Paeans and Poems for Ella—National Poetry Month 2026

 

Young Ella with the diminutive Chick Webb at the drums in one of their famous Savoy Ballroom sets.

Ella Fitzgerald, the incomparable jazz singer whose career spanned decades would have turned 109- years-old yesterday.  As usual there were plenty of tributes for the beloved First Lady of Song.

Ella was not only a treasured performer, she was also profoundly inspirational.  There is a large body of poetry dedicated to her or inspired by her.  Two of those I selected for birthday tribute were penned by Beat influenced poets who frequently perform with jazz accompaniment--Sanchez and Jayne Cortez--are probably no surprise.  But Polish Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska also wrote knowledgably about her showing Fitzgerald’s international appeal. 

Jillian Philips Twitter icon.

But first we will hear from Jillian Philips, “writer, poet, editor, actress, karaoke junkie, mom, and feminist” from Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

Ella Fitzgerald in Her Livingroom

I find comfort in a downpour.
The sound of intermittent pings
is almost a sonata, lulling me.
If Beethoven played on tin,
it would sound like the rain on my roof:

      drip

           drip

                drip

                     DROP!

His fifth symphony forming
puddles on the sidewalk
as I watch and listen
through my window.

—Jillian Philips

                              

  Sonya Sanchez.

A Poem for Ella Fitzgerald

when she came on the stage, this Ella
there were rumors of hurricanes and
over the rooftops of concert stages
the moon turned red in the sky,
it was Ella, Ella.
queen Ella had come
and words spilled out
leaving a trail of witnesses smiling
amen - amen - a woman - a woman.

she began
this three agèd woman
nightingales in her throat
and squads of horns came out
to greet her.

streams of violins and pianos
splashed their welcome
and our stained glass silences
our braided spaces
unraveled
opened up
said who’s that coming?

Who’s that knocking at the door?
whose voice lingers on
that stage gone mad with
         perdido. perdido. perdido.
         i lost my heart in toledooooooo.

whose voice is climbing
up this morning chimney
smoking with life
carrying her basket of words
                 a tisket a tasket
                 my little yellow
                 basket-i wrote a
                 letter to my mom and
                 on the way i dropped it-
                 was it red... no no no no
                 was it green... no no no no
                 was it blue... no no no no
                 just a little yellow

voice rescuing razor thin lyrics
from hopscotching dreams.

we first watched her navigating
an apollo stage amid high-stepping
yellow legs
we watched her watching us
shiny and pure woman
sugar and spice woman
her voice a nun’s whisper
her voice pouring out
guitar thickened blues,
her voice a faraway horn
questioning the wind,
and she became Ella,
first lady of tongues
Ella cruising our veins
voice walking on water
crossed in prayer,
she became holy
a thousand sermons
concealed in her bones
as she raised them in a
symphonic shudder
carrying our sighs into
her bloodstream.

this voice, chasing the
morning waves,
this Ella-tonian voice soft
like four layers of lace.
                 when i die Ella
                 tell the whole joint
                 please, please, don't talk
                 about me when i'm gone....

i remember waiting one nite for her appearance
audience impatient at the lateness
of musicians,
i remember it was april
and the flowers ran yellow
the sun downpoured yellow butterflies
and the day was yellow and silent
all of spring held us
in a single drop of blood.

when she appeared on stage
she became Nut arching over us
feet and hands placed on the stage
music flowing from her breasts
she swallowed the sun
sang confessions from the evening stars
mage earth divulge her secrets
gave birth to skies in her song
remade the insistent air
and we became anointed found
inside her bop
                 bop bop dowa
                 bop bop doowaaa
                 bop bop dooooowaaa

Lady. Lady. Lady.
be good. be good
to me.
        to you.         to us all
cuz we just some lonesome babes
in the woods
hey lady. sweetellalady
Lady. Lady. Lady. be gooooood
ELLA ELLA ELLALADY
        be good
               gooooood
                      gooooood...

