Poems by Quincy Troupe
Award-winning poet, Hollywood author, and Miles Davis confidante, Quincy Troupe evokes a sheer love of invention.
Coined with the French word errance (“to wander”) in mind, these poems rove from ancient Yoruba to the streets of Harlem to the tropical heat of Guadeloupe and emerge with a new vocabulary for the transformations of the physical, philosophical, and musical worlds. Known for his long, lyrical narrative poems and invocation of the oral tradition, Troupe captures the histories and deaths of Michael Jackson and Miles Davis, celebrating both their accomplishments and contradictions. This collection embraces the improvisation of a soul as it offers a paean to the possibilities of poetry.
Reviews
“Troupe is an innovator of form and tone who shifts quickly from a lofty, elegiac mode into burlesque or smoky, jazzed-down pop phraseology.” —Publishers Weekly
“Troupe’s poems are exuberant and passionate outpourings with driving, syncopated rhythms and improvisatory riffs of colorful language.” —Star Tribune
Excerpt
From “Sentences”
movement of time through the music of space
eye hear a bell ringing blue in sentences,
the language spoken in sleep becomes an echo here,
a translation when written down on white paper,
in the air, when spoken, words seem like a dream
pulsating through ether in blue melodies of tongues
weaving inside sentences, saturated with local
idioms, carved from blue spaces by human breath
sounds rooted in voices here evoke metaphors
coursing blood-deep, form ancient tribal gestures,
where words fixed in geographic locations repeat
through reverberating memory, bring recognition
ricocheting through a collective truth, perhaps
then language can evoke a shared history,
when sentences might mirror rhythms of drums
& a rising sun could birth a circle of love
