Dear Darkness: Poems by Kevin Young

Dear Darkness: Poems Reviews

• 
  Nadine in NY Jones

  At first, I wasn’t feeling it with these poems, many felt too prosaic instead of poetic. There are nostalgic descriptions of days gone by, loving memories of relatives, farms, Big Wheels, and souped-Up Camaros, and they are interesting, but don’t reach me in the way that I want poetry to reach me.
  

  Tuff Buddies
  No sign or behind warming
  could keep us from careening
  down hills or popping wheelies;
  the blue brake on our Big
  Wheel only helped us peel
  out, skid. Robert & I were Tuff
  Buddies, friends for life, two kids
  thrown together like the sandbox
  & swings our fathers put up
  in the gap between buildings.
  We dug & played but mostly
  sailed down Buswell Street
  on those glorified tricycles souped
  up our own way, ripping off
  hokey handle-ribbons that fanned
  useless, bicentennial. We removed
  the blue, low-backed safety
  seat, then conveniently lost it—better
  able to stand for jumps, dismounts,
  we'd hit the raised ramp at hill's bottom
  then leap & pray the same way Robert,
  Superdog, & I once spilled out a red
  wagon right before it swerved, then
  plunged through the garage
  of my new house. Beyond
  that patched hole our hides paid for
  my Big Wheel still rots. I wouldn't let
  them sell it with the yard; I still love
  the wheels' blue click, black scrape
  of plastic tire on the walk. I guess
  I’m still holding on some to days
  like that, still counting ten
  
  like when D Doc would come over, greet.
  Rob & me with a handshake, counting
  out loud, clenching our fingers to what
  we thought death. Whoever lasted
  got a half dollar & we somehow always
  made it, miraculous. What did I know
  then of love but licorice & the slow
  Sunday smell of the drugstore
  Doc built up himself, his wife GiGi's
  church-long hugs? It was years before
  I heard his real name or learned
  he wasn’t kin, more till someone
  mentioned West Indian. Always
  the gentleman, one of the first I loved
  to die, his lean voice confessed that spring
  the chemo was over – Don't know
  son, this stuff, it's got me by the bones.
  Mostly, I remember his hands large
  numbing mine, numbering, at the end
  sounding almost surprised – My
  he'd say, you're quite the grown
  fellow – then his letting go.

  
  
  Although some of these reminiscing and almost prosaic poems did work for me, like this amusing poem:
  

  Why I want my favorite band to break up
  Reunion. Court
  battle. Greatest
  Hits Package.
  Close call.
  
  Possession trial.
  Palimony. Alimony.
  Best-selling
  tell-all.
  
  Obscure bootleg
  worth more.
  No last ditch
  rehab record
  
  with replaced lead singer
  to endure.
  Second
  Farewell Tour.
  
  Solo Projects.
  Court Battle.
  Underrated
  offshoot band
  
  by the rhythm guitarist
  only I love.
  The Early Stuff.
  No more crowds.
  
  No phoning
  it in or selling out.
  No slapdash
  dwindling sales.
  
  Christmas special.
  Posthumous single.
  Our long, never-final
  farewell.

  
  
  
  But then something changed. Maybe it was the death of his father, maybe it’s just the way he structured the book, or maybe I “fell under his spell” and finally got it. But I ended up loving this book.
  
  

  Stay
  These days I walk with Death
  around the block like a dog
  
  only I'm the one begging
  on my knees, barking
  
  questions to the quiet.
  Can’t quit digging
  
  for where your bones be

  
  
  

  Burial
  It's time for the tulips
  to be placed
  gently in the ground
  
  their thick heads resurrecting
  in spring.
  
  Quick, before the cold.
  
  Too late—
  the white wanders
  tonight over everything & stays
  
  despite the sun.
  
  They say the smoke
  is what got to you—
  
  It is never the fire.
  Next time,
  
  I'll tell you sooner
  that your blues
  were beautiful, and your own,
  
  but I still cannot say
  they'll ever go away.
  

  
  
  
  There are a few different themes running throughout. There’s the “i was a little boy once” theme (this generally didn’t do much for me, probably because I didn’t grow up where he did?), there’s the “you’ve died and I am full of grief” theme (not just for his dad), there’s the “rhythm and blues” theme, and then there’s the food theme. The various odes to food are plentiful enough that they could almost make a whole cookbook all by themselves. Some of them are written to the food, others are directed at people who prepared or enjoyed the food; all of them involve how food is a central part of life and love and memory.
  
