To Breathe Into Another Voice - A South African Anthology of Jazz Poetry, 2018
By Moafrica ‘Amkogati’ with Makhosazana Xaba and many others
This is an anthology of jazz poetry compiled and edited by avid jazz lover and poet Myesha Jenkins. Published by Real African Publishers, the anthology explores jazz and its relationship to poetry and vice versa: How jazz informed exiled voices or lingers as a backdrop to a modern-day massacre, or the poet’s ode to the musicians that dare to create Jazz. Or Jazz in memory or life or death. These are not just poems about Jazz. This is poetry inspired and influenced by jazz, Poetry imitating jazz. Jazz Rhythms trapped in a poem. Jazz Poetry.
“On being a flower
They rehearsed in a forest in Angola We prepared in another, not too far
When the forest carried the sounds to us
Our guns clicked, as we retrained in preparation
The sounds of music streamed through the forest
As if they were playing only for me.
I fully embraced
Being a flower of the nation”
Real African Publishers
