The Infinity Sessions: Poems: Southern Messenger Poets

In The Infinity Sessions, T. R. Hummer achieves a radical act of translation, creating poems that project the narrative of twentieth-century America implicit in the syncopated rhythms of jazz and blues. Hummer boldly stands up as a poet and rides with some of the obscure greats with whom he feels a deep kinship -- Jimmie Lunceford, Adrian Rollini, Big Maybelle Smith, and Sun Ra -- in a dazzling poetic cycle as melodic, surprising, and improvisational as the finest of jazz music.

Showing readers that the musician's character is tested and formed in the merciless crucible of improvisation, Hummer forces forth his own unique character as a poet, testing himself to the limit within the mystery, sadness, and beauty of jazz. His vaultingly ambitious collection is a work of grace and nuance, its conveyance of music in words incisively original in achieving this "impossible" translation.

In the darkness, without a sound,
The relays close; the tape slides by.
What will it be this time? Shuffle for the lovers found

Dead in an alley? Ballad for the boy
Who slipped over the edge? Nobody wants to call
The song. But this is fate. No mercy

In this business, the musicians know. They all
Lived and died for it, common names forgotten.
But note by note, take by take, their lyrical

Stumbling fattens the vault of heaven.
Omniscience has a lot to answer for. The seraphic reels spin,
Blues etched wave by wave on the shell of one electron.

And then the great remastering: variations in the key of pain.
-- from "The Infinity Sessions"