New York, NY (April 30, 2017): Renowned poetess and 2016 Robert Frost Medal winner (Poetry Society of America) Grace Schulman has recorded a spoken word CD “The Jazz Poems of Grace Schulman,” a first in her 4+ decade career.

This album represents the only aural recording of Schulman’s extensive catalogue of poems. The 10 jazz poems are introduced and read by her.

A jazz lover for most of her life, Schulman’s jazz poems (drawn from several of her poetry collections) pay homage to John Coltrane, Art Tatum, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Thelonius Monk, and Billie Holiday, among others.

Schulman says:

     "I’ve been drawn to jazz not only for the excitement of the music but for its impact on people’s lives. Like all great art it has the power of metaphor. In the title of my earlier poetry collection, The Paintings of Our Lives, I intended 'our lives' to emphasize human insights, either of the painter or the viewer, occasioned by great paintings. So it is with jazz. I will listen to jazz as long as I have the privilege of writing poems, and I hope to be doing both for the rest of my days."

Schulman’s jazz poems have been selected to be presented at the 2017 HEAR Now, The National Audio Theatre Festival (NATF) June 8-11.

The release of this album—available at www.cdbaby.com/cd/graceschulman—is coincident with the celebration of International Jazz Day (April 30, 2017), Jazz Appreciation Month, and National Poetry Month.

Digital release April 30, 2017. Physical CD available end of May 2017.

Grace Schulman was awarded the 2016 Frost Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in American Poetry, by the Poetry Society of America. Her latest of
seven books of poems is Without a Claim, (Mariner, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). Her recent collection of essays is First Loves and Other Adventures (U of Michigan Press, 2010).

She is the author of Days of Wonder: New and Selected Poems, which was selected
by Library Journal as one of the “best poetry books” of 2002, and was a finalist for the Phi Beta Kappa Award of that year; and The Paintings of Our Lives, was selected by the Academy of American Poets’ Book Club.

Among her honors are the Aiken Taylor Award for poetry, the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, four Pushcart Prizes, New York University's Distinguished Alumni Award, and a Fellowship from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Editor of The Poems of Marianne Moore (Viking, 2003), Schulman is Distinguished Professor of English at Baruch College, City University of New York (CUNY). She is former director of the Poetry Center, 92nd Street Y, 1974-84, and former poetry editor of The Nation, 1971-2006.

MEII Enterprises is a music and media company specializing in jazz, Latin jazz, Brazilian, and classical music.  MEII Enterprises also produces and distributes documentary DVDs. Currently, the company is editing “Jazz in the Middle Kingdom: From Dance Hall Music to Individual Freedom of Expression” for release in spring 2018.