Rhapsodies in Blue

RHAPSODIES IN BLUE is the second installment of a large and ongoing project that explores America (its mythology, its possibility) through a series of poems that function as biography, history, and cultural commentary. Continuing where THE BLACKENED BLUES left off, this collection honors a variety of artistic icons, some well-known, others unjustly obscure, and seeks to capture something essential about their lives, bearing witness while paying homage.

America has always been a cauldron of inconsistencies; so often in our history we’ve ended up with brilliance, tolerance, and progress only after every other option has been exhausted. It seems instructive—and inspiring—to consider that, to take only one from many other examples, this country, which beats and stymies its best citizens, is capable of producing the geniuses who invented and perfected jazz and blues music. Despite every systemic disadvantage and all the obstacles placed in their paths, these musicians lived, played, persevered, and became immortal. Any country that can claim Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, and Howlin’ Wolf is worth preserving, and celebrating.

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Sean Murphy is a blues poet and jazz artist who touches our souls and enriches our lives!

— Dr Cornel West Professor, Philosopher, Artist, Activist, cornelwest.com

These poems are Blackness, but more: everything from jazz to Malcolm X, the church to George Floyd. Gods and goddesses are here. Myths, mythmakers, and the mythological are here. These poems deal with jazz but more, they are jazz: badass, unruly, and smart. An important collection, an instant classic.

— Adrienne Christian Author of WORN, adriennechristian.com

With plain-spoken verse that allows the subjects and their narratives to be centered, Murphy meditates on the genius, loneliness, delights, and refusals of some of the most accomplished Black jazz musicians of the 20th century. These poems dip and sway in tempo and temperature, ringing in the ear until consonant cacophonies sound like any good horn section. Here, we find metaphors through synesthesia, with sights and sounds merging into a kind of metropolitan celestial body of stars and space, as well as ripe comparisons to Biblical figures, Greek mythologies, and the larger cosmos. But the speaker always grounds us back to the body with riffs in the rhythms, disguised as asides or digressions in parentheses. We are reminded that these Black trailblazers could not afford to wait on recognition, but claimed space as great makers of art unabashedly, as Murphy writes: ‘…You can’t ask reality;/ you need to reconstruct it, oblige it.’ ”

— L. Renée Poet & Writer, lreneepoems.com

In Rhapsodies in Blue, poet Sean Murphy uses the subject of various legendary jazz, blues, and rock musicians as a point of departure for a series of colorful, often abstract, and thought-provoking poems. Particularly memorable are his offbeat portrayals of Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Eric Dolphy, and Marvin Gaye, capturing aspects of their lives and music with just a few words. This book is well worth reading several times.

— Scott Yanow Jazz Journalist and Author, scottyanow.com

Sean Murphy writes poetry loose at the hip, not quite a beat—more towards Wordsworth without the pomp. Now, he’s fun. Rare. Precious in poetry to lift us through the mire of pop culture. He’s never irreverent for mere effect, Murphy is meticulous and values quiet when the waves are all you should hear.

— Clifford Brooks Author of OLD GODS, cliffbrooks.com