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The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.
Antoinette F. Winstead reads her poem at its conclusion.
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photo of Louis Armstrong, backstage at the Aquarium; New York, c. 1946 by William Gottlieb/Library of Congress
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Behind the Smile
……….(for Satchmo)
The Young Turk disregarded the old trumpeter
labeled him a vaudevillian minstrel
because he shucked and grinned,
having no privy to the old man’s roiling anger within
fueled by slights and shames endured for years
despite his lauded, storied career.
The Young Turk dismissed him
as an irrelevant embarrassment
one of the woe-begotten, cow-tow generation,
mistaking his toothy, buck-eyed countenance
as willing acceptance of injustice
unlike the younger, conscious brothers.
The Young Turk spied the old man
alone, backstage slumped shouldered in a chair,
trumpet dangling from exhausted fingers
the permanently disfigured lip
drawn down and grim
the true man revealed.
The Young Turk thought to retreat
leave the old man to his silence,
but he looked up and spotted him
a moment of understanding
passing between them
before the practiced grin erupted.
The Young Turk never again
cringed in mortification
at the old man’s onstage antics
knowing, at last, what burned inside him,
respecting the price paid by the legend
so others could just play their music.
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Listen to Antoinette Winstead read her poem
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Antoinette F. Winstead is a poet, playwright, director and actor living in San Antonio, Texas, where she’s a professor at Our Lady of the Lake University. Her poetry has appeared in several publications, including Voices de la Luna, Langdon Review, Texas Ballot Poetry, Tejas Covido, and The Poet Magazine. She is currently serving as the 2021-2022 Writer in Residence for the Carver Community Cultural Center in San Antonio, Texas. She was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize by Jerry Jazz Musician for her poem “Life Is…“
[Editor’s Note: Antoinette recently participated in a conversation with two other Jerry Jazz Musician contributing writers titled “Why We Write,” which can be viewed by clicking here]
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Watch Louis Armstrong perform “Shine,”, in a 1942 short film directed by Josef Berne
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Click here to read previous editions of The Sunday Poem
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Jerry Jazz Musician…human produced (and AI-free) since 1999
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