Satellites Are Spinning: Notes on a Sun Ra Poem
Sun Ra, taken during the filming of Space Is the Place. Courtesy the collection of John Corbett and Terri Kapsalis.
Sun Ra, the visionary leader of the jazz ensemble he called his “Arkestra,” once submitted a manuscript of poems to a commercial publisher, receiving it back with a curt editorial comment: they seemed written in an alien language. He took it as a compliment. Like most readers of his poetry, I encountered it first in a form other than book. I wish I could say I bought those old El Saturn records with poems printed on their jackets—that would make me so cool—but I came to Sun Ra late, after
