Bird/Diz: [an erased history of bebop]

by Warren C. Longmire

An innovative new erasure chapbook from Warren C. Longmire, BIRD/DIZ [AN ERASED HISTORY OF BEBOP] navigates the personal and artistic lives of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie through the author's own roving imagination. What becomes of a history overwritten, sampled, celebrated and smeared? How do we find creation past erasure? Part new media archive, part visual poetry project, BIRD/DIZ [AN ERASED HISTORY OF BEBOP] is a journey into highs and lows of Black America's first global music export. Taking biographies of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie as a jumping off point, BIRD/DIZ jumps between actual erasures of the written/oral history of Bebop, redacted poems taken from those words, and reflections on historic performances from some of jazz's chief characters. From St. Louis heroin dins to Copenhagen sound stages, it strives to find, in the continued disappearance of Black American contributions to world art, the seed of innovation that never dies. Poetry. Essay. Hybrid. Music. African & African American Studies.

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2022

Reviews

[William · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool. Short and easy to go back to, which I surely will. Big ups to the small press section of Powells in PDX. Picked this up blind on the recommendation on the wall.

[Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ever have the opportunity to swing by one of Longmire's live performances, please treat yourself. They're an absolute sensory delight.