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leadbelly: poems (National Poetry Series)

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I read "leadbelly" by Tyehimba Jess in one sitting, after dinner one evening. I don't tell you this to brag, but to tell you that the poems there were enthralling enough to hold me. This volume of poetry, which won the 2004 National Poetry Series prize, and was subsequently published in 2005, is a thoroughly researched series of surreal, un-capitalized poems based on the life of a Texas/Louisiana blues musician probably as famous for his pardons from prison as for his twelve-string guitar-playing. Though the stylistic concern of the poems remains true through the book, the individual poems include from short and touching lyrics, blocky prose poems, and experimental formats juxtaposing Leadbelly lyrics with Jess's lines.

The book begins with the voices of Leadbelly's parents bemoaning a somber foreshadowing their son's hard life to come as a poor black man in the South, then proceeds into a very humane treatment of the men he killed, his prison time, the songs that won him a gubernatorial pardon, and his eventual rocky relationship with Alan Lomax, the legendary folk music collector who "discovered" Leadbelly and others. With constantly shifting voices, Jess's poems cover varying perspectives on the life of a complex man who has contributed massively to our national character.

Book Review
Leadbelly
The poetic works in the book `Leadbelly' chronicles the work of poignant poet and author Tyehimba Jess who masterfully absorbs the spirit of the book's main character, Huddie William Ledbetter, an iconic American folk and blues musician to create a socially conscious piece of poetic narrative wrapped in a powerful autobiographical storyline.
I first came across Tyehimba Jess' work while completing an MFA in creative writing. I was immediately impressed with Jess' ability to weave the musicality of language and diction to create a volume that contains an organized chronology with a cultural, poetical climate.
Jess' work in `Leadbelly' can be compared to the socially conscious author and brilliant wordsmith Maya Angelou, her literary works also address the theme of the African American in society. In her book `The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou' (395) she writes; "When I first opened the shop, all the neighborhood kids came in. They either demanded that I `gi' them a penny' "- I hated white's imitation of the black accent-..." The veteran author's poetry and writings exude with masterful alliteration amd fluid lyricism.
Tyehimba Jess, a new author has certainly found his voice in the persona of `Leadbelly', he takes the common ordinary language of ordinary people and transforms it into a distinguished literary dialect that personifies the life and person of William Huddie Ledbetter. Steve Kowit, author of one of the best known poetry guidebooks, `In the Palm of Your Hand', remarks, "A poem is often an act of discovery". Jess has discovered a connection to his poetic voice, along with a compelling storyline in his first book of poetry `Leadbelly', which has won numerous awards including the 2004 National Poetry Series.
The narrative voice(s) in this volume exemplify descriptive details with heightened sensory images in conjunction with musical tone and sonic sense. An example of this would be found in the poem `Leadbelly's Lesson' which reads;
"His bottle and scowl grew louder
with each reel and jump that I played
while getting paid to show the way
of undressing music from its wooden clothes"
Jess' individual power-packed poems work in concert to produce an array of poetic techniques ranging from free verse, and prose poetry with a focus on distinct storytelling, to lined verse with orchestrated line breaks. The use of the first person narrative in `Mistress Stella Speaks' (17) is an example of a prevalent poetic technique used by Jess in many of the poems in this volume. With the incorporation of internal and external character dialogs, the sensory details and descriptive image of his guitar evoke the five senses and imagination of the reader. Enjambments are employed and utilized in `Fannin Street Signifies' (16) by using sentence syntax that carries from one line to the next, the language is bubbling with poignant observations of life through allusions to music;
"I'll cut a hole in his heart,
Nail in a dozen metronomes..."
Word placements drop in leaps and lands to help characterize the poem `John Lomax Writes Home, 1934' with oxymoronic subject matter;
"He is a killer" "...using him as a traveling companion" (85).
Letter poems accentuate the collection which gives the reader the private thoughts of the characters as the speaker addresses a listener.
There are flickers of metaphysical conceit especially in the juxtaposition of his music and his external world. In the poem `Will you take this Load' he writes;
"next to the door, riding a slow nod,
The silent wound in his womb of music
He couldn't quite fill the flatted thirds"
The contents of the volume are sectioned to order sequence to the chronicled life of Huddie William Ledbetter, firstly, the section titled `What kind of Soul has Man' speaks of the reflections of his mother who christens him into the world with the poem `Sallie Ledbetter: A Mother's Hymn' with heartfelt grace she ponders his roots and mulls over his future with questions that are nestled in repetitive dialog. The poem `Mistress Stella Speaks' gives his 12 stringed guitar a voice that protrudes from the page and personifies the concrete object with metaphoric language and sexual connotations;
"You think I'm his property
Cause he paid cash
To grab me by the neck
Swing me `cross his knee
and stroke the living song from my hips"
The section `Black Girl, Black Girl' dedicates focus on his relationship with wife Martha, while the section called' The Blood Done Signed my Name' displays an anchor poem `For Trouble's Sake', (29) in prose form that captures the pivotal events that would dictate the remainder of `Leadbelly's life. `Man playing with Mules' sections poems regarding his relationship with John Lomax, his recordings from Angola Prison, and widespread public controversy over his early release. `Good Morning Babe, How Do you Do' brings closure to the volume with `Leadbelly's death. The poem `Martha: Vigil' (108) gives emotional tone, but offers a non-regretful, commemorative ode to her husband;
This one last morning Lord, then I'm alone
On my way home to do what widows do:
I'll unload the trunk, air out the best suit."
The world of contemporary poetry continues to be a venue for poets and writers to confront and debate issues regarding social consciousness `Leadbelly's importance is its direct approach to the theme of racism and struggle in America. Jess lends a unique voice of strength and vulnerability, the success of `Leadbelly' hinges on the societal weakness of the main character which contrasts his success as an American folk and blues musician.
Jeannine Hall Gailey's, `Becoming the Villainess' `Midwest Book Review' looks at archetypal characters who "...are archetypal, yet in the world of the book they are as real as the next door neighbor and far more interesting" Jess has brought the real life of historical musician William Huddie Ledbetter to the forefront of poetry genre in a succession of prose, lined verse and letter poems in this particular volume. Can Jess continue his poetic success without tapping into the veins of historical figures or archetypal characters and still present real, interesting personas in his work? In the meantime be assured that Tyehimba Jess' book is one of unflinching honesty that provides a spectrum of important soul-searching, poetic material for us to explore.