—Sonya Sanchez

                Wislawa Szymorska, Polish Nobel Laureate. 

Ella in Heaven

She prayed to God
with all her heart
to make her
a happy white girl.
And if it’s too late for such changes,
then at least, Lord God, see what I weigh,
subtract at least half of me.
But the good God answered No.
He just put his hand on her heart,
checked her throat, stroked her head.
But when everything is over – he added –
you’ll give me joy by coming to me,
my black comfort, my well-sung stump.

—Wislawa Szymborska

  Jayne Cortez.

Jazz Fan Looks Back

I crisscrossed with Monk

Wailed with Bud

Counted every star with Stitt

Sang “Don’t Blame Me” with Sarah

Wore a flower like Billie

Screamed in the range of Dinah

& scatted “How High the Moon” with Ella Fitzgerald

as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium

                    Jazz at the Philharmonic

                                                           

I cut my hair into a permanent tam

Made my feet rebellious metronomes

Embedded record needles in paint on paper

Talked bopology talk

Laughed in high-pitched saxophone phrases

Became keeper of every Bird riff

every Lester lick

as Hawk melodicized my ear of infatuated tongues

& Blakey drummed militant messages in

soul of my applauding teeth

& Ray hit bass notes to the last love seat in my bones

I moved in triple time with Max

Grooved high with Diz

Perdidoed with Pettiford

Flew home with Hamp

Shuffled in Dexter’s Deck

Squatty-rooed with Peterson

Dreamed a “52nd Street Theme” with Fats

& scatted “Lady Be Good” with Ella Fitzgerald

as she blew roof off the Shrine Auditorium

                    Jazz at the Philharmonic.

 

—Jayne Cortez

 

Gerard Malanga Imagined Elephant Armageddon--National Poetry Month 2026

 

Gerard Malanga--the Warhol years.

Poet and photographer Gerard Malanga is best known for his association with cultural icon Andy Warhol.  He was the pop artist’s personal assistant, photographer, and sometimes actor during Warhol’s most famous period in the 1960s and ‘70s.  In fact, he has been called Warhol’s “most important associate” during those years.

Malanga was the son of Italian immigrants and was raised in the Bronx.  He began writing poetry as a teenager and was soon immersed in the New York City avant garde art scene.  He began documenting that scene as a photographer.

Malanga and Warhol.

He was the chief assistant for Warhol from the mid-1960s and founded the magazine Interview with him in 1969. Malanga was also featured in several of Warhol’s films, collaborated with Warhol on his Screen Tests project, and was a member of Warhol’s cross-genre undertaking, The Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

He was also closely identified with the emerging punk rock movement, was close to The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop, and was one of Patti Smith’s lovers.

His numerous books of poetry, include chic death (1971), Mythologies of the Heart (1996), No Respect: New And Selected Poems 1964-2000 (2001), and Cool & Other Poems (2019).

The contemporary shutter bug in his element.

Malanga has also published the photography books Good Girls (1994) and Resistance to Memory (1998). He served as the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation’s first photo archivist, and edited a study on the link between photography and voyeurism, Scopophilia: The Love of Looking (1985). With Victor Bockris, he co-authored Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story (2003).

Malanga remains an active artist today.

This 2012 poem finds Malanga far from the gritty urban streets with which he is most identified.

African elephants endangered for their ivory.

Elephant Armageddon

NYTimes headline for September 4th 2012:

Elephants Dying in Epic Frenzy As Ivory Fuels Wars and Profits

                                                         

          They return to the site whence they came with eyes tearful,

 with psalms trumpeting the air.

 They stand ever so watchful;

 guarding the graves of their ghosts and their kind.

 They shall not forget.  They shall not want.

 They lie down in green silky pastures

 and finding their way to the still waters.

 They restore and nourish their soul.

 They walk through the dark valleys; always the shadows

 of death lurking behind them.

