1) Sharon Jones, “Just Dropped in (To See What Condition My Rendition Was In)” / Sharon Jones left too soon. The electrifying soul singer died in 2016 at age 60. Thankfully, the cliche rings true–Jones lives on in her music. Here, we’re treated to a posthumous set of covers from Jones and her crackerjack band, The Dap-Kings. Jones takes on the work of Stevie Wonder, Janet Jackson, Woody Guthrie and more, meeting every challenge, making every song sound like she made it up on the spot.
2) Raye Zaragoza, “Woman in Color” / There are so many exquisite, lived-in layers in the latest from this singer-songwriter. Zaragoza plays with the wandering spirit of her folk-singing forebears and, to truly honor them, articulates what’s inside and outside her with clear eyes and a valiant voice.
3) Kelley Stoltz, “Ah! (Etc)”/ An unsung hero of indie rock for the past 20 years, Stoltz’s latest provides further evidence of his classicist songcraft. Brian Wilson would hear “Ah! (Etc)” and recognize both the tribute and the talent of the man at the microphone. This is present-tense rock and roll with deep reverence for everything that came before.
4) Tiana Clark, “Nina is Everywhere I Go” for Oxford American / Social media hipped me to this 2018 essay from the luminous poet. All I can say: Better late than never. Clark takes a pilgrimage on the page: to Nina Simone’s hometown, yes, but also to her own roots and to the ways one artist forges another. At one point, she writes:
As an artist, processing rejection is part of the contract. And I had often heard this defiant refusal in Nina’s music: wavering inside her signature contralto like grit-dark silk, unlocking a broader notion, to me, about the psychological mood of disallowance. What does it mean for me, as a Black writer, to not have acute access to the source of my inspiration? I’ve never been to Africa, and yet, the handprints and rhythms of the continent saturate all of my poems. And doesn’t Nina’s voice seem as if it comes from everywhere, entirely Southern but also diasporic, ancient even, as if it were already present, hovering above the waters before the world was built like the face of God?
Later, Clark has both an earthy and euphoric moment while standing before a statue of Simone:
She is gigantic, and I know the metal cast is not alive, but I swear the skin is vibrating, belling inside me. Her alchemic presence must have felt this enormous in real life. I reach out and caress her fake heart, trying to sweep and gather the duende-drenched spirit emanating from the statue’s chest, where a portion of her ashes are interred.
There are so many moments in this essay that both stand up under—and apart from—context, including this passage on the how and why of writing:
Bob Dylan said, “The purpose of art is to stop time,” and this is why I love writing poetry: to stop time for the length of a poem and become myself again and celebrate the gift of blood in my mouth. I write to access that same pulse, that blood-jet, that wine-dark optimism, the beating heart of the poem, the punctum …
5) Ben Lerner, “The Topeka School” / A Portrait of the Writer as a High-School Debater. Lerner’s 2019 novel is a nearly perfect garment, weaving together threads of family dysfunction, Midwest insulation, teenage conceptions of time and the corrosive effects of even “normal” masculinity gone unchallenged. Several scenes in this one took my breath away. But mostly I just saw traces of myself, and mourned missed opportunities to know and do better.
