Poet Diann Blakely, a graduate of both the University of the South and Vanderbilt University, begins this week on a great note: The Chronicle of Higher Education has just featured her poem “Dead Shrimp Blues” at its Arts & Academe blog. The poem is part of her collection-in-progress, Rain in Our Door, a series of “duets” with blues artist Robert Johnson. (Each poem in the collection is a response to a song by Johnson.) Arts & Academe’s Lisa Russ Spaar sings Blakely’s praises in a detailed analysis below the poem: “With the refreshing and uncanny empathy for which she is admired and respected as a critic and poet, Blakely offers a fresh attention to Johnson’s music… . The result in Blakely’s poly-vocal ‘Dead Shrimp Blues’ is a refusal to allow any human voice to be shut down or posted out.”
To read the full poem and analysis, click here. To read another poem by Blakely, click here.
Tagged: Poetry
