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The Sunday Poem is published weekly, and strives to include the poet reading their work.
Jennifer Maritza McCauley reads her poem at its conclusion.
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18th and Vine, Kansas City, 2018/Joe Maita
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Kansas City Lights
Touchdown or Something,
back to you: crisping, lighted place
my swift escape, humble
glitz, jazz’d instrument
blowing quavers, shaking, from the cave
of your trumpet sounding like
all of my loving memories
of soaring ball and The Bird’s winding
song, 18th & Vine. I watch the green of
your leafy fingers stretch into the ice-d
peace of Pittsburgh mind.
For years you’ve wound into my writings,
and here you are, open and waiting,
I find you as if I’ve known you long ago,
in my father’s birth soil, I sing his
elegies and hard bops and shadows
but let me tell you something
this time the notes are mine.
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Listen to Jennifer Maritza McCauley read her poem
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Dr. Jennifer Maritza McCauley is the author of Scar On/Scar Off, When Trying to Return Home, Kinds of Grace and Neon Steel (2/26). She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Kimbilio and CantoMundo and her work has been a New York Times Editors’ Choice, Best Fiction Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews and a Must-Read by Elle, Latinx in Publishing, Ms. Magazine and Southern Review of Books. She has been published recently in Boston Review, Columbia Journal, Vassar Review, Acentos Review, Zone 3, Obsidian and The BreakBeat Poets: Latinext (HayMarket Press). She is fiction editor at Pleiades and an assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
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Listen to the 1949 recording of Charlie Parker performing the Richard Rodgers/Lorenz Hart composition “I Didn’t Know What Time it Was,” from his Verve album Charlie Parker with Strings [Universal Music Group]
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Click for:
Information about Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry
More poetry on Jerry Jazz Musician
“Saharan Blues on the Seine,” Aishatu Ado’s winning story in the 68th Jerry Jazz Musician Short Fiction Contest
More short fiction on Jerry Jazz Musician
Information about how to submit your poetry or short fiction
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