A 2026 jazz poetry calendar

December 31st, 2025

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Readers can click to the next month at the conclusion of each poem.  You can also go to each month by clicking on the link to the months here:

Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr/May/Jun/Jul/Aug/Sep/Oct/Nov/Dec/Intro

 

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April, 2026

“Poem for Mingus and the Fisherman’s Wife”

by Miho Kinnas & E Ethelbert Miller

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Tom Marcello Webster, New York, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Charles Mingus, 1976

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Poem for Mingus and the Fisherman’s Wife

Charles Mingus is a big
bass of a man.

Dogwood blossoms vibrate
outside his studio.

Out by the ocean
seashells clap.

The water in April
is still cold.

The shoes of the fisherman’s
wife are some jive ass slippers.

 

Charles Mingus was born on April 22, 1922, in Nogales, Arizona.

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Listen to E. Ethelbert Miller read the poem

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Photo by Natasha Akery

 Photo by Marty

Miho Kinnas is the author of three poetry collections. Her latest book
is  Waiting for Sunset to Bury Red Camellias  (Free Verse Press).
E. Ethelbert Miller is the author of several poetry collections and two memoirs. His latest books include the Baseball Trilogy  (God Invented Baseball, When Your Wife Has Tommy John Surgery, and How I Found Love Behind the Catcher’s Mask)  and the little book of e  (all from City Point Press).
Miho and Ethelbert jointly wrote  Eclipse into the Other Side  (Pinyon Publishing.)

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Listen to the 1972  recording of bassist Charles Mingus performing his composition “The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife are Some Jive Ass Slippers” [Legacy/Columbia]

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Click here to read D.H. Jenkins’ poem for May

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