January Gill O’Neil’s poetry collection Glitter Road is a vivid and evocative exploration of love and loss.
“Jump Around” by House of Pain
I was today years old when I found out House of Pain was a West Coast band, and that the video was filmed in NYC! I mean, everything about this song says Boston. If you’re at a local bar or a Celts game you’re bound to hear this one, which feels born and bred in Boston right down to that off-key squeal. And I wanted to avoid other notorious Beantown tracks such as “Dirty Water” by The Standalls or “Shipping up to Boston” by the Dropkick Murphys. My story is a 1,300 mile “jump” from Massachusetts to Mississippi and back again.
“Buena” by Morphine
Morphine was one of the quintessential bands on the Boston/Cambridge music scene. WBUR described their sound as “jazz-informed cool and bluesy punk,” which perfectly describes the 90s feel with other Boston based bands like Pixies, The Lemonheads, and Dinosaur Jr. I moved up the East Coast from Norfolk, VA to D.C. to N.Y.C. and to New England in 1997 with my soon-to-be husband, spending lots of time and brain cells getting to know the scene near the Fens and Cambridge haunts like the Lizard Lounge and the Cantab.
“Graceland” by Paul Simon
Natch. I mean, this is my traveling transition song to Memphis, which is where you fly into when you’re headed to north Mississippi. The title track to Paul Simon’s 1986 Grammy-winning album has long been a favorite of mine. Simon laments the dissolution of a marriage—totally relatable. And he wrote probably the best simile ever in a song: “The Mississippi Delta / was shining like a national guitar.” And then follows that amazing line with another: “I am following the river / Down the highway / Through the cradle of the Civil War.” Sums up exactly how I felt about moving to Mississippi, the contrast of beauty and history made bearable by Simon’s lyrics. Where else can you find South African rhythms and The Everly Brothers on the same record?
“Rebel Rebel” by David Bowie
In 2019, I accepted a fellowship for the John and Renee Grisham Writer in Residence at the University of Mississippi. My two teenagers and I trekked down to Oxford, Mississippi, also known as “the velvet ditch”—a place you can fall into, get comfortable, and never leave. In Glitter Road there’s a poem called “Rebel Rebel” in the form of a ghazal, an Arabic poem written in couplets using a repeated refrain. The word “rebel” became an engine for the poem. Half the businesses in Oxford are named Rebel, which is a word that, for me, harkens back to the Confederacy.
Also, I bought a green sweatshirt in a store downtown with the words “Rebel Rebel” stacked on the chest, my first purchase in my new city.
“(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones
In the poem “Rebel Rebel,” I contend that the famous guitar riff in David Bowie’s song is a reverse riff of “Satisfaction.” Listen to the track.
“Mannish Boy” by Muddy Waters
You can’t talk about the Delta Blues without Muddy Waters. He grew up near Clarksdale, Mississippi, widely regarded as the home of the Blues. This song is so sexy that it’s easy to miss its political undertones. When Waters spells out “m-a-n,” since most Black boys and adults were referred to as “boy” more often than not, it meant something. Maybe everything.
“Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson
Bluesman Robert Johnson died at age 27. Legend has it that his guitarwork was beyond anything on this earth, so beyond talent, that it must have come from the devil himself. The deal with the devil was done “at the crossroads.” I have been to those crossroads and visited one of Johnson’s three gravesites. To this day, his death and his exact death date is a mystery.
“Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone
Don’t think I could have put this playlist together without “Mississippi Goddam.” and it was released after the church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four little girls. Imagine a Black woman singing “Mississippi, goddamn!” in the ’60s. She says the unsayable, and that has been a theme throughout my literary career.
