A Mingus Lullaby

Charles Mingus, the renowned musician, composer and civil rights activist, claimed to be three people, was married to one of his wives by Ginsberg, and collaborated with such luminaries as Langston Hughes and Joni Mitchell. Twelve of the poems in A Mingus Lullaby explore moments in his life, compositions, performances, or are part of a fictional conversation between Mingus and the author. Themes from his life permeate throughout the collection.

AUTHOR

Dane Swan

Dane Swan’s second book, A Mingus Lullaby (Guernica Editions, 2016), was a finalist for the 2017 Trillium Book Prize for Poetry. A past Writer in Residence for the Open Book Foundation of Ontario, Dane has been short listed for the Monica Ladell Award (Scarborough Arts). His first book, Bending the Continuum (Guernica Editions, 2011), was a mid-summer recommended read from Open Book Toronto. Dane is the editor of Changing the Face of Canadian Literature: A Diverse Canadian Anthology. Dane is also an accomplished slam poet and touring spoken-word performer, placing second at the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, third at the Rust Belt Regional Slam and touring the US Midwest and West Coast regions. He has graced numerous festival stages, including: IFOA, Hillside, Lab Cab, Parkdale Arts, Junction Arts, and Pitter Patter festivals. For four years Dane and Dan D’Onorio hosted Toronto’s $100 Slam series. Mr. Swan’s poetry has been taught in schools and has been published in France, the UK, Bahamas, and Canada.

Reviews

Swan moves through time, uses the language of broken English to emulate characters, takes us from Earth to Mars with such insight and empathy his voice becomes the voices of characters we know – are curious about, abhor – and leaves us with a greater understanding of the plight, strength and intimacy of strangers seen through the eyes of a gifted poet. Expect nothing ordinary in his work.

Swan turns his gaze directly on the iconic jazzman in a sequence of “epitaphs” that focus on incidents from the musician’s life. But Mingus’s restless spirit infuses the entire collection