When Mississippi-born Sterling Plumpp discovered blues poetry as his voice, his work flowed. Born in 1940, he has published many volumes of poetry, each with special emphasis on the blues. His collections of poems include The Mojo Hands Call, I Must Go, which won the Carl Sandburg Award for poetry in 1983; Blues, The Story Always Untold, published in 1989; Hornman published in 1996; and the autobiographical, Johannesburg & Other Poems, published in 1993. In addition, Plumpp has had numerous poems published in Living Blues magazine. His poems always capture the images and rhythms of blues and jazz as they illuminate the African-American landscape. Plumpp was an associate professor of African American studies and English at the University of Illinois in Chicago since 1971.
