(POETRY MANUSCRIPT) by JEFF NEWBERRY
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TRANSPOSING THE TRADITION: JAZZ, LYRIC POETRY, AND THE INDIVIDUAL TALENT & BRACKISH (POETRY MANUSCRIPT) by JEFF NEWBERRY (Under the Direction of Edward Pavlić) ABSTRACT Brackish is a collection of poems preceded by the critical introduction, “Transposing the Tradition: Jazz, Lyric Poetry, and the Individual Talent.” Brackish explores the writer’s experiences coming of age on the coast of Northwest Florida, using brackish water as its central metaphor. Neither fresh nor salty, brackish water is a mixture of both. It retains elements of salt water and fresh water and finds identity in the fact that it is neither. The lyric voice in Brackish moves in this way: it is neither a child’s voice nor an adult’s voice, but a voice that stands between those two poles, retaining a child’s sense of discovery and mystery and an adult’s awareness of the larger world. In this way, the poems explore the tenuous gap between innocence and experience. “Transposing the Tradition: Jazz, Lyric Poetry, and the Individual Talent” develops the theory of lyric transposition, a way of understanding jazz-influenced poetry. Like jazz standards, poems often cover familiar territory; and like a jazz musician, a poet develops an individual voice in the context of familiar material. What separates a poem from others on similar subjects or themes is the poet’s voice. Lyric transposition describes the movement from subject matter to the poet’s register, the way that musical transposition describes the movement from a song’s original key to another key, more appropriate for a particular musician. This theoretical perspective frames a discussion and reading of three jazz-influenced works of poetry: Michael S. Harper’s Dear John, Dear Coltrane, Tyehimba Jess’s Leadbelly, and T.R. Hummer’s The Infinity Sessions. INDEX WORDS: Jazz, Lyric Poetry, Jazz Impulse T.S. Eliot, Ralph Ellison, Michael S. Harper, Tyehimba Jess, T.R. Hummer, Craig Werner TRANSPOSING THE TRADITION: JAZZ, LYRIC POETRY, AND THE INDIVIDUAL TALENT & BRACKISH (POETRY MANUSCRIPT) by JEFF NEWBERRY B.A., The University of West Florida, 1998 M.A., The University of West Florida, 2000 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY ATHENS, GEORGIA 2010 © 2010 Jeff Newberry All Rights Reserved TRANSPOSING THE TRADITION: JAZZ, LYRIC POETRY, AND THE INDIVIDUAL TALENT & BRACKISH (POETRY MANUSCRIPT) by Jeff Newberry Major Professor: Ed Pavlić Committee: Aidan Wasley Andrew Zawacki Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia December 2010 DEDICATION Brackish is dedicated first to Heather and Ben. The poems are also dedicated to The Crew. You know who you are. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In some ways, I’ve been writing Brackish all of my life; so I find it incredibly difficult to acknowledge every person who has made this dissertation possible. The following list, then, is admittedly short-sighted. First, I want to thank my wife, Heather Cothran Newberry, for continually supporting me and not allowing me to give up. Thanks to my son, Ben, whose presence in my life has been a long, sustained lyrical moment. A special thanks is due to my advisor, Ed Pavlić, who gave me the jazz impulse and who taught me how to keep a foot (or a nose or an elbow) on the ground. My committee members, Aidan Wasley and Andrew Zawacki, offered helpful and supportive feedback on this dissertation, and I couldn’t have completed it without their guidance. Additionally, thank you to the editors of the following journals, who saw fit to include some of these poems in their pages: Anti—, Barn Owl Review, The Cortland Review, Gulf Stream Magazine, Hobble Creek Review, The Florida Review, Memorious, New South, and Pebble Lake Review. Thanks, also, to Leah Maines, my editor at Finishing Line Press, the publisher of my chapbook, A Visible Sign, in which some of the poems in Brackish also appear. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................ v TRANSPOSING THE TRADITION: JAZZ, LYRIC POETRY AND THE INDIVIDUAL TALENT..................................................... 1 1. Lyric Inheritance.................................................................................................................... 3 2. Transpositions...................................................................................................................... 16 3. The Tradition of Individual Talent: Transposition in Three Jazz Poets ............................. 25 BRACKISH .................................................................................................................................. 38 1. The Butcher’s Son................................................................................................................ 39 Childhood...................................................................................................................... 40 Croker Sack Communion.............................................................................................. 42 Things Unseen .............................................................................................................. 43 The Butcher’s Son......................................................................................................... 44 Home Late, My Father.................................................................................................. 46 Fishing the Bridge......................................................................................................... 47 How to Shuck an Oyster ............................................................................................... 48 My Father, Fishing........................................................................................................ 49 Bottom Fishing ............................................................................................................. 50 Cleaning Fish ................................................................................................................ 51 To the Bone, or What My Father Said about His Brother ............................................ 52 At Day’s End................................................................................................................. 53 vi Payday........................................................................................................................... 54 Factory Boy................................................................................................................... 55 After School, I Never Walked Home............................................................................ 56 Laying on Hands........................................................................................................... 57 Testament...................................................................................................................... 58 The Fisherman’s Son at the Conference ....................................................................... 59 2. A Song inside a Song inside a Song .................................................................................... 61 Deep, Like Blood.......................................................................................................... 62 Mending a Net............................................................................................................... 63 Polly .............................................................................................................................. 64 Pants on Fire ................................................................................................................. 65 Off the Pier: Crash, In Flight ....................................................................................... 66 To Sparky...................................................................................................................... 68 Changing Strings: Ars Poetica..................................................................................... 69 My Father is Tuning his Guitar..................................................................................... 70 Transposition................................................................................................................. 71 The Notes You Don’t Play............................................................................................ 72 Drinking Beer................................................................................................................ 73 Honky Tonkin’.............................................................................................................. 74 In the Cross Maker’s Tent............................................................................................. 75 Apalachicola Blues ....................................................................................................... 76 Indian Summer.............................................................................................................. 77 Out of Key..................................................................................................................... 78 vii Advice to a Future Rock Star........................................................................................ 79 3. Letters from North Florida................................................................................................... 80 Port St. Joe,