Making Magic: Beauty in Word and Image features 16 poems that visitors can listen to at “poetry nooks” in the exhibition. Here is one by Sean Webb:
The Audition
The trumpet belongs to
the shaggy down-and-outer
being grilled by narcotics cops
over items in his pickup’s bed.
They require that he play a little
light jazz to prove the axe is his.
And so, by the beat up truck,
the skinny shirtless detainee
fingers and blows a tarnished
version of something elegant
while his hand-cuffed partner
convulses on a white resin chair,
reeling from the dope slammed
into his arm as the cops kicked
a door in and stormed the place.
The shaky and winded trumpeter
lowers his instrument and waits.
Police in black ski masks confer,
decide his rendering adequate.
He tucks the configured brass
into its allotment of red velvet
and carefully closes the case.
— Sean Webb
You can also listen to the poet reading his own work as you read the poem. What do you think about the poem? How do you think it relates to the theme of beauty? Please share your comments with us!