I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music.

Hear the words of Adrian Mitchell, poet of the people, who declared: “I use rock and jazz and blues rhythms because I love that music. I hope my poetry has a relationship with good-time rock ’n’ roll.” This confession is more than taste—it is revelation. Mitchell teaches us that poetry is not an ivory tower, aloof and silent, but a living force that must dance with the rhythms of the age. By wedding the ancient art of verse to the pulsing heart of music, he restores poetry to its primal home: the voice, the drum, the song that binds people together in joy, sorrow, and rebellion.

The ancients themselves knew this bond. Before books and libraries, before critics and scholars, the poets sang with lyres, with flutes, with drums. Homer was not read; he was performed, chanted in cadence that stirred the blood like battle-marches. The Hebrew psalms were hymns, meant to be sung in the temple. The griots of Africa recited history with the beat of drums. Mitchell, by invoking rock, jazz, and blues, joins this ancient lineage, reminding us that poetry is not first a matter of ink but of rhythm, not first for the eye but for the ear and the heart.

Think of the 1960s, when Mitchell himself lived and wrote. It was the age of Dylan, the Beatles, Hendrix—when rock ’n’ roll and blues became the voice of a restless generation. Their guitars thundered with the same urgency that poets had once carried in ballads and odes. Mitchell, standing as both poet and protester, wove his verse into these living currents. He did not seek to mimic the music but to live alongside it, to let his lines carry the same freedom, rebellion, and joy. His desire was that when people heard his poetry, they would feel not solemnity alone, but the fierce delight of a crowd moving together to the beat of a song.

Consider also the legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, where jazz and blues infused the lines of Langston Hughes and his companions. Hughes wrote poetry that swung like a trumpet solo, mourned like a midnight blues, rejoiced like gospel. He too showed that art becomes most alive when it embraces the living rhythms of its people. Mitchell’s words echo this lineage: the poet must not be a fossil, but a drummer in the great orchestra of human life.

But Mitchell’s declaration carries also a challenge. For too often, poetry has been imprisoned in classrooms, dissected until lifeless, robbed of the rhythm that gave it birth. He warns against this dryness. By tying poetry to rock ’n’ roll, he reminds us that verse must move, must shake, must stir laughter, tears, and dancing feet. The measure of a poem is not only in its craft but in its pulse—does it live, does it breathe, does it sing?

The lesson is plain: let your words be alive. If you write, do not fear to weave in the rhythms you love—whether they are of drums, guitars, footsteps, or heartbeats. If you read, do not read poetry silently alone; speak it aloud, let it ride the air, let it thrum in your chest. And in life itself, do not separate art from joy, wisdom from music. Let your living have rhythm, let your work and play move with the same spirit that drives a song.

Practical actions follow. Listen to jazz or blues as you read poetry, and hear how the rhythms converse. Read Mitchell himself alongside the music of his time. Try writing a verse to the beat of a song you love, not to mimic but to ride the wave. Share poetry in gatherings, as music is shared, so that it becomes communal again. In this way, poetry returns to its rightful place as part of life’s celebration, not a relic of study alone.

Thus Mitchell speaks with both passion and humility: his poetry is not aloof, but alive, not bound to the library but dancing with rock ’n’ roll, jazz, and blues. He reminds us that art at its best is joyful, rhythmic, and shared. Let us then live our own lives with rhythm, weaving together the wisdom of poetry and the pulse of music, until both beat as one in the heart of humanity.