BY JOANNA C. VALENTE
Ella Fitzgerald isn't referred to as First Lady of Song, Queen of Jazz, or Lady Ella for no reason at all. Fitzgerald is so beloved because her voice is otherworldly, full of emotion and expression. She would have been 100 this year, and it seems like while she may no longer be with us, her voice is forever.
Did you know when she was 21, she became internationally famous with a hit record based on a nursery rhyme, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket?" Her expansive career hit so many notes, there's so many songs - and it's hard to keep up with.
Here are some of my favorites:
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (The Operating System, 2017), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016) and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). Joanna received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, a managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM, as well as an instructor at Brooklyn Poets. Some of their writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Brooklyn Magazine, Prelude, Apogee, Spork, The Feminist Wire, BUST, and elsewhere.