 Always striding till they reach the comforting light.

 They fear no evil.  Man fears.

 They forage for food and they eat amongst their enemies

 because they fear not.  They are the happiest.

 The honey is under their tongue.

 The winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

 Their hearts awaken.  They know no violence.

 Even in the waning light they tower over all else.

 They are the landscape.  They are the trees.

 They throw up the dust in their dance.  The skies become misty.

 They rise up and lead each other away into the dusk.

 

—Gerard Malanga

 

Mohammed el-Kurd Writes War Machines Dress Up as Drag Queens—National Poetry Month 2026

 

Twins Muna and Mohammed el-Kurd at a public appearance.

Mohammed el-Kurd is a 25-year-old Palestinian writer and poet who came to prominence for his description of Palestinians’ lives under occupation in East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.  He has referred to evictions as a form of ethnic cleansing and also accused Israel of imposing apartheid-style laws and regulations onto his people in the occupied territories.  He has also spoken out about the oppression in Gaza during the Israel–Hamas War and now in the War on Iran.

El-Kurd and his noted activist twin sister Muna el-Kurd were born in in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on May 15, 1998.  In 2009, part of his family’s home in Sheikh Jarrah was seized by Israeli settlers.  He was the main subject of the 2013 documentary film My Neighborhood by Julia Bacha and Rebekah Wingert-Jabi.  He emigrated to the United States and settled in New York to study for a Master of Fine Arts degree in Poetry from Brooklyn College then returned to East Jerusalem during the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis. 

The twins have hundreds of thousands of followers on and millions on Instagram. While Muna’s posts are usually in Arabic, Mohammed frequently posts in English for a Western audience.  On June 6, 2021, they were both detained by Israeli Police but were later released on the same day.  During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, Mohammed appeared on American television including CNN, MSNBC, and CBSN.  In 2021, Mohammed and Muna were named on the TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World list.  

In 2021 Mohammed published Rifqa, a poetry collection reflecting the struggles of his people.

His appearances on American university campuses and at other events have been challenged with charges of anti-Semitism and Tory MPs called for his expulsion from Britain.

El-Kurd challenges Western media that regularly ask Palestinian guests to denounce violent protests or attacks by Hamas and other groups, characterizing these questions as inciting, bigoted and disrespectful. To one such question from a CNN anchor, he responded “Do you support the violent dispossession of me and my family?”. He said that the incident was an example that Palestinians will no longer accept “racism and misrepresentation” on Western television, and that like him, they “really don’t take shit” any longer.

                                            

                                                                        A protestor holds up a placard quoting Mohammed el-Kurd.

War Machines Dress Up as Drag Queens

 after Audre Lorde.

      There are many roots.

      War machines are coin-operated arcade games,

      and your penny sprays and juvenile plays

      are just as greedy as a bulldozer’s mouth

      chewing life into debris for me to dish-wash and make poetry of.

 

     War machines wear lipstick, carry bedazzled purses, and wave hellohowareyou?

     vogue on said debris/pink faucets. If you ignore the rubble,

     this is a haven––its earth is flesh, brown and uncounted.

 

     War machines are American-made, and they are never thirsty rivers in their throats.

     American water is brown and dirtied and children famished,

     cracked, caged in cages, in uneducated education.

     Surf their boats in drought.  Their knuckles stiff, cold is this verse.

 

     I sit here wondering:

 

     Which me will survive bulldozers undoing God?

     Which me will soak their hands in these wells?

     Which me will console the dead’s loved ones with prevention, not mourning,

     bottle our Jordan River to smack American thirst,

     for greed and grief.

     Water stolen or neglected.

 

     Which me will survive all these liberations?

 

     —Mohammed el-Kurd

 

     Mohammed El-Kurd, War Machines Dress Up as Drag Queens after Audre Lorde  from Rifqa © 2021 by       Mohammed El-Kurd from Haymarket Books.

