ENTER WINTER
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© AlYoung.Org
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Photo: Ray Black
L-R: Poets Camille Dungy, Robert Chrisman, Jayne Cortez, Al Young, Melba Joyce Boyd, Conyus, Arthur Sheridan, and (seated) Adam David Miller — following the 40th anniversary celebration reading for The Black Scholar Journal at the University of California, Berkeley ~ November 2009
© James Kenyon
On a 13-degree Fahrenheit night, poet-playwright Bill Harris and popular poet and arts activist Terry Blackhawk talk weather and shop while the audience gathers at Detroit’s restful, beautiful Virgil H. Carr Cultural Arts Center in December, 2009.
© James Kenyon
Meanwhile, Al Young and a jetlagged Melba Boyd — just back from a teaching stay in Shanghai and visit to San Francisco — complete some unfinished business before the show (A Night of Poetry, Jazz and Blues in Detroit’s Historic Paradise Valley) begins.
© James Kenyon         
The gig begins with Melba Boyd — Detroit born and bred — reading and reciting a suite of exciting home-triggered poems layered with blues-tinged helpings of master bassist Marion Hayden’s joy.
© James Kenyon        
Populist poet and master of ceremonies M.L. Liebler greets renowned guitarist-poet Ron English who, with Marion Hayden, will collaborate with Al Young, now poised to kick off his set.
© James Kenyon
Nata Morozova, the videographer focusing here on saxophonist Faruq Z. Bey, journeyed to Detroit all the way from Siberia, where Bey — as a member of M.L. Liebler’s Magic Poetry Band — has often performed.
© James Kenyon
After Al Young opens with “The Art of Benny Carter,” his brief poetic tribute to the humanizing majesty of jazz, Ron and Marion slip eloquently into Carter’s classic ballad, “When Lights Are Low.”
© James Kenyon
Like all true artists who work with sound and song, Bill Harris listens as thoughtfully as he speaks or sets pen to paper — or fingers to keyboard.
© James Kenyon
Bill Harris reads from Birth of a Notion; Or, The Half Ain’t Never Been Told, forthcoming from Wayne State University Press.
© James Kenyon
Melba Boyd and Faruq Z. Bey in rapt response to the poetry Bill Harris is voicing.
© Vivian Torrence
December paints North Carolina
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SECTION UNDER CONSTRUCTION
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