  

  Ode to Greens
  You are never what you seem.
  Like barbeque, you tell me time
  doesn't matter, that all
  things wait. You take long
  as it takes. Wife
  to worry, you can sit
  forever, stewing, grown
  angrier by the hour.
  Like ribs you are better
  the day after, when all
  is forgiven. Death's daughter,
  you are often cross – bitter
  as mustard, sweet
  when collared — yet no one
  can make you lose
  all your cool, what strength
  you started with. Mama's
  boy, medicine woman,
  you tell methings end
  far from where
  they begin, that forgiven
  is not always forgotten.
  One day the waters will part.
  One day my heart will stop & still
  you'll be here dark
  green as heaven.

  
  
  

  Elegy for Maque Choux
  Long before I had any clue
  about grief, and worse,
  when I thought
  I knew –
  it was time
  and the pain
  of breathing –
  I sure
  couldn't make maque choux.
  Still, no one can do
  it like my grandmother
  could – sweet and spiced
  at the same time,
  in well
  seasoned black pots that saw
  more than their share
  of fires, saw smoldering
  woodstoves & firstborns lost
  & now my father
  placed under
  the earth, & just
  months later, a lifetime,
  even my grandmother
  gone.
  No more
  maque choux.
  No more gar
  made to sing in a stew –
  even tasting it I knew
  no one else oculd lure
  such a tune
  out of bone.
  I do not want
  to get good
  at grief –
  just to know again
  that Indian corn
  scraped clean, & tomato,
  its sweet relief.
  I know
  now that grief is more
  mirror, or terror,
  than the slow hands
  of time,
  my father’s watch
  that winds itself
  only when on your wrist –
  on the dresser, lost
  in a drawer, it grows silent
  & still, even the date
  stops –
  as today, after
  weeks of heat marooned
  ir from my arm
  I put it back on
  to find the date, for once,
  correct –
  marking the day after
  my grandmother fell
  & four months almost to the day after my father
  went into wherever
  his watch does when no longer
  in my hands –
  its still
  black face.
  

  
  
  There are so many food stuffs given love in this volume! I want to list them all:
  pork
  chicken
  crawfish
  buffalo
  wild game
  homemade wine
  okra
  kitchen grease (okay maybe not a food)
  grits
  chitlins
  greens
  catfish
  black-eyed peas
  gumbo
  maque choux
  sweet potato pie
  barbeque sauce
  watermelon
  turtle soup
  crackling
  hot sauce
  pepper vinegar
  fig preserves
  cushaw
  boudin
  
  And so many blues:
  black cat blues
  short end blues
  lost dog blues
  hang dog blues
  something borrowed blues
  slow drag blues
  flash flood blues
  lime light blues
  bling bling blues
  dirty deal blues
  up south blues
  hard headed blues
  may day blues
  last ditch blues
  deep six blues
  
  

  Last Ditch Blues
  Even Death
  don't want me.
  
  Spiders in my shoes.
  
  Even God.
  
  I tried
  drinking strychnine
  
  Or going to sleep
  neath the railroad ties—
  
  Always the light
  found me first.
  
  The Law.
  
  Put me under arrest
  for assaulting a freight –
  
  Disturbing what peace.
  
  (Turns out it
  was only strych-eight.)
  
  Tired of digging
  my own grave.
  
  Tired.
  
  Spiders in my shoes.
  
  The paperboy only
  sold me the bad news.
  
  And wet at that.
  
  The obit page said:
  Not Today.
  
  The weather blue too.
  
  Stones all in my shoes.
  
• 
  Andrea

  A really lovely collection of poems, many of which circle around death in some way. Many, many odes—Young often uses odes as a way to memorialize a loved one (ode as entry point of elegy) and his language is crisp and sassy and right on.
• 
  Jonathan Tennis

  This collection of poetry is dedicated to two close family members so it is no surprise that much of it focuses on the importance of family, the setting of his youth and the food that nourished his poetic soul so that he could one day make words do what he does with them.
• 
  Kristin

  Liked it. It was a bit uneven as a collection when compared to _Black Maria_ or _Jelly Roll_: some poems were brilliant, others were so-so. But when he's good, he's very very good.
• 
  B.

  This was a relatively short book of poetry. Very quick read. That being said, while there were several poems that I enjoyed due to the imagery, most of it wasn't something that I could relate to. Being from Texas, I just don't really identify with Louisianan culture, and that's the bulk of the poems. So, while there are many who will appreciate this book, unfortunately, I'm not one of them. The poems themselves are quality, and the writing is great, it's just not my thing.
• 
  Janée Baugher

  This collection is almost 200 pages. Again, with the autobiographical arc--what is it about poetry this year (2008)? Easily digestible little poems, short-lines, most just one-page long. Although these poems are clearing about Young's family--see inscription and family photos on the jacket cover--there's lots to love here. Good imaginative leaps, precise word choice, and musicality. Ambitious work, very surprising.
• 
  Jenesis

  Just, beautiful. Spare but world-building. Dark but playful. Deeply personal while keeping the reader a foot away with clever wordplay and metaphor, like these lines from "Bachelorhood": "Phone / off the hook, pretending / busy--better that, than this silence / what won't quit ringing." "Pallbearing" is a masterpiece. Just, beautiful.
  
