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photo by Tengilorg / CC BY

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While Playing A Vinyl Record

 

Music lightens blue mood.  It softens mind
like feather floating towards earth, then brushes
against cheek, chin and ear.  Body sways
with Jazz in air.  A tickle on skin, sensations
cradled in ears, harvesting goodness like wheat
to enjoy at a later time.

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by Jerrice Baptiste

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Bird Talk

4 a.m. Paris.
Jazz meditation ebbing the silent pool of nocturne.
Then to greet the dawn as it leaks through the window.
A gentle wash of light. A walk along barely stirring streets.
Green leaf dew drops. Bird talk. Tomorrow another day.

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by Moe Seager

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Jerrice J. Baptiste.is a poet and author of eight books. She was the recipient of a residency for The Women’s Leadership Program at The Omega Institute, NY, 2019.  She has been published in The Yale Review; Kosmos Journal; The Caribbean Writer; Breathe Free Press; Spadina Literary Review; Autism Parenting Magazine; The Lake Poetry Journal; So Spoke the Earth: Anthology of Women Writers of Haitian Descent and many others.. She also facilitates creative writing workshops.. Jerrice .enjoys writing vignettes about the Caribbean which is where she grew up. Her poems and collaborative songwriting are on the Grammy award winning album Many Hands: Family Music for Haiti. . Jerrice is the host of “Women of Note” on WKZE, 98.1 FM in Red Hook, NY where she enjoys playing Jazz & world music for her international audience. Visit her at Guanabanabooks.com to learn more about her work.

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photo by Mya Smbg

Moe Seager is a poet and jazz & blues vocalist who sings his poems on stages in Paris, New York and elsewhere and has recorded two jazz-poetry c.d.s. Seager founded and hosts “Angora Poets World Caffé,” in Paris, and now hosts the event on Zoom. He also hosts “100 Thousand Poets for Change,” Paris and is one of the coordinators for le Fédération des Poètes, Paris. He has six collections of poetry and currently publishes with Onslaught press, Oxford, U.K. Other poetry collections include Dream Bearers (1990); One World, (2004); We Want Everything in French translation (1994); Perhaps (2006); Fishermen and Pool Sharks Busking (1992). Additionally Seager won a Golden Quill Award (USA) for investigative journalism, 1989 and received an International Human Rights award from the Zepp foundation, 1990. Two collections, We Want Everything and I Wanna Make Jazz To You, Onslaught press, are available from Amazon.com

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Listen to Charlie Parker play “Confirmation” (1952, with Al Haig, Max Roach and Percy Heath)

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