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Poets, Musicians Sing The Green Into The Weekend

Mellody Massaquoi | July 30th, 2021

Poets, Musicians Sing The Green Into The Weekend

Downtown  |  Music  |  Poetry & Spoken Word  |  Arts & Culture  |  New Haven Green  |  Youth Arts Journalism Initiative

Over honking cars and rumbling buses, Yexandra Diaz’ voice boomed and echoed over the New Haven Green. It wove through crowds of people heading to their bus stops and leaving downtown for elsewhere in the city. In the background, pianist Finn Henry tickled the keys, laying a soft carpet of sound beneath Diaz’ words. 

“Desire becomes surrender/Surrender becomes power/Surrender to the hour,” Diaz read, eyes traveling over the space. “Remember your power/Desire for control holds you/As father time scolds you/Shows you your immortality.” 

Last Friday, Diaz and Henry graced the Green as part of a weekly pop-up series that is set to run through Oct, 8. The set featured Elementals, a new duo with Diaz on the mic and Henry on vocals and keys. Each artist also performed individually, mesmerizing passers-by with music and spoken word. 

The series is a collaboration among the Proprietors of the New Haven Green and the Arts Council of Greater New Haven, with support from the New Haven Departments of Arts, Culture & Tourism and Parks & Trees. Earlier this month, artists kicked it off with a triple bill of dance, music, and poetry in the blazing July heat. 

In the interest of full disclosure, the Arts Paper is an arm of the Arts Council but editorially independent from it.  

All artists are welcome and encouraged to share their craft with their community, said Arts Council Membership Director Stacy Graham-Hunt. That may range from poets to musicians to singers to circus performers. Artists are able to apply for the series online

“If you consider yourself an artist, we consider you an artist,” Graham-Hunt said. 

“It’s nice to see strangers and to have the organizations out there, especially since we have been isolated for so long,” she later added. 

Diaz electrified the Green as soon as she stepped up to the mic. Her clear voice drifted through the soft breeze and commanded the attention of everyone who could hear it. A small crowd formed as she opened with tight, flowing verses inspired by her work in climate and community activism. 

YexDiazOf the many hats that Diaz wears—teacher, mother, poet, birth and death doula—she is also a caretaker for the earth and of the people around her. In the poem, she paints a picture of Jesus arriving “on my doorstep,” ready to talk about how climate change and white supremacy are destroying his divine creation. 

“I washed his feet as he turned water to wine and/Consoled me as I whined about the state of our people,” she recited, hands gliding through the air. A few people stopped on their way to the buses and listened to every word. 

She rolled into her poem “Skipping Stones In Muddy Waters,” dedicated to her daughter. She wrote it three years ago, after learning about the disappearance and death of 4-year-old Darnell Gray. When Gray went missing in 2018, the police would not issue an amber alert. He was later found dead in Jefferson City. 

The poem doubles as not just a mother’s plea, but a meditation on the way culture, from law enforcement to media, may treat Black and Brown bodies as disposable.  

“I should have named you Amber just in case,” she began. “I should have named you Amber because/Black children always fit the description but never the criteria/God forbid you disappear/Maybe they’d be as quick to put your face on the back of chocolate milk cartons as they already place you in handcuffs, or in cop cars, or in jail cell.” 

Many of the attendees clapped, snapped or shouted in agreement to Diaz’s poem. When she finished, Henry joined with a track that mixed pianos and instrumentals, the sound of horns gliding over an ambulance siren. Henry stayed to play in a new work from Yerba Bruja, a performance in which Diaz appeared earlier this year at Long Wharf Theatre. The piano undulated, rising up to meet Diaz’ words as they landed hard and fast on the patio below.  

As Diaz stepped away from the mic, Henry took the outdoor stage alone, channeling the musician Alice Smith as she opened with an a cappella cover. She got the crowd clapping before crooning into the mic. Her transformed from a wail into a growl and back again. 

“Thank you,” she laughed to cheers. “I’m also gonna do some more low key stuff.” 

She hooked up a backup track and grooved into a cover of Jill Scott’s “Golden.” She slowed it down to highlight work from the Robert Glasper Experiment. As the sun shone brightly on the crowd, people began to sway and swing to the melodies that danced in the air. Even onlookers bopped their heads as they walked past or waited for the bus to arrive

Some appeared so touched by the work that they began to give the artists gifts. One woman left jewelry at the piano. Another gave Diaz a Billie Holiday vinyl. The setting was fitting: Diaz said she considers the city her muse. She writes with the community in mind. 

“The community is full of beauty and full of tragedy,” she said.

Some attendees were completely immersed in the art. Jadie Meprivert, a native New Yorker who just moved to New Haven to attend Yale University, was enthralled with the music and poetry. As an artist herself,  she said she was pleased to see that the arts were alive and well in the city and that they weren’t going away any time soon. 

“It’s possible to have a career in art,” she said.

Pop-Up Coordinator Dyme Ellis is still seeking proposals for weekly performers. Apply here.  Mellody Massaquoi is an alum of the Youth Arts Journalism Initiative. She is currently a rising sophomore at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU).