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Jeff Kersh
Jeff Kersh holds bachelors and Masters degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi Center for Writers (where he studied with D.C. Berry and Angela Ball) and a PhD in Poetics from Oklahoma State University (where he studied with Mark Cox and Gordon Weaver). He is published far and wide, and is seeking to revive his publication despite a heavy schedule as a technical writer for American HealhTech, Inc. and numerous part time teaching jobs. He is devoted to teaching people to write effectively in a Real World environment even though academia was cut to the bone in the 90s (It’s cut to the marrow now, and writing is not important in today’s text message miasma). He’s also a drummer/percussionist, although the “Jackson Scene” won’t accept a man in his forties. A sample:
Don’t Mean a Damn Thing
(IM Art Blakey, Tony Williams)
Gotta have it, that spang, spang-a-lang
of wood tip on cymbal,
overtone wash building just enough
to add body to the sound,
a pulse thicker than day-old grits,
certain as a heartbeat.
Art laid back into it, held it out
at arms’ length,
made you wait for the payoff
of a kick-drum bomb
or snare shots punctuating horn riffs.
He made it sing,
Rhythm resonating all through the kit,
pulled the band along
for the ride. And they sat in that groove,
wallowed around in it
with confident jazz and wild be-bop,
pushing the envelope.
Brother Tony pushed it far forward,
sitting on the edge
of that beautiful beat, sticks flying,
big arms flailing
around the toms, coming back on the one.
He made it scream,
Percussive rockets into the stratosphere
never to return.
The band broke free, sprayed the audience
with blast and bombast,
fusing jazz cool and rock urgency hard,
pushing another envelope.
It’s that push-pull, call-and-response
energy insinuating
itself into the smoky crowd, separating
the dancing fools
from the sit-back-and-watchers,
the groove from the feel,
That kept the clubs full, moving, alive,
air swimming with music
in waves crashing from feet to soul,
the bandstand outlined
in sea-foam, the world a little better
for that moment’s groove.
There will come other players, aping
the move, the style,
but no one will ever approximate
the hot swing love
inherent in their sticks, radiating out
from cymbals to a million hearts.
