Jazz Poetry 2025: Thumbscrew, Mahogany L. Browne, Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, & Camille Rankine

May is Jazz Poetry Month! Each Jazz Poetry program begins with a full set from a live jazz band, followed by a collaboration with local and international poets. In these collaborations, poets share their work alongside the musicians, the two art forms melding to create that signature Jazz Poetry improvisational style that offers something exciting, new, and unique with each individual performance. 

The 21st annual Jazz Poetry festival kicks off with “One of the most spellbinding trios in contemporary improvised music” (Echoes magazine). Jazz trio Thumbscrew travels to  Pittsburgh to launch their latest album, Wingbeats, which germinated during the band’s last trip to Pittsburgh in 2023. Joining the trio on stage for a series of unique, improvisational collaborations are poets Mahogany L Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow and author of the collection Chrome Valley; Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko, a filmmaker, writer, and musician from Ukraine and City of Asylum writer-in-residence since 2023; and Camille Rankine, whose chapbook, Slow Dance with Trip Wire, was selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America’s New York Chapbook Fellowship. 

Featured Musicians:

Mary Halvorson: guitar

Mike Formanek: bass

Tomas Fujiwara: percussion

About the Band:

Thumbscrew accidentally came about after bassist Michael Formanek subbed in a band including guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. Something extraordinary happened among them right away, so they formed a trio, a co-operative in the truest sense. They play originals by all hands, compositions whose rhythms may surge, lag, or veer sideways according to their own internal logic. Bass and drums solo within the ensemble, not in quarantine. No one needs to be the loudest. The blend is tight: one string (or metal) sound may bleed into another. It’s something to hear—something twisty, turny, and always on the move.

About the Poets:

Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow, is a writer, playwright, organizer, & educator. Browne received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Hawthornden, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, Wesleyan University, & UCross. Browne’s books include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for a play by Steppenwolf Theater), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne currently tours Chrome Valley (highlighted in Publishers Weekly and The New York Times) and is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. She holds an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree awarded by Marymount Manhattan College in 2024, is the inaugural poet-in-residence at Lincoln Center, and is at work on her first adult fiction and fourth YA novel-in-verse in Brooklyn, NY.

Oleksandr Frazé-Frazénko is a renowned film director, writer, music producer, and publisher. Over the years, his feature documentaries and fictional short films have had a lasting impact on Ukrainian culture. With a prolific music career, he has amassed millions of streams. His latest poetry collection, FAQ Ukraine, delves into the sophisticated and often controversial love-hate relationship between the poet and his motherland, guiding readers through the labyrinth of history while shedding light on the nation’s uncertain future. During the first year of the war in Ukraine, Oleksandr stayed in the country and became involved in a volunteer movement, working with foreign journalists as a producer, filmmaker, and writer to spread the truth about the situation and the historical context. He has been a Research Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh and a writer in residence as part of City of Asylum’s Fellowship for Ukrainian Writers since March 2023 with his wife, Mari Frazé-Frazénko, a gifted Ukrainian singer.

Camille Rankine is the daughter of Jamaican immigrants. Her first book of poetry, Incorrect Merciful Impulses, was published by Copper Canyon Press, and her chapbook, Slow Dance with Trip Wire, was selected by Cornelius Eady for the Poetry Society of America’s New York Chapbook Fellowship. She is the recipient of a Discovery Poetry Prize and fellowships from MacDowell, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Her poetry has appeared in The Believer, Boston Review, The Nation, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Poetry, A Public Space, and Tin House, and elsewhere. She co-chairs the Brooklyn Book Festival Literary Council and is an assistant professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant Cucina Alfabeto is open for dinner from 5 to 10 p.m. To make a reservation, please visit Open Table or call 412-435-1111.