life has been pretty uneventful lately, so i haven’t had anything to say. still don’t have anything to say, but i figured i’d toss a note up here just in case anyone is wondering if i’m still alive.

holidays were good, had a great two-week vacation during which we saw a bunch of relatives on both sides of the family, tigger is doing okay, winston’s doing great (although we discovered he’s kind of scared of puppies), josh caught a cold after christmas (i’m pretty sure he had a cold during christmas ‘08 vacation, too) but so far he hasn’t given it to me, i slept late everyday during vacation and stayed up way too late overloading on house hunters and internet shopping. we spent time with my family, josh’s grandmother, and most of josh’s brothers and sisters, but we never saw or talked to his parents (no surprise there).

assuming we can find a pet sitter to stay with tigger and winston, we’ll be going to las vegas in march. we haven’t had a vacation in almost three years so i really hope we can find a pet sitter we trust. i love my boys but i need a vacation!

i’m getting lasik on january 15, right eye only. my left eye is 20/15, so no need to work on that one. the doctor said he can get me to 20/25 in my right eye after the lasik.

school starts back in february. i dropped my november class so i’ve been totally lazy since then. i’m kind of dreading starting up again. i want to get my master’s, but it’s so much more work than i ever anticipated. plus, i’m lazy, so there’s that.

back to work tomorrow. i haven’t checked my work email at all in two weeks. hopefully it isn’t too bad since a lot of people were off. going to try to be in bed by 2am tonight. we’ll see…

Ledbetter was, as noted by The Lead Belly Foundation, “a musical giant [and] a legend…remembered as the ‘King of the 12-String Guitar.’” Leadbelly is very much a biography told through verse. Jess explores each phase of Ledbetter’s life by using all manner of poetry, including prose, letters, dialogue, lyricism, and persona. By inhabiting the voices of various characters, Jess is able to bring Ledbetter’s fascinating existence to life, while examining cultural issues such as racism, stereotypes, and classism. Ultimately, Leadbelly leaves the reader with a clear sense of certain moments of Ledbetter’s self and environment, even while it paradoxically leaves the reader wanting to learn more about this influential musician.

The first poem in Leadbelly conveys how Ledbetter got started with guitar lessons as a 12-year-old:

“i’d tote up from the swollen center of guitar,
its catch and slide caught between palms
and cradled ‘cross louisiana starlight” (Jess 9).

When we look at this poem, titled “leadbelly’s lessons,” we can see a variety of poetic devices in use that serve to establish the tone and voice of the rest of the book. In just the three lines above, we can see alliteration is present in “swollen center”; assonance in “caught…palms”; consonance in “louisiana starlight.” This poem explains how Ledbetter began to learn to play guitar: in a general store, the owner ordered Ledbetter to “hoist song” the way the owner “hoist[s] bourbon” (Jess 9). Jess also uses the metaphor of undressing a woman to explain the act of making music with the guitar: “undressing music from its wooden clothes” (Jess 9). Right off the bat, music is established as the central theme of the book. By using the theme of music, Jess is able to bring out other themes, including racism. One of the other things the general store owner taught Ledbetter is “the ways/of pure white envy” (Jess 10). In that general store, Ledbetter is first introduced to the wide gap between white and black. He’s taught to envy from the very young age of 12, setting the tone for the rest of his life. Jess is successful in using this introductory poem as an explanation for what he wants the rest of the book to accomplish. The book’s overarching themes are all established in this short piece.

After that introductory poem, Jess begins the first section of the book at the beginning of Ledbetter’s life, with poems written in the voices of Ledbetter’s parents, Wes and Sally. Each section of the book features poems that follow Ledbetter’s lifeline, from birth to death. Jess’s poems take the reader on a journey of low and high points throughout Ledbetter’s life, while also leading the reader on a discourse about the issues of race, society, and class, many times all in the same poem, as seen in “Ethnographer John Lomax Speaks of His Vocation”:

“I stake my claim on the breath of each Black
willing to open his mouth and spit out
southern legend’s soiled roots. I will blue
the pale ears of Ivy League lecture halls

with secrets snatched from between Negro jaws.” (Jess 66).

