Music and Blues

I think that the blues style of poetry that we've been reading (and writing though I haven't finished a poem yet) is a great example of a lot of things that the music chapter went over. I've been a blues fan for years but I've never really noticed how structured it is lyrically. The most notable part of the blues for me is the jazzy, the impromptu like sound of the guitar and growl of a blues singers voice. Studying this blues style of poetry reminds me a lot of last weeks marking up someone else's poem assignment in that we're studying not only a rhythm but also a feeling. Blues music and poetry have unmistakable "swank" about them. When I listen to the Hughes poem with my eyes closed two things happen; first I don't seen any of the images of wild singers and crowds that the film shows and secondly a very interesting picture comes to my mind. It is the image of a young man sitting illegally in a corner table in a bar. The bar is smokey and filled with people talking and laughing too loud, but this boy is transfixed on a musician sitting on a stool with a guitar. As the musician plays he taps alternating between heel and toe one foot with the beat as he growls gravely and plays a blues tune. Here a magic happens for the boy as he hears a blues tune being played for the first time, and it changes his life.

I'm having a lot of fun playing with the blues poem I'm writing. It's interesting to play with a structure as you're writing a poem. It almost frees the mind to say the things that are locked up in the attic because I'm not thinking near as much about what I want to say, but instead just focusing on how to say it. I'm not sure if that makes sense. It does inside my head though. Almost like I'm letting my unconscious decide what I'm talking about in a way.