(jopappy & the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk
makalani bandele
Recipient of the 2022 Other Futures Award, selected by Futurepoem Editors
(jopappy and the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk is a frenetic multimedia jam session of discursive lyric arranged and produced by poems written in bandele's invented prose poetic form the unit. The form gets its inspiration from virtuoso pianist Cecil Taylor's groundbreaking 1966 album Unit Structures, insofar as it desires to embody the feel of collective improvisation encountered in Free Jazz as poetics. Through the application of Free Jazz aesthetics, the language is pushed toward a heightened ambiguity, as wildly different subjects and source materials are played right after, alongside, and over against one another generating new valences and surprising, even playful suggestions that are at odds with common interpretations of phrases. With a marked polyvocality, these sentences or "bars" are organized by how they sound against (with) one another as much as by how they might relate to or enrich one another semantically. Enter here to experience Free Jazz as a groove theory, a language model, and an underlying approach to artistic expression.
Advance Praise for (jopappy & the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk
makalani bandele's poetry continues to evolve, challenge, and astound with its exploration of lyrical dexterity and political astuteness through his invented form called "the unit." Emphasizing lyrical ungovernment, the units are haunted by Cecil Taylor, Jazz improvisation, Ron Silliman's "New Sentence," and early computational poetic experiments like those of Theo Lutz's Stochastische Text. bandele's lines pour from, over, into, and against each other, creating new arrangements and possibilities: "this new perspective on the familiiar can be disorienting. The future pulls everything forward, so aint no afrofuture in frontin'." ...bandele is a formidable poet of this generation, so listen to this, as "this the music we untighten up with."
—Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, author of Travesty Generator and Negative Money
We've said it before and meant it but have we meant it when we've said it before: we're overdue for the kind of pre post contemporary signifyin' that makalani bandele slides into our direct...correction: the motion simpers : syncopates : sizzles how sumptuous this non glorification of oceans and avenues of operatic jazz street cornered it waves and waves beneath skull capped snapped popped locked the brain drains country shackles city get on up. Why so filled with spirit am I why I died and flied and back alive I am undone strumming cecil cecil cecil.
—Metta Sáma, author of Swing at your own risk
eponymous as funk reminds me of Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just: "the precedent characteristic of beauty is that it replicates itself...that this generation be ceaseless." bandele's "unit" form, an innovation into forms of utterance, marks a generative impulse fueled by other poets, by image, sound, speech, and touch. His playfulness is counterbalanced by our material histories and the brain-numbing politics that catapult us into an uncertain future... These poems are a mind-spinning orchestration of riff, snap, and breath. Stunning. Impressive. Forever readable in perpetuity.
—Ruth Ellen Kocher, author of Archon/After
Author Bio
An Affrilachian Poet, with fellowships from the likes of National Endowment for the Arts and Cave Canem Foundation, makalani bandele has multiple books of poetry and his work has been anthologized frequently and published widely in literary journals and magazines. (jopappy and the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk, recipient of the 2022 Other Futures Award, is his third collection of poetry.
Recipient of the 2022 Other Futures Award, selected by Futurepoem Editors
(jopappy and the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk is a frenetic multimedia jam session of discursive lyric arranged and produced by poems written in bandele's invented prose poetic form the unit. The form gets its inspiration from virtuoso pianist Cecil Taylor's groundbreaking 1966 album Unit Structures, insofar as it desires to embody the feel of collective improvisation encountered in Free Jazz as poetics. Through the application of Free Jazz aesthetics, the language is pushed toward a heightened ambiguity, as wildly different subjects and source materials are played right after, alongside, and over against one another generating new valences and surprising, even playful suggestions that are at odds with common interpretations of phrases. With a marked polyvocality, these sentences or "bars" are organized by how they sound against (with) one another as much as by how they might relate to or enrich one another semantically. Enter here to experience Free Jazz as a groove theory, a language model, and an underlying approach to artistic expression.
Advance Praise for (jopappy & the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk
makalani bandele's poetry continues to evolve, challenge, and astound with its exploration of lyrical dexterity and political astuteness through his invented form called "the unit." Emphasizing lyrical ungovernment, the units are haunted by Cecil Taylor, Jazz improvisation, Ron Silliman's "New Sentence," and early computational poetic experiments like those of Theo Lutz's Stochastische Text. bandele's lines pour from, over, into, and against each other, creating new arrangements and possibilities: "this new perspective on the familiiar can be disorienting. The future pulls everything forward, so aint no afrofuture in frontin'." ...bandele is a formidable poet of this generation, so listen to this, as "this the music we untighten up with."
—Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, author of Travesty Generator and Negative Money
We've said it before and meant it but have we meant it when we've said it before: we're overdue for the kind of pre post contemporary signifyin' that makalani bandele slides into our direct...correction: the motion simpers : syncopates : sizzles how sumptuous this non glorification of oceans and avenues of operatic jazz street cornered it waves and waves beneath skull capped snapped popped locked the brain drains country shackles city get on up. Why so filled with spirit am I why I died and flied and back alive I am undone strumming cecil cecil cecil.
—Metta Sáma, author of Swing at your own risk
eponymous as funk reminds me of Elaine Scarry's On Beauty and Being Just: "the precedent characteristic of beauty is that it replicates itself...that this generation be ceaseless." bandele's "unit" form, an innovation into forms of utterance, marks a generative impulse fueled by other poets, by image, sound, speech, and touch. His playfulness is counterbalanced by our material histories and the brain-numbing politics that catapult us into an uncertain future... These poems are a mind-spinning orchestration of riff, snap, and breath. Stunning. Impressive. Forever readable in perpetuity.
—Ruth Ellen Kocher, author of Archon/After
Author Bio
An Affrilachian Poet, with fellowships from the likes of National Endowment for the Arts and Cave Canem Foundation, makalani bandele has multiple books of poetry and his work has been anthologized frequently and published widely in literary journals and magazines. (jopappy and the sentence-makers are) eponymous as funk, recipient of the 2022 Other Futures Award, is his third collection of poetry.