JAZZ AT THE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF DESPAIR - poetry by Michel Steven Krug
Publication Date: July 15, 2024
Paperback, 118 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-70-7
Of his new volume of poetry, author Michel Steven Krug observes “Overall, this book is a modern Tower of Babel story. Truth often has become a hologram, seen by many, an illusion to others.” In this “collection / of exploding emotions” he plunges the reader into the global chaos and hopelessness suggested by his title, surveying atrocities both historical and contemporary, lamenting that “Little surprises us about depravity anymore.” He reports conversing with his cat “to assuage his anxieties” about the state of the world, and that’s truly his intention for this book as well. And the instrument of that reassurance is jazz, a musical form devoted to teasing the harmony out of cacophony, and collaboration out of individual expression. It’s no accident that he opens with an image of Coltrane in “the smoldering light at the Village Vanguard” or that other jazz musicians and compositions appear throughout, for that’s the hope he has on offer, riffing on the Miles Davis standard “So What” to declare, “That’s the poetry / That’s the so That’s the / What.”
Praise for Michel Steven Krug & Jazz at the International Festival of Despair
What draws me to Michel Krug’s Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is his skill and commitment to his poetry’s engagement of the beautiful and cacophonous spirit of living in our times. I can feel his serious engagement with finding the choosing the right words for each narrative and emotional situation. His lines are the work and pleasure of poetry. Of being the poet that he surely is.
—Gary Margolis, author of Raking the Winter Leaves: New and Selected Poems
In one of the poems here, the speaker will plate “tonight’s catch” on his grandmother’s old chipped Wedgewood. I offer that as a metaphor for the whole of Krug’s extraordinary book in which he serves timely themes and issues on leaves of personal and public history along with a sampling of rhythms from Whitman to Coltrane. Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is the work of a master chef and maestro of poetry.
—James Penha, editor, The New Verse News
In Jazz at the International Festival of Despair, Michel Krug uses the musicality of words to entertain us with this poems, while still clearly pointing out the issues and problems of our current lives. No lullaby this collection, but rather a jam session serenading us with what we need to know about where we are right now. The riffs are brilliant and pointed and I hope they get listened to and understood. We need this kind of music.
—Mary Logue, author of Heart Wood
There’s a music of water, a music of music, and a music of collusions throughout Michel Krug’s Jazz at the International Festival of Despair. Played beautifully in lines, songs, melodic bursts and images, albums, groupings, and collectives, the notes of Jazz at the International Festival of Despair render an outrage at injustice, a series of gorgeous realizations, and tremendous strength in word, phrase, and line. Here, the songs conjure the discipline of breath control required to bear the brunt of truth or to steel ourselves against the barrage of life we’re all expected to contend with. There’s a conflation of music, art, and literature building to a crescendo of an expansive now.
—Kurt Cole Eidsvig, author of The Simple Art of Murder
I have had the privilege of publishing Michel Krug’s poetry for several years. His poetry often connects Earth’s natural wonders to the beauty of musical rhythm and those who most magically create it, revealing a poet who understands the importance of splendor, space, and artistry. This new collection provides readers the opportunity to experience the high value of his gifts.
—Joe Maita, musician & editor, Jerry Jazz Musician
About the Author
Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and a practicing trial lawyer. He’s also a Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News literary magazine. He’s written and published poems since a teenager while growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota and being a part of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. He strives to blends language in a cauldron of nurture, nature, spirituality and the zeitgeist.
His poems have appeared in Raven's Perch, Evening Street Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Jerry Jazz, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Portside, New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Main Street Rag and many others.
Publication Date: July 15, 2024
Paperback, 118 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-70-7
Of his new volume of poetry, author Michel Steven Krug observes “Overall, this book is a modern Tower of Babel story. Truth often has become a hologram, seen by many, an illusion to others.” In this “collection / of exploding emotions” he plunges the reader into the global chaos and hopelessness suggested by his title, surveying atrocities both historical and contemporary, lamenting that “Little surprises us about depravity anymore.” He reports conversing with his cat “to assuage his anxieties” about the state of the world, and that’s truly his intention for this book as well. And the instrument of that reassurance is jazz, a musical form devoted to teasing the harmony out of cacophony, and collaboration out of individual expression. It’s no accident that he opens with an image of Coltrane in “the smoldering light at the Village Vanguard” or that other jazz musicians and compositions appear throughout, for that’s the hope he has on offer, riffing on the Miles Davis standard “So What” to declare, “That’s the poetry / That’s the so That’s the / What.”
Praise for Michel Steven Krug & Jazz at the International Festival of Despair
What draws me to Michel Krug’s Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is his skill and commitment to his poetry’s engagement of the beautiful and cacophonous spirit of living in our times. I can feel his serious engagement with finding the choosing the right words for each narrative and emotional situation. His lines are the work and pleasure of poetry. Of being the poet that he surely is.
—Gary Margolis, author of Raking the Winter Leaves: New and Selected Poems
In one of the poems here, the speaker will plate “tonight’s catch” on his grandmother’s old chipped Wedgewood. I offer that as a metaphor for the whole of Krug’s extraordinary book in which he serves timely themes and issues on leaves of personal and public history along with a sampling of rhythms from Whitman to Coltrane. Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is the work of a master chef and maestro of poetry.
—James Penha, editor, The New Verse News
In Jazz at the International Festival of Despair, Michel Krug uses the musicality of words to entertain us with this poems, while still clearly pointing out the issues and problems of our current lives. No lullaby this collection, but rather a jam session serenading us with what we need to know about where we are right now. The riffs are brilliant and pointed and I hope they get listened to and understood. We need this kind of music.
