Boplicity or Jimmy Throws a Houseparty for Huey Newton & Everybody Shows Up with Their Instrument Instead
inertia’s at the front door lobbying for a way into the funk
but packed the wrong tools, left
blues back where bebop jumped over the hammer.
sold God’s imagination short.
now we’re here dancing again, Bessie’s song got my hips loose
& what goods a revolution without a two-step?
beloved, there’s a party tonight & everybody gon’ be there
tonight, in Oakland, we carve up maplewood in steel-toe boots,
stomp keys into the myth of whiteness. uncle sam’s teeth
rattle. Huey clinks the bars with Plato’s Republic between
here and LA, conjures the one & three count. american chaos.
bass haunts the dichotomy, counterproduces the violence. troubles
innocence. tonight in Oakland, the party is everywhere
& we cant distinguish one riff from another. black smoke funnels
out the attic & the lamp shade’s crooked from the kickdrum—
beloved, (i said) there’s a party tonight & everybody gon’ be there
i’m trading in my gold tooth for a hand grenade
at the back door: morning glory, milkweed, poppy.
the rest have names too, distinct & communal as sin.
would you believe me if i told you miracles were small
enough to hold? scorched amber. night blooms. forgive me,
sometimes the light blinds me to the light.
beloved, it’s a party tonight. everybodys here
Copyright © 2026 by Daniel B. Summerhill. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on March 4, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“Written in the blues form of the bop invented by poet Afaa M. Weaver, the first and second stanza present and expound on a problem, while the last resolves or documents the failure to resolve that problem. In 1968, James Baldwin hosted a birthday party and fundraiser for incarcerated Black Panther Party cofounder Huey P. Newton. This underscored Baldwin’s growing alignment [with] and admiration of revolutionary politics, the Black Panthers in particular. I used jazz movements to illustrate the communal nature of revolution. Boplicity was the inauguration of cool jazz, which, unlike bebop, champions the ensemble rather than individual solos. In other words, what good’s a revolution without a two-step?”
—Daniel B. Summerhill
Daniel B. Summerhill
