Michael S. Harper sheds important insight into what it means to travel the road of pain to find meaning, hope and brightness. He tells a story of John Coltrane who searched for the perfect mouthpiece because he wanted to play a very difficult note. When he couldn’t find the reed, he finally gave up and Harper says, “There was no easy way to get that sound; he played through it (the pain) to a love supreme.” He suggests further that “jazz musicians and poets often have to go through pain to find inspiration.” As Harper describes his writing process he informs that he writes notes to try to get through the circumstance(Moyers,175). This writing through pain and circumstance is an act of improvisation. Improvisation is creating. It is the creating of things—poems, art, music, crafts—that keeps us alive and affirms our being.
Poetry is a wonderful vehicle of affirmation; it is the written testament that in fact we are phenomenal, we rise, and we are baad. It is ego tripping and it is healthy for the mind, body, and soul. There are many poets who blend blues themes with an ego tripping principle. These poems can serve as models to follow to create original poems of the same nature. In fact, words, phrases, sentences, or lines from one or more of these poems can be taken to create a new poem. This technique, dada poetry, can result in a new version of a well-known poem or can result in a new poem.
