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In Memory of Jayne Cortez (1936-2012)

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                                                             Jelly madness
                                                       in sAndpaper socks
                                                      put Your hair into the earth
                                                      go iNto the dark meat of a crocodile
       spitting across syncopating roachEs into

                                                   buttoCks of vibrating nostrils
                           we can invent new bOnes
                  a village libating like niagaRa falls
                                              an armpiT of inflammable explosives
                                                         hEad units and gyrating limbs parading
                                                           Zoom

[Source text: Coagulations: New and Selected Poems (1984)]

3 thoughts on “In Memory of Jayne Cortez (1936-2012)

  1. “Ms. Cortez’s work was beyond category by virtue of embodying so many categories simultaneously: written verse, African and African-American oral tradition, the discourse of political protest, and jazz and blues. Meant for the ear even more than for the eye, her words combine a hurtling immediacy with an incantatory orality.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/arts/jayne-cortez-poet-and-performance-artist-dies-at-78.html?src=rechp&_r=0

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