K. Curtis Lyle

K. Curtis Lyle was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. He was a founding member of the Watts Writers Workshop, joining it in 1966 and becoming a prominent member of the Los Angeles renaissance that the group represented. He has taught, lectured and read his poetry in performance in the major intellectual and urban centers of North America.

Lyle has published widely over the years and been anthologized in the United States, Canada, Latin America and Europe. Lyle’s work has been widely adapted to music, especially to jazz. He built a performing and recording relationship with the late world renowned saxophonist and composer Julius Hemphill (1938-1995). The text of Lyle’s poem, Drunk on God, was recorded for Julius Hemphill’s Big band (Electra/Asylum).

In June 2003, Lyle published a work of selected poetry entitled, Electric Church. In February of 2008 he published a long prose poem, The Epileptic Camel Driver Speaks to a Refugee Death (Firecracker Press). In November 2008, St. Louis Poetry Scores and Firecracker Press published a new work entitled, Nailed Seraphim.

He currently lives in St. Louis, Missouri.

For his opening of Rustbelt/Crossroads, Lyle presents a suite of poems – SALI’S ARK: THE GIRL WHO OPENS DOORS which commemorate the life and death of Marcella Sali Grace Eiler.

Here’s the link to the investigative story about Sali:  http://www.zcommunications.org/the-murder-of-sali-grace-by-john-gibler