Poetry. African American studies. This gripping collection examines the life and times of the legendary blues musician Leadbelly from a variety of intimate perspectives, using a range of innovative poetic forms. A biography in poems, Leadbelly becomes a collage of song, culture and circumstance, alive and speaking. "I suspect this book, about one man's journey through the blues, is as close as a book of poetry may get to describing what it means and what it costs to have this music in your veins"--Cornelius Eady.

Tyehimba Jess' first book of poetry, leadbelly, was a winner of the 2004 National Poetry Series. Jess was recognized as one of 2005's eighteen debut poets to watch by Poets and Writers magazine. leadbelly was voted one of Black Issues Book Review's three best poetry books of 2005. A Cave Canem, Green Mill Slam Team, and NYU alumni, Jess was a 2004-5 Winter Fellow at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. He won an Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowship in Poetry for 2000-2001. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.