An American Voice Leaves this Earthly Plane By Howard Debs

Photo by Kulbir 

 An American Voice Leaves this Earthly Plane

            ~In memory of Ella Jenkins “the first lady of children’s music” (1924-2024)

I didn’t know her name but I knew her songs.

And I knew the city of Chicago from which

she came like a stream rolling down to

the river to the sea the power of her songs

flowing ever stronger as a still small voice

rising, rising to the tide. She never went

to a music conservatory, her uncle gave her

a harmonica, mouth organ of the people,

and she learned the blues of mighty T-Bone 

Walker, Memphis Slim, Big Bill Broonzy.

She heard the gospel sounds reverberating

from the pews on the South Side pouring out

onto neighborhood sidewalks as her family

moved around Chi-town as she grew.

She learned a lick or two listening to the likes

Of Cab Calloway and Count Basie, and a step

or two watching Peg Leg Bates at Bronzeville’s

Regal where they filled 3000 seats most nights. 

I remember him, a sharecropper’s son he’d

take to dancing for pennies in the streets, and lost 

a leg to a cotton gin, but it didn’t stop him, he danced

his way to meet England’s King and Queen. Anyhow,

she learned a thing or two from everyone she knew

in the Windy City, melting pot town, the  Puerto Ricans, 

Jews, Black and Brown, she learned their songs and 

she sang them with the children—around the world. 

She sang to the children: 

“You'll sing a song and I'll sing a song

Then we'll sing a song together

You'll sing a song and I'll sing a song

In warm or wintry weather” and the 

children then sang it too as children like to do:

“You'll sing a song and I'll sing a song

Then we'll sing a song together

You'll sing a song and I'll sing a song

In warm or wintry weather.”

 

Author Note: I’ve written elegies. Wrote one in memory of Ilyse Kusnetz another for Stanley Dural Jr. better known in New Orleans as Buckwheat Zydeco, both poems were published in The Galway Review. Born and bred in Chicago, having made my pilgrimage to Sandburg’s Connemara in Flat Rock North Carolina, I wanted to channel his inimitable cadence in this one. I’m sure I fell short. Ella Jenkins was a remarkable American, we would all do well to attempt to emulate her. 

Howard Richard Debs is a recipient of the 2015 Anna Davidson Rosenberg Poetry Awards. His essays, fiction, and poetry appear internationally; his photography will be found in select publications, including Rattle online as “Ekphrastic Challenge” artist and guest editor. His book Gallery: A Collection of Pictures and Words is a 2017 Best Book Awards and 2018 Book Excellence Awards recipient. His chapbook Political is the 2021 American Writing Awards winner in poetry. He is co-editor of New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust a winner of the 2023 International Book Awards. He is listed in the Poets & Writers Directory. author website.