Categories
2006-2010 Poetry Analysis

“Woman, I Got the Blues”: Finding Morality in Modern Times

The following is a close reading of a poem by Yusef Komunyakaa (one of my favorite poets) entitled, “Woman, I Got the Blues,” which you can read at http://nathanielturner.com/igotheblues.htm.

As adolescents enter adulthood, many of them start to question the truisms spoon-fed to them from their parents, teachers, ministers, and others in positions of power. Perhaps these inquiries arise following the initial breach of a social taboo, such as engaging in premarital relations with another person, trying drugs or alcohol for the first time, or breaking a minor law without censure.

Categories
2006-2010 Poems

“Blue Note”

A latex slip, ribbed for her pleasure, is pregnant
with half-babies vainly swimming
in an open-ended tunnel capped with a reservoir tip.
Her intimates, intermingling with his pink
Polo shirt, lie curled up in a ball,
freshly unfurled from her young frame.
Tendrils, chiseled in stone-colored smoke
borne from a Camel Light, swirl in the dusky
incandescence before fading from sight.
Coltrane, on wax, carves a space in sound with his sax;
“Giant Steps” walks the room and scores the scene
until “A Love Supreme” conquers all.