Paul Donnelly
Blues for Dolphy
America you failed him.
East Coast critics
unable to fit him
into neat compartments,
carping, then offering
faint praise when
all he wanted was work.
You couldn't promise
him a living,
this generous man
who'd play with birds,
Mingus and Coltrane
or pick-up bands
that floundered in
the swell of his explorations.
His solos, the fruit of practice
others might envy:
flute alto bass clarinet
roaming ranges where
some ears couldn't
or wouldn't follow.
He offered abundance:
Tenderly or God Bless The Child,
remoulded acappella in Berlin
where three years later
he'd die in a hotel room
alone too soon
with more in a lifetime's legacy
than any well-meant obituary
could hope to contain.
All gone in the air.
America you failed him.
East Coast critics
unable to fit him
into neat compartments,
carping, then offering
faint praise when
all he wanted was work.
You couldn't promise
him a living,
this generous man
who'd play with birds,
Mingus and Coltrane
or pick-up bands
that floundered in
the swell of his explorations.
His solos, the fruit of practice
others might envy:
flute alto bass clarinet
roaming ranges where
some ears couldn't
or wouldn't follow.
He offered abundance:
Tenderly or God Bless The Child,
remoulded acappella in Berlin
where three years later
he'd die in a hotel room
alone too soon
with more in a lifetime's legacy
than any well-meant obituary
could hope to contain.
All gone in the air.
America you failed him.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The