Miles Davis
By Debra Hurd

Jazz Fantasia
Carl Sandburg, 1919

Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.

Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-
husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.

Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,
moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a
racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang!
you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns,
tin cans — make two people fight on the top of a stairway
and scratch each other’s eyes in a clinch tumbling down
the stairs.

Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat pushes
up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . . and the green
lanterns calling to the high soft stars . . . a red moon rides
on the humps of the low river hills . . . go to it, O jazzmen.

Carl Sandburg was virtually unknown to the literary world when, in 1914, a group of his poems appeared in the nationally circulated Poetry magazine.

Two years later his book Chicago Poems was published, and the thirty-eight-year-old author found himself on the brink of a career that would bring him international acclaim.

Carl Sandburg worked from the time he was a young boy. He quit school following his graduation from eighth grade in 1891 and spent a decade working a variety of jobs. He delivered milk, harvested ice, laid bricks, threshed wheat in Kansas, and shined shoes in Galesburg’s Union Hotel before traveling as a hobo in 1897.

Sandburg’s experiences working and traveling greatly influenced his writing and political views. He saw first-hand the sharp contrast between rich and poor, a dichotomy that instilled in him a distrust of capitalism.

Personal ties to poet
As a child, jazz drummer Matt Wilson discovered he had personal ties toPulitzer Prize-winning poet Carl Sandburg. Both have roots in west-central Illinois. Wilson’s great aunt was married to Sandburg’s first cousin, Charlie Krans; Sandburg stopped by the Krans farm in Galesburg, his own hometown, in 1953 and documented his visit for Life magazine (“I Went Back to Galesburg,” Feb. 23, 1953).

Studying to be a musician, Wilson discovered a poem by Sandburg called “Jazz Fantasia” that reads in part:

Go to it, O jazzmen…bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns, tin cans—make two people fight on top of a stairway and scratch each other’s eyes in a clinch tumbling down the stairs.

Those words could get a young jazz artist’s blood going. To Wilson, the poem “solidified my notions that Carl was indeed a serious hipster. I mean, he had the best hair. I feel he has not been given the recognition he so deserves. Whitman was cool, but Carl rocked! Plus he dug jazz.”
Check out Matt Wilson’s Carl Sanburg Project

Source: http://www.carl-sandburg.com/

[mp3j track=”mystery.mp3″]

Link back to the Poetry Wednesday tour on Laurita’s page

deletereply instrumentalpavilion wrote on Jun 15, ’09 Oh cool….thanks Laurita. : )

deletereply rosiefielding2 wrote on Jun 15, ’09 a wave of sound through the reads … hot drums banging the beat… the sax flirtive and sensual……., great tune and write up my friend.

deletereply billatplay wrote on Jun 15, ’09 I remember Oh Them Golden Slippers. lol

deletereply sugarpiehuny wrote on Jun 15, ’09 Thanks, I’d not read this.. and the music is wonderful.. I just posted the a video of the Royal English jazz couple yesterday.. like minds.. 😉

deletereply jadedruid wrote on Jun 15, ’09 This is excellent. I have always been a jzaa fan. Thank you.

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on Jun 15, ’09 rosiefielding2 said hot drums banging the beat… the sax flirtive and sensual……., I found the percussions to this piece fascinating.

deletereply caffeinatedjo wrote on Jun 16, ’09 THAT is a cool poem. It almost makes the reader able to hear the instruments being played. What a wordsmith Sandburg was!

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on Jun 16, ’09 caffeinatedjo said What a wordsmith Sandburg was! Jo, I was very surprised when I found this poem. I didn’t realize Sandburg wrote a “jazzy” poem like this !

deletereply gypsy4you wrote on Jun 16, ’09 I loved this post!

deletereply bostonsdandd wrote on Jun 17, ’09 I thought it was a horn Miles Davis was playing LOL. Another GREAT post on Jazz :o))))!

editdeletereply lauritasita wrote on Jun 17, ’09 Thanks everyone for all your encouraging comments.

deletereply forgetmenot525 wrote on Jun 21, ’09 wow……………another great ‘jazz’ post, you do come up with some wonderful stuff laurita