Tyehimba Jess strikes a reverberating chord chronicling the life of troubled 1930/40's Blues musician Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter as if he's fresh from a road trip with the man. In language both electrifying and beautifully poetic, Jess deftly illuminates the dark corners of Leadbelly's childhood as the musically gifted but dirt-poor son of a southern, black sharecropper. In Jess' capable hands, Leadbelly's music, women, guitars, crimes, prison time, and much more are resurrected from the dusty annals of history to become vibrant and alive once again.

Jess follows Leadbelly's life roughly chronologically, opening with Leadbelly's mother asking:

"when the black boy climbs out of my womb;
How to peel dynamite from his bones?
how to weed graveyard from his garden of tongue?...

...which revengeful breast fed him this poison?
which breast gilded his mouth with song?"

He follows in the voice of Leadbelly's father, who says "...there's only one way out of slave time dues: hump this land down till it shrieks up a crop of cancelled debt into your wagon..." and Jess gets even more surprising as we are pulled, almost violently, into Leadbelly's world with jolting, ground-level pieces from the perspectives of the people and things most important in his life.

We hear from Leadbelly's first gun, given to him the year before he got his first guitar:

"while his fist cloaks me
with the hush of broken youth,
i singe my bullet-toothed birth-
right into his fingertips. .."

And if that's not raw enough, some of the most fantastic imagery comes from Leadbelly's guitar, which he named Stella:

"you think I'm his poroperty
`cause he paid cash
to grab me by the neck,
swing me `cross his knee
and stroke the living song from my hips...