Some of Jess’s poems may seem hard to grasp without careful study, and even then they may elude even the most academic reader. Stephen Burt observes that “the poets of the New Thing eschew sarcasm and tread lightly with ironies, and when they seem hard to pin down, it is because they leave space for interpretations to fit.” Not all of Jess’s work fits into the New Thing paradigm, but his use of experimental forms and obtuse imagery certainly does seem to fit the highbrow requirements. For example, in the poem “the song speaks,” Jess describes several images that may leave the reader scratching his or her head (even though they are, without a doubt, beautifully worded):

“sticky with god,
i shove and smooth
my way up gullet,
hauling treasure
chest of fingerpop
and footstomp.” (Jess 79).

One other important point to make in this review is the musical quality evident throughout Leadbelly. Jess’s subject was a very influential musician, noted on Leadbelly.org as the “King of the 12-string,” so it is no accident that Jess’s poems contain a strong musical quality. Jess’s background as a performance poet (according to Heintz, “by the early 1990s he was making a name for himself as a performance poet”) allows him to focus on the tonal quality of his poems more so than a poet without a performance background would. Sonic devices such as assonance, consonance, alliteration, and repetition abound throughout Jess’s poems (some of which are seen in earlier examples in this review). As noted on the Web site for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Ledbetter’s “repertoire included diverse African-American styles from work songs, ring chants, cowboy songs, games, and Tin Pan Alley to the Delta blues”; Jess’s Leadbelly reflects this diversity.

This musical quality is different from the style of other contemporary poets such as Denise Duhamel. While Duhamel also uses persona poems to get into the character of Barbie in her book Kinky, she uses third person and a dry, droll tone of voice: “Born in 1980, she looks exactly like Black or White Barbie/…Shoppers/who complain she’s hard to find should check Lamston’s/or Woolworth’s” (Duhamel 21). Her book doesn’t follow the timeline of Barbie’s life and the poems don’t tell an overarching story the way Jess’s poems do. The poems are interconnected in that they offer commentary on the plasticization of society, but unlike Jess’s work, they do not offer the reader any additional information about their subject. Like Jess, Duhamel uses an influential icon as her character, but she doesn’t take it nearly as far as Jess does.

Jess’s lyrical style probably better compares to the work of Patricia Smith, who Heintz states, believes “performance has an absolute relationship to text.” Smith’s writing is passionate, energetic, and has a lyrical quality due to her slam poetry roots. She isn’t just writing for the page, but also for the stage, much the same way Jess is. For example, these lines from “Asking for a Heart Attack,” available on slamnation.com, show the musical quality of Smith’s writing:

“Aretha. Deep butter dipt, burnt pot liquor, twisted sugar cane,
Vaselined knock knees clacking extraordinary gospel.”

Smith’s subject matters are obviously not the same as Jess’s. However, they both infuse their writing with music, rhythm, and soul that is at odds with many of today’s contemporary poets, where the prevailing style seems to be a sort of detachment. Though Jess and Smith have both written persona poems as part of their repertoires, that sense of detachment isn’t there at all; they both whole-heartedly embrace their characters as they dive into them head first.

Perhaps because Jess embraced his cast of characters so completely, Leadbelly was a joy to read and process, providing beautiful poetry in both traditional and the more experimental New Thing formats. The reader also gets a thorough history lesson about a dramatic and influential musician who left an indelible mark upon American music. Leadbelly.org observes that Ledbetter’s “music still has a great influence on some of [today’s] greatest artists, both black and white”; in much the same way, Jess’s book will probably influence future poets when undertaking their own ambitious historical/societal/musical/experimental poetry collections. The thought-provoking social commentary throughout the poems is also a wonderful quality that serves to encourage readers to learn more. Leadbelly is one poet’s careful conclusion about a tumultuous character and time in history; readers will finish the book wanting to learn more so they can draw their own careful conclusions. Readers will marvel that Jess managed to impart so much impact into the space of a book of poetry, weaving a complete life together with the power of each individual character and poem.

Works Cited

Burt, Stephen. “The New Thing.” Boston Review. May/June 2009. 18 July 2009 <http://bostonreview.net/BR34.3/burt.php>.

