Last Kind Words

"The song, 'Last Kind Words Blues', was recorded in 1930 in a makeshift studio in Grafton, Wisconsin, and issued by Paramount Records as one side of a 78 rpm shellac disc with the musician's name given as "Geeshie Wiley". It's not a straightforward lyric. It's not about slavery, but slavery is there in it. It's about the victims of war, but forgets that it is." - Peter Riley

Peter Riley then invited responses from other poets and the results are here, with contributions from Tony Baker, Kelvin Corcoran, Ian Duhig, Khaled Hakim, Michael Haslam, Peter Hughes, Tom Lowenstein, Laura Potts, John Seed, Zoë Skoulding, Jon Thompson and Judith Willson.