Dark Labyrinth

Earnest Bracey is a man who loves music. He played his jazz trumpet at several venues in Japan, as well as at the One Step Down jazz club in Washington, D.C. He was a jazz trumpet soloist in the acclaimed Jazz Big Band at Jackson State University in the late 1970s, and his love for music has poured into his love of prose.

Dark Labyrinth is a collection of poems about music and so much more. Many of Bracey’s poems reference the power of the blues. Perhaps his most significant “blues poems” are “The Language of our Demise,” “Ebola Blues,” and “The Tall Black Man with One White Shoe.”

As a musician and African American history professor, Bracey’s poems give poetic justice to the black experience in the United States. His collection provides snapshots of African American feelings in an imaginative way. His words celebrate the horror and beauty of America without sugarcoating anything. Some poems are derived from strict facts and harsh truths, but all carry a bluesy, musical sense of play.