The most successful St. Louis writer of his generation – Quincy Troupe – is coming home this weekend for two sets of performance poetry at the Metropolitan Gallery, 2936 Locust St., as part of its Nu-Art Series, 3-6 p.m. this Saturday, February 15.
Troupe will perform the first set with bassist Darrel Mixon and the second set with reedsman Stan Coleman. In a brief intermission between the two 40-minute sets, Troupe will take questions and his many friends and family will love on him.
“I’ve never worked with these two guys,” Troupe said of Mixon and Coleman. “It will be interesting to deal with new musical people.”
Last time home, Troupe performed with another St. Louis native, guitarist Kelvyn Bell. He has performed his poetry with, approximately, everybody.
Troupe’s newest book of poetry, Errancities (Coffee House Press), is new enough to count as a recent title on this visit. “It’s done really well, gotten a lot of nice reviews,” Troupe said. “I can’t complain.”
In a sense, his publisher, Allan Kornblum, could complain. Though Troupe is very much in-demand as a performance poet, he did very few engagements to promote Errancities because he has been holed up writing another as-told-to autobiography. Read upcoming Black History Month sections in The American for news on that exciting project.
“I turned down a lot of readings to finish this book,” Troupe said. “I’ve been locked to my desk.”
His publisher clearly harbors no hard feelings, as together they are projecting two Troupe books of non-fiction followed by another volume of poetry, with a novel and a memoir also in the works.
Other than getting his act together with two new players, Troupe’s main challenge for his gig this weekend is to differentiate the two different sets.
“The first set will be more Missouri-oriented – I’ll do ‘Skulls Along the River,’ some new and some old, then move on to thematic kind of stuff to get the closure I want,” Troupe said.
“In the second half, I’ll do more avant garde kind of stuff. Not that it won’t touch on St. Louis, because everything I do touches on St. Louis in some way, but it will be more national and international and hopefully close with a new piece I am writing called ‘Ghost Voices.’”
Troupe has been hearing a lot of “Ghost Voices” lately. He recently spoke in New York City at the memorial service for the poet Jayne Cortez. There, he presented his poem “Avalanche,” which for the second time he rewrote in memory of a departed friend.
“When Jayne died, looking back, I knew I had written a poem for Jayne but I didn’t like it, so I changed ‘Avalanche’ to add her to it,” Troupe said. “Jayne really liked that poem, and the poem ends with crossing over, crossing over into death with love.”
Previously, he had recast “Avalanche” to take into account the death of jazz violinist Billy Bang. Troupe originally dedicated “Avalanche” to the poet-friend who titled it for him when he first heard the poem, K. Curtis Lyle, who is thankfully still very much alive, living in St. Louis and expecting to host Troupe during his visit.
“I have to tell Curtis, because he is going to be there, that I now have three distinctly different ‘Avalanche’ poems,” Troupe said, “though in St. Louis I’ll read the original one for Curtis.”
Quincy Troupe performs two sets 3-6 p.m. this Saturday, February 15 at the Metropolitan Gallery, 2936 Locust St., as part of its Nu-Art Series. Admission is $20. Visit www.thenu-artseries.org.
