SOMETHING ABOUT THE BLUES | BlogCritics Review (28 January 2008)
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008
Book Review: Something About the Blues – an unlikely collection of poetry by Al Young
Written by Abram Bergen
Published January 28, 2008 in BlogCritic
There is something about the blues that grabs hold of you and moves you, physically and emotionally, that transports you to places past, present and imagined, something that taps into the deepest elemental parts of you to soothe and sometimes heal. It’s easy to lose yourself in the blues. Its history runs deep and its influence on other forms has been enormous. The blues, Al Young writes in the introduction to Something About the Blues: an unlikely collection of poetry, is “beaded and threaded throughout America’s musical mosaic.” But the blues, like poetry, is difficult to describe, define, confine. “The blues,” he writes, “will always be dramatically unpredictable, sometimes torturous and sometimes pleasurable,” and “ever resistant to classroom analysis,” for the blues dwells largely “in a feral state; blues truth is wild and menacing.”
Something About the Blues is blues poetry. Though I’ve often listened to and lost myself in the blues, and have immersed myself in various kinds of poetry, I must confess that I was largely ignorant of the blues in poetic form until I had the good fortune to read this collection. The first to popularize blues poetry was Langston Hughes, born in Joplin, Missouri in 1902, and best “known for his insightful, colorful portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties” (learn more about Hughes at Poets.org). It is fitting, then, that Young opens his collection of blues poetry with Hughes’ beautiful and haunting poem, “The Weary Blues.” This poem, read by Hughes himself, also opens the accompanying CD. It serves as a wonderful introduction to the spirit of blues poetry and sets the mood perfectly.
by Al Young. The title probably already tipped you off to the fact that every one of the 120 poems has a relation to the blues, whether it is about the groupies, the gigs, the music itself, people who play it, or the lifestyle of those who live it. Most of the poems span two pages; occasionally a poem will reach as many as three pages or only one page in length. I appreciated the thoughtful choice of font size that is large and very easy on the eyes, allowing the reader to concentrate on the feeling the words invoke, rather than on trying to read them. The author also includes a 16-page short story near the center of the book entitled “Silent Parrot Blues.”
Young covers thoughts on society, music, genres of the blues, black culture and making love. He displays light humor in “Elevator Over the Hill,” and observations on life, people or situations in the city. I particularly enjoyed “April in Paris,” Potato Head Blues” and “You do All This For Love.” Some of the poetry opens with a setting for the piece or quotations.
