Vox Populi
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J. Kates: Two Poems
DÉBAT DU CŒUR ET DU CORPS
I’ve grown too old to listen to the blues
I drove cross-country to when I was young.
A person’s never too old for the blues.
The woe they wail so well’s no longer news —
A bee will drop its stinger once it’s stung.
I’ve grown too old to listen to the blues
because, by now, I’ve nothing left to lose
that’s not already left behind and sung.
A person’s never too old for the blues.
I gave up cigarettes and sex and booze
and anything that might have got me hung.
I’ve grown too old to listen to the blues.
Sooner or later, you still have to choose
the poison that you roll around your tongue.
A person’s never too old for the blues.
That’s someone’s funky line, I know, but whose?
Boy, you don’t know who you’re stuck among.
I’ve grown too old to listen to the blues.
A person’s never too old for the blues.
~~~
THE MUSE WRITES BACK
‘Heads-up: there’s a poem dedicated to J. K. and its title is “After the Abortion.”‘
Poems are, and are not, children. They can be
conceived, abandoned, cherished — or aborted —
found again and fostered, even forty
years along. So it was with you and me.
We did so very well with literature.
You drew from me. I was inspired by you.
We wrote each other. Some drafts I review
and even today turn into something newer.
Children are not poems. What might have been
means something different now to each of us.
We passed our chance to talk about it then,
fell out of touch. What we have done and seen,
our separate lives have flourished, more or less.
You proudly published, called your first book, Flesh.
~~~~~
Copyright 2026. J. Kates.
J. Kates is a poet, translator and the president and co-director of Zephyr Press. He has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation and a Käpylä Translation Prize.
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Oh the blues, country, Chicago. I sang the blues in coffee houses when I was in college and first tasting life. Now I feel the blues in a deeper way and stir it into my coffee. Life is different now. Perhaps I’ll ask Alexa to play Jimmy Rushing or Big Joe Turner or Mississippi John Hurt although on this day when a little bit of smashing things may be in order, maybe a little Janis and Turtle Blues would be appropriate.
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A discovery to me — such resonant, seamless, fluid poems. I literally heard a melody reading Débat du Coeur et du Corps! And how powerful the “What might have been/ means something different now to each of us”! And I agree with Christine Rhein, “A person’s never too old for the blues.” Indeed, indeed…
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I’ve appreciated James’s translations for years, and his piloting of Zephyr in its glorious world tour of poetry has been a gift to American literature, so it was a wonderful surprise to find that he’s a gifted poet in his own right.
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The argument of the dialogue in the first of these is one I recognize as part of my daily morning argument with myself. Thank you for conveying it so resonantly, J. Kates. “The woe they wail so well’s no longer news” is a blues line if ever I heard one, (blues about the blues being the blues’ bluest blues.)
And thanks, Michael, for presenting these two gems here.
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Thanks, Richard. James Kates is one of the best translators of poetry we have, and his attention to the exact sound and shade of a word and line shows his skill.
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It’s a pleasure to read such serious and formally adept poems in which the verse is inextricably matched with the way the poem thinks.
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I agree, Jordan. The poems are beautifully crafted.
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Who wouldn’t fall for the wisdom and the lilt in these lines? I might be singing them all day.
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Thanks, Luray. I’ve been singing the lines since I first read them.
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Poignant, thought-provoking poems. “A person’s never too old for the blues.” — how true!
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I love the elegance and sophistication of these poems.
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