Music Without Walls  (San Francisco Poet Laureate Series No. 8 )

San Francisco's Poet Laureate offers an impassioned insider's personal homage to America's indigenous music, jazz.

"Her poetry is a flame of truth, joy, compassion—she points to the roads we must take to bring about change and unity. I consider Genny as a key poet for the future."—Juan Felipe Herrera, MacArthur Fellow, Poet Laureate of the USA Emeritus

Music Without Walls is a love poem and praise song for the pioneers of the indigenous American music genre called jazz. As Lim frames it, jazz is the soundtrack and the musical metaphor of our country's confrontations with race through time, and the poems collected here pay homage to many of the innovators, such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and others. Lim's poems capture the essence of their music and of her own personal experience as a listener and a collaborator who has performed onstage with some of the jazz greats, such as Max Roach, Herbie Lewis, Francis Wong, and Jon Jang. This collection will resonate with those already familiar with the music itself and the stories and styles of its various heroes, while readers who are new to them will find a welcoming doorway to an exciting new world.