Billie in Frankfurt

Billie in Frankfurt Toi Derricotte (bio) The German audiences— who often recognized black artists in a way white Americans could not—welcomed her with an uproar, hoots & hollers of joy & expectation— My heart is jumpin,’ you started somethin . . . At first, tentative— drug-slow & heartless— as if she wasn’t (as Carmen McRae once said) only happy when she sang, or as if maybe now, she was never happy, near dead & propped up on the bones of her reputation. Then, as if their [End Page 319] desire for her finally broke ice, she burned to heat & slowly rose to the top of the band, taking her tag-turn, in & out— Oh what a little moonlight can do . . . the phrasing Pops had taught her; the phrasing Frank confessed she had taught him. [End Page 320] Toi Derricotte Toi Derricotte is Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and author of five books of poems, including The Undertaker’s Daughter, Tender, and Captivity. She is also co-editor (with Cornelius Eady) of Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, and author of a literary memoir, The Black Notebooks, winner of the 1998 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Nonfiction. Derricotte is currently a member of the Board of Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets. Copyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press

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