by Amiri Baraka

I used to walk past Sassy’s crib
a couple times a week, when young

And each time say, “That’s
Where Sarah Vaughn lives.”

That was when Symphony Sid
used to call her, “The Divine One,”
Late nights, from hip Bird Land

Oh man, what a feeling that was
Divine & so hip & so very
beautiful.

The house is gone now
Symphony Sid too

As for the town, now
Sassy told us
just before she split

I’m gone, now
Send in

The
Clowns!

In 1949 Sarah Vaughan with her manager and then-husband George Treadwell bought a three-story house at 21 Avon Avenue. Her parents, Asbury and Ada Vaughan, moved from her childhood home on Brunswick Street into the two lower floors, while she and Treadwell occupied the top floor. By then, however, touring and recording kept the singer away from Newark for extended periods.

“Lullaby of Avon Ave.” appeared in the 1996 collection Funk Lore and the Summer 1996 issue of Journal of New Jersey Poets.