Cooling Board: A Long Playing Poem

Title Page, Copyright, Dedication, Acknowledgments

1 • cooling board a long-playing poem Mitchell L. H. Douglas •••••••• 2 • This page intentionally left blank. 3 • Praise for cooling board: At a time when most series writing has been reduced to metaphor’d-fact and young poets, in the pursuit of the bleached mask of Post Race cultural aesthetics, have lost their kinship to the nuances of the oral tradition, let alone soulful journeys into Soul, comes Cooling Board, a passionate, layered plea and low swing into the Go Tell It Corner and Mountain Bottom of hu-man genius, its lineage, tutelage, maturation, triumphs, loves and losses. Whatever Soul is, it’s all here—struggling through the pain of secular impulse, and the note-reaching psychological drama-duets that haunted the vision of Donny Hathaway’s gift and unique approach to song. Mitchell Douglas deepens, inward, the extensions of prosody, adding inspired improvisation to the u n k n ow n k n ow n s o f persona, collective and personal. Cooling Board might just be the last necessary series, the one with church-basement and chart-topping swagger, the one that amens the rise and alternate takes the fall. —Thomas Sayers Ellis, authorofThe Maverick Room An elegiac praise song for the legendary Donny Hathaway and others, this long song evokes t h e ancient music in t h e pulsing heart of black Americana. Douglas’ Cooling Board is thus a chant of saints, common and uncommon, steeped in a reverence of black culture, done in a structure that is both innovative and deft. —Afaa Michael Weaver, author of The Plum Flower Dance 4 • This page intentionally left blank. 5 • cooling board a long-playing poem Mitchell L. H. Douglas ••••••••• RED HEn PRESS | LoS AnGELES, CALIfoRnIA 6 • Cooling Board: A Long-Playing Poem Copyright © 2009 by Mitchell L. H. Douglas All rights reserved no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner. Engineered by Mark E. Cull, assisted by Sydney nichols Cover artwork: “Mr. Hathaway: The Remix” by Krista franklin ISBn: 978-1-59709-140-4 Library of Congress Catalog Card number: 2008942402 The California Arts Council and the national Endowment for the Arts partially support Red Hen Press. Produced by Red Hen Press www.redhen.org first Edition 7 • For Nicole, Little Mitchell & Nia. My family, my heart. 8 • ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Grateful acknowledgement is made to the editors of the following publications in which these poems first appeared or are forthcoming: “on Country & Western” is forthcoming in Ninth Letter; “Essex House Hotel” and “Roberta, Rebirth” appeared in Zoland Poetry, Volume II, Zoland Books, 2008; “The Music: An Explanation to Miss Martha” appeared in The Louisville Review, fall 2006; “notes on ‘Life,’ a Symphony” is a found poem based on an interview with Donny Hathaway by WBLS radio, new York, new York; “Diagnosis, 1973” is a found poem based on information available at www.mayoclinic.com. SPECIALTHAnKS: to the Affrilachian Poets / frank X Walker (for always putting me in the right place at the right time) / Cave Canem and the faculty of 2007:Toi Derricotte, Cornelius Eady, Patricia Smith, Erica Hunt (your contacts helped complete this book), Cyrus Cassells, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Carl Phillips / Jacqueline Bethany / J.D. Parran /Charles Wartts / Alfred netterville / Angela Borders / the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis School of Liberal Arts / Kevin Young (the long poem class was a revelation) / DeLana Dameron / Krista franklin / Mom & Dad (always) / and the city of St. Louis. ...