Walking the Walk and Compassion for Campers Update for April 24 2026

 Look for new opportunities for action, education, community, and solidarity in and around McHenry County here every week.  

 Walking the Walk  

Warm weather and the multiple crises in our country and the world are ramping up actions and opportunities.  Indivisible McHenry County alone has a full schedule of events.

Saturday, April 25--Communities Not Cages protest rally from 11 am to 1 pm on Route 31 at McCullom Lake Road in McHenry.  Part of a nationwide day of action to oppose the Trump administration’s expansion of ICE warehouse detention centers and its attack on the due process rights of immigrants and all Americans. Registration is appreciated so we’ll know how many attendees to expect, but it’s not required. Register here: https://www.mobilize.us/disappearedinamerica/event/935375/

Friday, May 1, May Day roadside rally from 3 pm to 5 pm. on Route 31 at McCullom Lake Road in McHenry. May Day is a national day of action that includes a national strike, boycotts, and protest rallies--a virtual General Strike. No shopping! No work! No school!  Here is the registration link:

https://www.mobilize.us/mobilize/event/931824/.

Saturday, May 2, First Saturday Speaker event at 1pm at 3717 N. Main Street in McHenry. The featured speaker will be a representative from PFLAG, the first and largest organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) people, their parents, families, and allies. 

Sunday, June 14, Trump's Birthday protest rally from 3 pm to 5 pm on Route 31 at McCullom Lake Road in McHenry.  This is later in the day for those who want to attend the Woodstock' Pride Fest earlier.

May Day Preview--Wednesday, April 29 from 6 to 8 pm at Port Edward Restaurant, 20 Algonquin Road, Algonquin. Patrick Murfin, amateur labor historian, blogger, social justice activist, and former officer of the Democratic Party of Illinois will lead a discussion of the Chicago origins of May Day as International Labor Day and its continuing inspiration and relevance.  Also a Meet and Greet for Amin Karim, Democratic candidate for McHenry County Treasurer and other local candidates.

May Day 2026 Friday, May 1 at 12pm at 1919 W. Maypole Avenue in Chicago. Join the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) members and the immigrant rights contingent on to commemorate May Day and say: abolish ICE, free them all, and fund ALL of our communities, NOT war!

Born in Chicago, May Day, also known as International Worker’s Day, has been a historic day of action across the country and across the globe. With the attacks against our communities by ICE, CBP, and the Trump administration, May Day is a moment to show the strength of our full movement to make clear that we will not be silenced or intimidated.

RSVP at the link below to let us know you’ll be joining our March to May Day Immigrant Rights rally After our rally, we’ll march to Union Park together to join the full program and march through the streets of Chicago to make the immigrant rights movement’s presence known. See you on May 1st! https://icirr.quorum.us/campaign/160977/

Briefly looking ahead to a busy June:

After the last Compassion for Campers (C4C) distribution last Friday at Community Resource Day 9CRD) at Willow Crystal Lake, we received an email from leadership newly appointed by top Willow Creek Church officials announcing, "We've made the decision to pause Community Resource Days for the summer."  It is unclear if and how it may return in the fall.  This is devastating news for the un-housed and housing at risk in our community.  This is no reflection on the former local Crystal Lake leadership team or all of their dedicated volunteers.  The last date will be Friday, May 22.  C4C will be on hand Friday, May 1 and Friday, May 15.

C4C hopes to continue our service to the unhoused.  Sue Rekenthaler, Chaplain Dave Becker of Tree of Life, and existing and potential church partners will be meeting to consider options going forward.  Meanwhile, your continued support is critical. We can still use donations of supplies like clean and serviceable tents and sleeping bags in original bags for easy transport, clean blankets, tabletop grills, wrapped toilet paper and paper towels, and non-perishable food.  Money donations are always welcome.      https://tinyurl.com/3bz96axe.   Look for updates here.  Email compassionforcampers@treeoflifeuu.org .