There's a simple reason why poet Yusef Komunyakaa is coming to town Saturday:

"I love jazz."

The 63-year-old Louisiana native will find the music in abundance at the sixth annual Jazz Poetry Concert sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh. Saxophonist Oliver Lake, who has appeared at five previous concerts here, will lead a 17-piece big band than includes five other sax players.

"I like what Oliver Lakes does on the saxophone," Mr. Komunyakaa said from New York where he teaches at New York University. "The saxophone comes pretty close to the sound of the human voice and when Oliver plays with other sax players, it's like a dialogue," he said.

The poet has long acknowledged the influence of jazz rhythms on his poetry, saying that "something pulled jazz and poetry together inside me. ... I am often awed by the jazz musician, that ability to compose and improvise while he plays."

Growing up in Louisiana, Mr. Komunyakaa said he heard a lot of blues and gospel music. "It wasn't until I was in mid 20s that I began to listen to progressive jazz, like Miles Davis' 'Sketches of Spain.' That was my first record, then I moved to other Miles, then John Coltrane and Charlie Parker."

Mr. Komunyakaa is inspired enough to work on a poem for Saturday's occasion, something he's calling "Ode to the Saxophone" and intends to read it with accompaniment by the Lake big band.

He's also at work selecting finished poems for the program, but aside from one rehearsal, the jazz and poetry will have to find a way to work together on the stage.

"I like to be surprised by what can happen. It should be a night for discovery," he said.

Mr. Komunyakaa also continues to work daily on his writing, a pace that has produced 14 collections including his new book, "The Chameleon Couch," to be released in March.

He described the work as a "compilation of my most recent obsessions about history and human interactions. A few poems will directly address jazz, however."

The 1992 collection, "Neon Vernacular" won the Pulitzer Prize.

Asked if his poetry has made him a wealthy man, Mr. Komunyakaa laughed. "You have to be pretty dedicated to your work because there's not much money in it."

He's branching out into play writing following the successful adaptation of "Gilgamesh," the ancient Babylonian epic, for the stage.

In November, a reading of a new play, "Weather Wars," will be held at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Mr. Komunyakaa said.

The progression from writing verse to writing dialogue was a logical one, he said. "Poets are seen as the caretakers of language, so working with words no matter what the form is what we do," he added. "And, I'd like to point out that August Wilson started as a poet."

Mr. Komunyakaa last appeared in Pittsburgh in 1998 at the International Poetry Forum. Henry Reese, City of Asylum founder, said he invited him this time because he "has a breadth of experience of being an outsider from his growing up in the pre-civil rights South to serving in Vietnam."

That experience is shared by the international writers harbored under the asylum program, two of whom will be reading their work Saturday as well.

Khet Mar, exiled from her native Burma, is Pittsburgh's writer-in-residence. She is a novelist and nonfiction writer and is in her second year here.

El Salvador's Horacio Castellanos Moya is Ms. Mar's predecessor at City of Asylum-Pittsburgh and a leading figure in Latin American literature with such novels as "Senselessness" and "Dance With Snakes." He continues to live here.

The International Writing Program at the University of Iowa is providing writers from New Zealand and Belarus to round out the literary program.

Hinemoana Baker is a poet, playwright and musician writing from her Maori heritage. Maryia Martysevich is a native of Belarus and a nonfiction writer and translator.

Jazz-Poetry Concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Sampsonia Way, the North Side, near the Mattress Factory. It's free. Call 412-321-2190 for details.

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