Testimony: A Tribute to Charlie Parker

This career-spanning selection of Komunyakaa's (The Chameleon Couch) jazz-inspired poetry showcases the title piece, a libretto by composer Sandy Evans set to music by the Australian Broadcast Company (included here on two CDs). "Testimony" is a flowing, poly-voiced mosaic of lyrical narratives evoking events in saxophonist Charlie Parker's life. An iconic artist able to listen "with his whole body," Parker (1920–55) absorbed the disparate sounds of his world and translated them into music: "A train whistle/ in the distance, gun shot/ through the ceiling, a wood warbler/ back in the Ozarks at Lake Taneycomo, he'd harmonize/ them all." In addition to the poems, this volume provides interviews, commentaries, and bibliographies that offer insight on the creative interactions between the poet's words and the music they inspired.