I'll read you one more about a musician, a great musician
named Charlie Parker.
This man, Sterling Brown, did a definitive kind
of study of literature, poetry, fiction, drama- black
characters in American lit.
And it's something which any student of literature
and language should read--
begin to understand Melville, Twain, Whitman,
the great 19th century titans, why they were so concerned,
and what the 20th century's abdicated.
All of us are kind of responsible for that.
Charlie Parker died in 1955.
This poem is a poem called, "Bird Lives,
Charles Parker in St. Louis."
St Louis to me represents the transition
from 19th to 20th century slavery.
And Bird was a giant.
"Bird Lives, Charles Parker in St. Louis."
I want to tell you I'm goin' about this,
because I don't want it to come in a vacuum.
This poem is in nine parts and it's called "High Modes."
And it's an attempt to transform classical myth into modal myth.
It's based on a series of legends about Zeus
and nine annunciations.
You know what annunciation is?
Some of the classic annunciation, the best
annunciation I can think of in the 20th century
is Leda the swan by Yeats.
And the annunciation, is always about culture.
This begins with Charlie Parker, because this particular poem
is about ritual.
"Bird Lives, Charles Parker in St. Louis."
"Last on legs, last on sax, last in Indian wars, last on smack,
Bird is spacious, Bird is alive, horn unplayable, before,
after, right now, it's heroin time.
Smack in the melody a trip, smack in the Mississippi,
smack in a drug merchant trap, smack in St. Louis, Missouri.
We knew you were through trying to get out of town,
unpaid bills, connections unmet, unwanted, unmasked.
Bird's in the last arc of his own light-- blow Bird!
And you did screaming, screaming, baby for life
after it, around it, screaming for life-- blow Bird!
What is the meaning of music?
What is the meaning of war?
What is the meaning of oppression?
Blow Bird!
Ripped up and down into the interior of life,
the pain, Bird, the embraceable you.
How many brothers gone, smacked out, blues and racism?
The hardest longest penis in the Mississippi urinal-- blow Bird!
Taught more musicians then forgot, space loose,
fouling the melodies, the marching songs,
the fine white geese from the plantations.
Syrup in this pork barrel, Kansas City,
the even teeth of the mafia, the big band-- blow Bird!
Get yourself killed.
In the first wave, the musicians out there
alone, in the first wave everywhere you went.
Massey Hall, Sweden, New Rochelle, Birdland,
nameless bird, Blue Note, Carnegie, tuxedo junction,
out of nowhere.
Confirmation, confirmation, confirmation.
Bird lives!
And you do, dead."