A Toast to Amiri

- By Giorgio Rimondi

Who knows what he would have said,
if some cold winter morning they gave him
the news he died.
Maybe he’d remember having written

When they say “It is Roi
who is dead?” I wonder
who will they mean?

Maybe he’d’ve shrugged his shoulders and mumbled, So what?
He’d’ve said, Boy, I’m a long breath singer, a cantor,
I sing the Orgasmic Convulsive Artistical Protest
I’m the Changing Same
Came here from Mars on a flying record.
Maybe said Humpf! it’s gonna take you light years to get done mourning me,
because I’m in the tradition of cc rider, see what you done done,
I’m the Monk and the President,
I’m FUNKY knowing, the BLACK voice,

We are the blues,
Ourselves,
So dark & tragic,
So old & magic . . . .
Bee-doo hihihi dee doop.

And you, who the hell are you?
He’d’ve said, Listen! I’m the Dark Man of the Sonnets, and in my world
Even fire hoses sing solos. You won’t get through this so easy—the Amiriscape
Will keep your head spinning for centuries to come.
He’d’ve said, I don’t split, I’m not going away, what the hell did you hear? I’m sneaking by
on the down low to get back to my spot, next to Miles & Trane & Duke & Monk.
He’d’ve said, I leave you jabillion sounds and words,
love pain truth for your ears and hearts, but can you take it?
He’d’ve said, You got to be a spirit, boy, got to be a spirit, you got to sing . . .
Let us honor the fathers of our imagination.
He’d sing, I thought I heard Buddy Bolden,
And we will sing, I thought I heard Amiri.
 

translation by Jim Hicks

Giorgio Rimondi teaches Italian literature at the Dosso Dossi Institute in Ferrara, Italy. Among other works, he is the author of Il pretesto fantastico. Indagine su un enigma letterario (Sofanelli, 2012) and Lady Day, Lady Night: Interpretare Billie Holliday (Greco and Greco, 2003) and co-editor, with Franco Minganti, of Amiri Baraka: Ritratto dell’artista in nero (Bacchilega Editore, 2007). This piece appears in Italian on Daniele Barbieri's blog.