Willard Gellis

Neshoba County Blues

back in 19 hundert +64 done
wrote this oncet lak i been
told ain gawn write no mo

back inda day (19 hundert + 64)
taken my suger 2 tha movies see
a moving picture we ain never
seend B4

my baby commence a-crine i mean she
went 2 crine tears rollin down her pretty
face moumin drops pourn down her face
goin thay found Andys body murderd inna
First Degree-—thay god! thay buried him dark
midnight way down mississippi

declare we seen poar Andy in ever paper
inna whole entire country
KLUXERS LYNCH 2
YANKEES + A
NIGRA ROY
shoot!——-burn down 1/2 tha tree

wendy unpuckerd...
wuzzing no help
-—lak y no i loved him all alone his self.,.
N nawbuddy else inna dagone world
——howcome poar Andys dead N yoar still alive lookn
jest lak that poar boy?

now lissen at me baby.. .way back in 64 i
lovedid a female——sweetest gal in town
but tha White Knights burnd my double
JimCrow
Neshoba County
+ his po-ole buddies 2 tha hellatious ground.


About the Author

Willard Gellis is a New York born, Long Island raised, underground poet who began publishing in the early 1960's and has performed his poetry for more than four decades in many cities and overseas, logging more than 5,000 gigs, including reading his poetry at the 2003 annual meeting of the Thomas Wolfe Society in Burlington Vermont. Gellis has published 31 books, notably an epic cycle of the United States in the latter half of the 20th centruy. His numerous magazine and journal publications include the anthology Red, White and Blues, (University of Iowa Press, 2004). In the 1990's Gellis hosted two literary and performance public access television shows in the Hamptons. He is responsible for bring big-city poetry to Long Island, New York.

The writer's books are countercultural--composed in the style of hardcore street poetry in the idiom of the people. Gellis views his works as a protest against the violent distortions and injustices of a viciously depraved world founded on unbridled lust for power and naked greed. Through his many bizarre personae the sick psyches of the rulers and victims of this insect world are exposed. The poet's style and invention are unflaggingly, relentlessly plutonic--shining a halogen light on the new barbarism. These dark works--poetry noir--are devoted to exposing the new masters and their obedient slaves and hitmen. "All my work is devoted to the realistic goals of peace and justice."

Gellis holds a doctorate in literature and aesthetics from New York University and a Master's in British fiction and art from the University of Maryland, and has taught in various universities. He has also taught special education for the emotionally and physically disadvantaged in the inner city, country and suburbs. He served in the army reserves 1955-57. Other biographies may be found in Who's Who in America and many other registers.

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