The Jazz Poetry of Bob Kaufman

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In that Jazz corner of life
Wrapped in a mist of sound
His legacy, our Jazz-tinted dawn
Wailing his triumphs of oddly begotten dreams
Inviting the nerveless to feel once more
That fierce dying of humans consumed
In raging fires of Love.

— Bob Kaufman

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Jazz poetry emerged amid the chaos of the early 20th century. What separated it from the conventional genre of poetry was its fusion of jazz music's sporadic rhythms, improvisational techniques, and urban-life themes.

Similar to jazz musicians who improvised their solos, jazz poets took a more spontaneous and free-form approach to their writing, allowing for creative expression and experimentation with language.

One of the early notable jazz poets was Langston Hughes, who integrated jazz rhythms into his poetry and addressed themes of African American identity and culture. Then you got Jack Kerouac, who, in his unique, stream-of-conscious way, incorporated the improvisational spirit of jazz into his Beat Generation writings.

Holy flowers floating in the air, were all these tired faces in the dawn of Jazz America.

—Jack Kerouac

The following are three poems by Bob Kaufman, one of the great yet little-known of the Beat Poets. Kaufman was known for his jazz-influenced poetry and his contributions to the San Francisco literary scene in the middle of the 20th century.

He was truly a fascinating character, to say the least. You can read a little bio I wrote about him by clicking the link at the bottom.

I hope you enjoy these poems.

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On

On yardbird corners of embryonic hopes, drowned in a heroin tear.
On yardbird corners of parkerflights to sound filled pockets in space.
On neuro-corners of striped brains & desperate eletro-surgeons.
On alcohol corners of pointless discussion & historical hangovers.
On television corners of cornflakes & rockwells impotent America.
On university corners of tailored intellect & greek letter openers.
On military corners of megathon deaths & universal anesthesia.
On religious corners of theologial limerics and
On radio corners of century-long records & static events.
On advertising corners of filter-tipped ice cream & instant instants
On teen-age corners of comic book seduction and corrupted guitars,
On political corners of wamted candidates and ritual lies.
On motion picture corners of lassie & other symbols.
On intellectual corners of controversial therapy and analyzed fear.
On newspaper corners of sexy headlines & scholarly comics.
On love divided corners of die now pay later mortuaries.
On philosophical corners of semantic desperadoes & idea-mongers.
On ultra-real corners of love on abandoned roller-coasters.
On lonely poet corners of low lying leaves & moist prophet eyes.

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Private Sadness

Sitting here alone, in peace
With my private sadness
Bared of the acquirements
Of the mind's eye
Vision reversed, upended
Seeing only the holdings
Inside the walls of me,
Feeling the roots that bind me,
To this mere human tree
Thrashing to free myself,
Knowing the success
Of these burstings
Shall be measured
By the fury
Of the fall
To eternal peace
The end of All. 

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Photo by Guy Le Querrec of The American jazz musician Jimmy Lyons (saxophones) in his dressing room, before the sound check for his concert with the Cecil Taylor New Unit.

I Am A Camera

The poet nailed on
The hard bone of this world, 
His soul dedicated to silence
Is a fish with frog's eyes,
The blood of a poet flows
Out with his poems, back
To the pyramid of bones
From which he is thrust
His death is a saving grace

Creation is perfect

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You can complement this post with a recent introduction I wrote about Bob Kaufman—the poet of the people. You can read it here.

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