the arkansippi bard
for laureate eugene b. redmondyr funky grace & coital insertion of rite,
remonstrance & rue into heavy bottomed
verse defines u; yr long poetic sight extends
yr call & response like an old landmark
liner hymn raises up & stretches out from
the storefront church to surreptitiously
caress the juke joint across the street.
u always loved to boogie, get down on the
flamefloor of desire. jump back, baby,
jump back! yr metered feet ablur with the
mixed choreography of the urban core, the
down home country & the academy.
yr stanzas abstracted, take their form, from
the spirit-sphere; are kaleidoscopic &
sparkling, revealing different views of
human life put together in ways that blend
the incongruous & contradictory in words
& images that express something different
from & often opposite to their verbal
visceral experience. i loved what you did
with words; what u still do, painting them
on airy canvases with the coarse brush of yr
voice, the palette knife of yr wit spreading
textured impasto sounds into sweeping
areas of flat as well as tiny shapes of
colorful speech.
well u deserve yr laurel wreath, a fitting
crown for one like u perpetuating the oral
& oracular, the spoken truths of family,
village & leaders of a people; singing
histories & tales of their triumphs, foibles
& infamy cloaked in the polysemy of their
speech; that mirror the rich & colorful
grayness of living; the reality ‘tween the
exit signs of black & white.
Joseph McNair;2009
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