Leadbelly by Tyehimba Jess (Verse Press / Wave Books, paperback)
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
Publisher Marketing: This gripping collection examines the life and times of the legendary blues musician Lead Belly from a variety of intimate perspectives, using a range of innovative poetic forms. A biography in poems, LEADBELLY becomes a collage of song, culture and circumstance, alive and speaking.
"I suspect this book, about one man's journey through the blues, is as close as a book of poetry may get to describing what it means and what it costs to have this music in your veins."—Cornelius Eady
"This is one of the most powerful exchanges between poetry and history that I have read."—Toi Derricotte