Jess's language is colourful, gritty, and written true to the dialect of each speaker in turn. He pulls no punches, nor does he soften the tone to make it more palatable to those who might be considered easily offended. No, this isn't a collection you'd likely find on the First Baptist Church's book club reading list. If you want to `hear' the characters, though, if you really want to be pulled into Leadbelly's world, then you have to commend Jess on the outstanding way he presents each piece in exactly the right voice.

In "the song speaks," Jess gives us the view from a record's perspective:

"a professor embalms me
in electrified wax,
then exhumes me at 78rpm
with needle and wire,
tattooing my breath-
less body into wind."

No less exciting or intense is a piece from Leadbelly's first wife, Aletha, entitled "lethe on leadbelly:"
"once, towards the end,
sun burned her face into my back
as i rode him raw between our cotton rows,
wearing his skin into the boll's hungry bed
as if i could bury the low mosquito hum
of perfumed women clinging t his sweat."

The book, for which Tyehimba Jess won the 2004 National Poetry Series, is literally stuffed with piece after piece of edge-of-your-seat, amazing poems written in a style which is difficult to compare to any other popular poet. Perhaps it somewhat reminds me of the dream poems of John Berryman, but if any of it could be so described, it would have to be John Berryman's poetry on crack. And this is Jess' first book of poetry! He's definitely going to be one to watch--and buy. There is no way you could buy this book and be disappointed.

"Leadbelly" is a sequentially organized collection of short poems that celebrates the life of Blues guitarist Huddie Ledbetter (1888 - 1949). The poems begin with the man's birth and end with the real event of a christening at the artist's grave site in Longwood, Louisiana some fifty-four years after his death. A remarkable read, "Leadbelly" triumphs even where the musician himself had failed. Poems depicting the troubled life of this twice convicted felon/musician and his eventual early releases from state penitentiaries offer us the "real deal." Written from various personae from the biography of this struggling musician's life we get a genuine sense of living during times of high racial tension and strong prejudices that greatly hindered minority success. A time line highlighting the main events of this musician's life is provided near the end of the collection. I recommend reading that first in order to more readily identify with the various characters presented in the poems and more easily comprehend their significance to the artist's success and failures.

Some poems of exceptional quality are: "1912: blind lemon jefferson explaining to leadbelly" - a fellow Blues guitarist reveals his own hardships to Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter's nickname) and lets him know that life for a musician, especially a black one, will not be easy, but the rewards can be had if you're willing to fight for it.

In poems such as "leadbelly v. lomax: song hunting, 1934" and "brownie v. leadbelly: stipulations and apprenticeship" (along with many others of this similar, dual speaker format), Tyehimba Jess displays a rare form of contemporary genius by structuring the text in a split fashion so that it is apparent that this poem may be read in three distinct ways (yet, the meaning and coherence of all of this three in one poem is never altered or lost). By using italics T. Jess indicates that there is another voice in the poem (the titles, too, clue us into this nuance). One can read the poem on the left side separate from that on the right or read them joined together as one piece (ignoring the visual space created by italicized text vs. normal text). Regardless, of how you read these pieces the messages are virtually the same, though the voices become more distinctly recognizable when you opt to read each side separately. I was truly astounded by this unique structure of text manipulation. This dual voice representation is also found in a vertical poem of alternating verses entitled, "leadbelly and martha return to new york, 1936" - again, absolute poetic genius is demonstrated by having the option to read the poem in any one of three ways without losing its intelligibility.

Whether you're a Blues fan or not this is an enjoyable and intriguing read. T. Jess has offered us a musically crafted literary piece of American history splendidly presented through a biographical collection of poems offering us the sometimes heroic and sometimes disturbing depiction of Leadbelly, the man, his guitar, his music and his life.

Works Cited
Jess, Tyehimba. Leadbelly. St. Paul, MN. Verse Press. ©2005

I came across one poem on the web and had to read it all--and I'm so glad I did. Jess knows Leadbelly's world and is able to share it in this book length study of emotion, biography, and raw energy. This is a book that's well worth reading if you like, like I do, poetry and American roots music. Simply one of the best books I've read in years.