—Mary Logue, author of Heart Wood
There’s a music of water, a music of music, and a music of collusions throughout Michel Krug’s Jazz at the International Festival of Despair. Played beautifully in lines, songs, melodic bursts and images, albums, groupings, and collectives, the notes of Jazz at the International Festival of Despair render an outrage at injustice, a series of gorgeous realizations, and tremendous strength in word, phrase, and line. Here, the songs conjure the discipline of breath control required to bear the brunt of truth or to steel ourselves against the barrage of life we’re all expected to contend with. There’s a conflation of music, art, and literature building to a crescendo of an expansive now.
—Kurt Cole Eidsvig, author of The Simple Art of Murder
I have had the privilege of publishing Michel Krug’s poetry for several years. His poetry often connects Earth’s natural wonders to the beauty of musical rhythm and those who most magically create it, revealing a poet who understands the importance of splendor, space, and artistry. This new collection provides readers the opportunity to experience the high value of his gifts.
—Joe Maita, musician & editor, Jerry Jazz Musician
About the Author
Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and a practicing trial lawyer. He’s also a Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News literary magazine. He’s written and published poems since a teenager while growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota and being a part of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. He strives to blends language in a cauldron of nurture, nature, spirituality and the zeitgeist.
His poems have appeared in Raven's Perch, Evening Street Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Jerry Jazz, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Portside, New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Main Street Rag and many others.
Publication Date: July 15, 2024
Paperback, 118 pages
ISBN: 978-1-956782-70-7
Of his new volume of poetry, author Michel Steven Krug observes “Overall, this book is a modern Tower of Babel story. Truth often has become a hologram, seen by many, an illusion to others.” In this “collection / of exploding emotions” he plunges the reader into the global chaos and hopelessness suggested by his title, surveying atrocities both historical and contemporary, lamenting that “Little surprises us about depravity anymore.” He reports conversing with his cat “to assuage his anxieties” about the state of the world, and that’s truly his intention for this book as well. And the instrument of that reassurance is jazz, a musical form devoted to teasing the harmony out of cacophony, and collaboration out of individual expression. It’s no accident that he opens with an image of Coltrane in “the smoldering light at the Village Vanguard” or that other jazz musicians and compositions appear throughout, for that’s the hope he has on offer, riffing on the Miles Davis standard “So What” to declare, “That’s the poetry / That’s the so That’s the / What.”
Praise for Michel Steven Krug & Jazz at the International Festival of Despair
What draws me to Michel Krug’s Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is his skill and commitment to his poetry’s engagement of the beautiful and cacophonous spirit of living in our times. I can feel his serious engagement with finding the choosing the right words for each narrative and emotional situation. His lines are the work and pleasure of poetry. Of being the poet that he surely is.
—Gary Margolis, author of Raking the Winter Leaves: New and Selected Poems
In one of the poems here, the speaker will plate “tonight’s catch” on his grandmother’s old chipped Wedgewood. I offer that as a metaphor for the whole of Krug’s extraordinary book in which he serves timely themes and issues on leaves of personal and public history along with a sampling of rhythms from Whitman to Coltrane. Jazz at the International Festival of Despair is the work of a master chef and maestro of poetry.
—James Penha, editor, The New Verse News
In Jazz at the International Festival of Despair, Michel Krug uses the musicality of words to entertain us with this poems, while still clearly pointing out the issues and problems of our current lives. No lullaby this collection, but rather a jam session serenading us with what we need to know about where we are right now. The riffs are brilliant and pointed and I hope they get listened to and understood. We need this kind of music.
—Mary Logue, author of Heart Wood
There’s a music of water, a music of music, and a music of collusions throughout Michel Krug’s Jazz at the International Festival of Despair. Played beautifully in lines, songs, melodic bursts and images, albums, groupings, and collectives, the notes of Jazz at the International Festival of Despair render an outrage at injustice, a series of gorgeous realizations, and tremendous strength in word, phrase, and line. Here, the songs conjure the discipline of breath control required to bear the brunt of truth or to steel ourselves against the barrage of life we’re all expected to contend with. There’s a conflation of music, art, and literature building to a crescendo of an expansive now.
—Kurt Cole Eidsvig, author of The Simple Art of Murder
I have had the privilege of publishing Michel Krug’s poetry for several years. His poetry often connects Earth’s natural wonders to the beauty of musical rhythm and those who most magically create it, revealing a poet who understands the importance of splendor, space, and artistry. This new collection provides readers the opportunity to experience the high value of his gifts.
—Joe Maita, musician & editor, Jerry Jazz Musician
About the Author
Michel Steven Krug is a Minneapolis poet, fiction writer, former print journalist from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and a practicing trial lawyer. He’s also a Managing Editor for Poets Reading the News literary magazine. He’s written and published poems since a teenager while growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota and being a part of the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis. He strives to blends language in a cauldron of nurture, nature, spirituality and the zeitgeist.
His poems have appeared in Raven's Perch, Evening Street Review, Sierra Nevada Review, Jerry Jazz, St. Paul Almanac, Liquid Imagination, Blue Mountain Review, Portside, New Verse News, JMWW, Cagibi, Silver Blade, Crack the Spine, Dash, Mikrokosmos, North Dakota Quarterly, Eclectica, Writers Resist, Sheepshead, Poets Reading the News, Ginosko, Door Is A Jar, Main Street Rag and many others.