There is a through line that connects my poetry from past to present. My “Mississippi Goddam” moment came in 2019 before I arrived in Oxford. Three Ole Miss students shot up the memorial sign where lynching victim Emmett Till’s body was pulled from the Tallahatchie River. The smiles on the students’ faces, the pride. Emmett Till’s story was the entry point to understanding the plight of enslaved people in the Deep South. My daughter and I were fortunate enough to attend the marker’s re-dedication. Simone’s lyrics are just as potent today as they were back in 1964.
“River” by Leon Bridges
My daughter turned me on to Leon Bridges with his clear, beautiful lyrics and gospel sound. The “river” has long been a metaphor for redemption. Because we were bookended by the Mississippi and the Tallahatchie, this soulful song is an obvious choice for the playlist.
“Heavy” by Birdtalker
My boyfriend, who lives in Oxford, likes to tell the story of when he first asked me out. Birdtalker was the opening act for Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors so he asked to go to the concert. My reply? “I’m not a fan of country music.” Not that I wouldn’t go out with him, but country was not my genre. That being said, I love this song by Birdtalker. The video moves me every single time. It’s symbolic of our relationship on so many levels—both of us carrying the baggage of divorce. “Leave what’s heavy /What’s heavy behind.”
“When I Get My Hands On You” by The New Basement Tapes
My boyfriend and I live 1,300 miles apart. Enough said.
Turns out this is a Dylan track from 1967, revived by Marcus Mumford, T-Bone Burnett, and Elvis Costello, among others.
“Cold Little Heart” by Michael Kiwanuka
My kids and I were in Mississippi for an academic year and the beginning of Covid. In spring of 2020, when it was clear that we’d have time on our hands in lockdown, I started writing the core poems for Glitter Road. Two albums got me through the writing—one of them was Michael Kiwanuka’s second album Love and Hate. I’m including the nearly 10-minute version of the playlist because it is too good for a radio edit. It’s meditative in the way that summons writers to ponder and create.
“Alright” by Kendric Lamar
This song is for my son.
“Alright” was the unofficial anthem of the #BlackLivesMatter movement. I worry about by son just as I worry about so many young Black men making their way in the world.
“Hell You Talmbout” by David Byrne
David Byrne’s American Utopia is the other album that allowed me to go deep into the poems of Glitter Road. I chose this track because originally it was written by Janelle Monáe, who gave permission to David Bynre to record his own version, and it’s featured on the live version of American Utopia. The names of what seems like an unending list of Black men and women who died at the hands of police violence flow like a river. The song asks the listener to say the names of the dead.
Emmett Till is mentioned in the song. Once again, there is a through line of violence that only music can call out.
“Sex with Me” by Rihanna
Yes. And?
“Paid in Pleasure” by “The Age of Pleasure”
Leave it to the ladies. Janelle Monae’s “The Age of Pleasure” is my current spin and it will be for a while. The last track, “Paid in Pleasure,” reflects where I am now emotionally, spiritually, romantically, and creatively.
While some poems in Glitter Road are heavy and painful, I can’t stress enough how much joy there is in this book. I wrote poems that offer a new definition of a woman’s sensuality, her ebbs and flows, her playfulness, her meanders and purls.
To quote my favorite song from “The Age of Pleasure”: “I don’t step, I don’t walk, I don’t dance, I just / float.”
“Paid in Pleasure” is mix-tape-level short—a perfect song to end on.
January Gill O’Neil is an associate professor at Salem State University and the author of Glitter Road (February 2024), Rewilding (2018), Misery Islands (2014), and Underlife (2009), all published by CavanKerry Press. From 2012-2018, she served as the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. Her poems and articles have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, American Poetry Review, Poetry, and Sierra magazine, among others. Her poem, “At the Rededication of the Emmett Till Memorial,” was a co-winner of the 2022 Allen Ginsberg Poetry award from the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College. The recipient of fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Cave Canem, and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, O’Neil was the 2019-2020 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi, Oxford. She currently serves as the 2022-2024 board chair of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP).
O’Neil earned her BA from Old Dominion University and her MFA from New York University. She lives in Beverly, MA.