This week, Esther Belin speaks with A. Van Jordan about his forthcoming book,When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again. The title comes from The Tempest, and the book celebrates Black youth while complicating contemporary understandings of Shakespearian characters and influence. Jordan shares two poems from that forthcoming book: “Airsoft” and “Such Sweet Thunder.” “Airspoft” begins with the epigraph, “For Tamir Rice,” and this November marks the eight-year anniversary since Rice, who was twelve years old, was killed by a white police officer in Cleveland, Ohio, less than an hour away from where Jordan grew up. The second poem Jordan reads, “Such Sweet Thunder,” references A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn album that borrows from the line, “I never heard so musical a discord, such sweet thunder.” Belin and Jordan discuss the impact and legacy of artistic representations of race and explore how Ellington and Strayhorn musically engaged with Shakespeare’s writing.
Thanks to the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Shakespeare Unlimited podcast for allowing us to share some clips from their episode, “Duke Ellington, Shakespeare, and ‘Such Sweet Thunder.’”