Ammons ready for a dual release
by Catherine Rierson
Staff Writer
The words on the page may take the guise of poetry in their neat line-by-line arrangement, but there’s no mistaking the music that springs from the written words’ rhythm and rhyme. Shirlette Ammons is both poet and musician, and this Friday’s release of her second book of poetry and an EP prove it.
Matching Skin, the award-winning artist’s second published poetry collection, and John Anonymous, a five-song EP that will accompany the book, exemplify Ammons’ fluidity between mediums and the value she gives to their relationship.
“The book and the CD are meant to complement each other,†Ammons said. “I have never seen or felt the cause to separate myself between music and poetry, but I have grown to understand that music and poetry co-exist within me, and that I came into one because of the other,†she said.
Ammons has been busy since she published her first poetry collection, Stumphole Aunthology of Bakwoods Bloods, in 2002. She’s lead vocalist and co-bassist in the band Mosadi Music, which released a debut album, The Window, in 2006. Her poems have been published in The Asheville Poetry Review and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, and she’s received a John Hope Franklin Grant for Documentary Studies and the Ebony-Harlem Award for Literary Talent.
Unlike her first published collection of poetry, Stumphole, which was rich with language reminiscent of her childhood in Mount Olive, Ammons said Matching Skin seeks to uncover a new definition of home and family, and talks a great deal about intimacy.
“The difference between Stumphole and Matching Skin is that I’ve lived a lot more since then, and I can look at my past differently than I used to,†she said.
John Anonymous, the EP accompanying the publication, features mostly Ammons’ musician friends from around the Triangle, including the mandolin strumming of Chatham County Line’s John Teer, vocals from well-knowns including the bluesy, down-in-the-bayou sounding Adrian Duke and the memorable voice of Caitlin Cary. Drummer Matt Maccaughan and producer and guitarist Chris Boerner, both from Mosadi Music, appear on the EP as well.
During the day, Ammons works as the children’s arts manager at The ArtsCenter. On top of maintaining the collaboration between the written word and music, her day job, she said, serves as just another challenge to her life as an artist.
“I think if the kids I spend each day with see me creating art and living as an artist, they see that art is viable and that it’s not necessarily something that hangs on a wall flat and one-dimensional,†she said. “If I don’t believe in that myself, then they’ll see right through me.
“I hope the young artists I work with know that art and the creation of art is within their grasps; that they know artists because they are artists and art lives and breathes right here in their community.â€
Shirlette Ammons reads from Matching Skin and performs music from John Anonymous Friday, June 13 at 7:30 p.m. at The Stables, 108 Morris St., Durham. Admission is free.