PATRON SAINT OF JAZZ

She lived in the corner
in the record rack
Her face, flat on an album cover
but spin that vinyl and ooooh

She sang about life
About the sad truth that
black lives didn’t always matter
Especially in the south in the 30s

Her voice gave witness
to a woman’s weary world
Her curls pressed, ironed
Her veins spiraled in junk

Her attitude, defiant
Her circumstance,
forced compliant
by companies and creeps

No one could deny her
power, the flower behind
one ear; the blossom
gardenia, always

The voice got harsher
as did the years, but
Billie was the patron saint
of one little abused white girl

who understood without knowing
there was anything else to be
but to be a musician, or
anything else to do but sing the blues

© 2016 Amy Barlow Liberatore/Sharp Little Pencil

Decades before cultural appropriation was a thing, I was a white girl singing blues and jazz (from the age of around 6). I copied no one, truly; probably had more Judy Garland in me than anything. But the feeling, yes. I got that. Grew up around it, heard so many singers and musicians, both black and Anglo, who encouraged me. They never made a distinction about my race, they just said, “Sing it, baby.” The depth of feeling was natural for me, it ran through me like my own blood.

Having said that, I DO “get” cultural appropriation and am PROUD I never thought to copy any of Billie Holiday’s stuff. Too many female singers of all ethnicities adopted the gardenia behind one ear; I always thought it terribly corny and a bit disrespectful.

For Poets United, the Midweek Motif is Patron Saints.

Peace and a spin on the turntable, Amy


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