
…..Jazz Poems: Reflections On a Broken Heart is available on Amazon, which can be accessed by clicking here or on the book’s cover images displayed on this page.
…..Once it’s in your hands, pull up a chair, put on some Monk, and enter her profound, passionate world…
.
.
What Billie Sang About
Got that pain in my stomach
Breathing it out my nose
Hearing it ring inside my ears
Sucking at my breast like
a baby been starved
Filling my eyes with tears
Salt in the wound
This thing taunting
me at night, wrapping
Itself around me
without heat
I got me a case of what
Billie sang about, in search
of that lover man gone much too
long to miss him still, I feel her
pain running lucidly through
my veins
.
by Aurora M. Lewis
.
.
Jazz Poems: Reflections On a Broken Heart
by Aurora M. Lewis
.
.
.
