(Greil Marcus, Robert Polito) In 1930 a blues singer and guitarist named Geeshie Wiley recorded a song that opened up the deepest crevices of the American imagination. Then she fell off the map. While recent research has, for the first time, tracked the outlines of her life, she remains in the mist—and in this talk, the song writes the singer's adventures in the long years after she once spoke in public to describe life as she knew it. A conversation with Poetry Foundation president Robert Polito follows.

Published Date: January 13, 2016