The Muse is Music: Jazz Poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to the Spoken Word

(University of Illinois Press) This interdisciplinary study traces jazz’s influence on African American poetry from the Harlem Renaissance to today’s spoken word poetry. Jones examines the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality within the jazz tradition and in poetry through a critical “close listening” of established poets and of up-and-coming contemporary writers and performers. Jones is an associate professor in the English and the African and African diaspora studies departments at University of Texas at Austin.