What we want is to be brass. / The horn-scratched voice blown through. / Valves as golden as his. Lord as crazy sex / Or first real heartbreak (Peter Brötzmann, poem by Patricia Spears Jones)

We real cool. We / Left school. We / Lurk late. We / Strike straight. We / Sing sin. We / Thin gin. We / Jazz June. We / Die soon. (Omer Avital, poem by Gwendolyn Brooks)

Invent, experiment — Jazz / that doesn’t swing but dances tight (Omer Avital, poem by John Keene)