Ten years ago Tom DeMott wrote a poem about a season and a song that presaged his last decade as a music-maker. Back in that moment, I passed his lines on to Charlie Keil. It turned out Keil had heard the high-life musician who had moved Tom. Keil replied with a note that became a poem of his own (in the shape of a xylophone) as he recalled hearing Sir Victor Uwaifo’s bands in Nigeria forty years before.
Here are both of their poems…
winter storm/monkey yanga
snow falling gently in the lamplight
park lightly covered with a hopeful coat
but pavement black and wet
trees stark and wintry
my window wide open to chase out the heat
and encourage cold memories
and it works instantly like the smell of chestnuts
cooking at a Lisbon train track
none of that moves as much as Sir Victor Uwaifo
plucking all the way from Lagos kicking
that guitar on Joromi/Monkey Yanga
but it could have been so many records
jesus, to play music, those lucky dogs
i love this life
–Tom DeMott
***
To Sir with Love
Hi Benj, Sir Victor pops into my poems from time to time,
frozen in time of Joromi and Guitar Boy & Moneywata
Monkey Yanga must come later in the collected works
Sir Vic my “ego ideal” 4 graphics, high jump champ
& the way he put together “akwete” style
whenever I watched his band set up
the instruments arranged just so
& then he’d go to the streets
audition the evening’s players
who to put on log xylophone
who will do 4 way congas
which local kids could frame
big tech moment sliding
double necked guitar
along the mic stand
–Charles Keil