Duhamel, Denise. “Hispanic Barbie.” Kinky. Washington: Orchises Press, 1997. 21.

Heintz, Kurt. “The Idea of the Father.” The Book of Voices. 2000. 18 July 2009 <http://voices.e-poets.net/JessT/home.html>.

Heintz, Kurt. “Chapter 1: Patricia Smith.” The Book of Voices. 1999. 25 July 2009. <http://voices.e-poets.net/SmithP/>.

Jess, Tyehimba. Leadbelly. Amherst: Verse Press, 2005.

“Lead Belly.” The Lead Belly Foundation. 2004. 21 July 2009 <http://www.leadbelly.org/leadbelly.html>.

“Lead Belly.” Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. 2009. 21 July 2009 <http://www.folklife.si.edu/center/legacy/lead.aspx>.

Smith, Patricia. “Asking for a Heart Attack.” Slamnation. 25 July 2009. <http://www.slamnation.com/archive/HeartAttack/>.

been busy with tigger, work, school, pool…just too many things i want to do besides updating this website. but i thought i’d throw a little note on here with a few details.

the vet had to adjust tigger’s medication again after a few rough weeks and a bunch of checkups, but he’s doing okay now.

work is insane right now. so busy i can’t think straight (then again, that’s not necessarily a new thing). i have to go to san francisco june 15 through june 19. i don’t want to travel so i’m not looking forward to it.

school started up again and i’m in the advanced poetry workshop. it’s going to kick my ass.

the pool is awesome. love love love having a pool in the backyard. i hope it’s 100 degrees everyday this summer.

i mean, who could possibly be so interesting that you just have to know what they are doing at any given time of the day, in 140 characters or less?

so yes, i gave in to peer pressure and signed up, but i barely use it and when i do i can’t think of anything interesting to post, because–let’s face it–i am terminally boring.

however, i did have an experience today that was pretty cool. i found out that dish network has a twitter account; they use it to post the latest news and provide customer service. so since my bill has been messed up for the last few months, and i didn’t relish the thought of spending hours on hold and listening to a CSR with an indecipherable accent, i decided to use twitter to get some help. i sent a direct message and the rep responded in about 2 hours. he asked me a few questions and i responded, then he sent a message asking for my phone number. i sent it and he called within 5 minutes. he took care of the problem and credited me for the mistake, and i didn’t have to sit on hold for any period of time.

it was very nice to be able to get my account corrected without much effort on my part. my experiences up until now with dish network haven’t been bad for the most part, but i hate calling them because it’s rather painful.

i wonder how long companies will be able to provide customer service through twitter. i can’t imagine that it’s a viable long-term customer service medium. at any rate, it was certainly a nice option to take care of my issue, and hopefully it will remain an option for future issues.

if it’s going to be this cold, i want it to snow, dammit.

and what a crappy day it’s been. dow down 778 points. wachovia retail bank sold to citigroup. no gas in the charlotte metro.

what next?

welcome to 33.

it is so awesome having a pool in your own backyard.

the pool was finished about a week ago and we’ve been enjoying it ever since. we’re having a pool party next weekend for the family; temps probably won’t be as warm as they’ve been over the last week but it’ll still be fun.

we still have a lot to do (landscaping, finishing up the deck, etc.), but that will happen slowly over the next few months. i’ll post more pics as we finish things up.

the vet added 5 more medications, so now tigger is up to 15 meds total, several times a day. that is A LOT of greenies pill pockets per day. we stuff them as full as we can, but with 15 pills it obviously takes more than 1 pill pocket. some of the meds are antibiotics, so he won’t have to take them forever.

he has to go back to the vet for more blood work in 1 week, then he goes for another ultrasound in 3 weeks. we’re keeping our fingers crossed that the lymph nodes are smaller at the next ultrasound; if they aren’t, then that’s definitely not good news. the antibiotics should take care of the gall bladder infection, but the vet wasn’t sure if the lymph nodes were enlarged because of the infection or because of cancer. we opted not to do the cancer test because if that’s what it is, then there’s nothing else they can do.

but we aren’t worrying about that right now. we’re just glad he’s home and feeling better.