Blues Narratives

the long version

Sterling Plumpp's blues narratives are the first portions to be published of his ongoing work in progress, Mfua's Song. In order to discover and invent his own identity, he reaches back as far as the first ancestor of whom he can know - the woman Mfua, kidnapped in Africa, enslaved and brought to America. In this section of Mfua's Song, as twentieth-century Mary and Victor - portraits of the poet's mother and grandfather - tell their blues narratives, they not only live their own lives of pain, sorrow, dignity and love, but also embody aspects of Mfua that they bring down through the years with them and pass on to those in their care. Plumpp's blues narratives are a poetic form and a dialogue between poet and subject - they are unlike anything else in American poetry: a vital, passionate, haunting poetry meant to be read and spoken and sung.