  Pallbearing
  Ode to My Scars
  Childhood
  Bachelorhood
  Slow Drag Blues
  Ode to Sweet Potato Pie
• 
  Nick Jordan

  I would guess that in the course of my first reading I read every poem two or three times, trying not to miss a drop of all the goodness. I loved all the odes to food, the many blues, and the deep God-talk going on here too. And as this was from the library, I immediately bought it and his earlier collection, *Jelly Roll.*
• 
  Bill Stutzman

  I love Young's ability to take the most ordinary of experiences (like favorite foods, upon which he draws repeatedly in this volume) and seamlessly move in and out of expressing deeper grief, memory, and joy. This is a beautifully composed collection and a sweet invitation to enter into the sorrow of loss in a most human and personal way without getting lost in the muck.
• 
  Kelly

  There is so much love in these poems. Love for Young's family, his heritage, for language. My only real quibble is with the poem "Ode to my Sex," because I really am not interested in reading a man literally compare his penis to a god. It's just . . . typical.
• 
  Emily Matview

  I'd read a whole book that was just Young's odes to various foods. And then I'd get hungry and, subsequently, big boned.
• 
  Mack

  One of the best contemporary collections of poetry I've ever read.
• 
  Kara

  I am not the audience for this book. There were maybe 3 poems that I liked but the rest didn't speak to me, so I had to respectfully step away.
• 
  René

  This collection isn't as cohesive as the other 2 collections by Young I've read (Jelly Roll and Book of Hours). The poems in those other collections all revolved around one singular theme and there was more of a clear momentum that moved the reader along from start to finish. Instead, this collection has several different themes (music, food, family, death, grief, regional identity) that tie some of the poems to each other, along with a number of poems that are less directly related to any of the others. So this collection doesn't provide the reader with as much of a catharsis or definite emotional direction as Young's other collections, but on a singular level some of the poems here are among Young's best. A few of my favorites were "Ode to the Midwest," "Bachelorhood," "Aunties," "Ode to Gumbo," "Ode to Grits," "Ode to Greens," "Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere," "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," "Daylight Savings," "Hang Dog Blues," and "On Being the Only Black Person at the Johnny Paycheck Concert."
• 
  Brian

  Kevin Young speaks with deep love as a son of the African American South (and won't it be nice when the "conversation" gets to the point where we don't have to qualify the South). As you read through these poems you'll find yourself flipping to the back cover photo, discovering new details in the portrait of Young's father and grandfather. Here's a taste:
  "...You dan't date/ the photo from either face--/ my grandfather baked/ dark from the fields, my father's/ baby fat holding up glasses/ the only giveaway of age." (Hurricane)
  "I wake to the cracked pane/ of moon being thrown/ across the room--/ that'll fix me/ for trying to sleep./ Lately even night/ has left me--/ now even the machine/ that makes the rain/ has stopped sending/ the sun away." (Serenade)
  
• 
  Alarie

  Despite the title, Dear Darkness is much lighter and more humorous than Young’s recent Book of Hours, which had already secured him a place on my Top Ten Poets list. Perhaps the other book has more universal appeal, but Dear Darkness sure did delight this Southerner. My favorite poems (and there were many) were mostly about family [“Aunties,” “Uncles (Blood),” “Uncles (Play)”] or about Southern food. I saw my own family in “Ode to Pork,” “Ode to Kitchen Grease,” “Song of Cracklin,” and “Ode to Hot Sauce.” When Young writes, “My father/never admitted anything/was too hot/for him,” I see my brother in a Chinese restaurant, popping the Sechuan pepper in his mouth that the waiter had just cautioned us not to eat.
  
  
  
• 
  Roger DeBlanck

  In this heartfelt volume of poems, Young explores subjects that range from homage to his large, extended family and grief over the loss of his father to the solace he finds in celebrating the foods and meals that sustained the camaraderie of his family. Whatever challenges Young faces, his poems reach out with a questioning and yearning for answers. As he revisits painful memories from his past, he is never afraid to show his vulnerability, for he knows his poetry serves as catharsis. Young’s trademark style of smooth, accessible free verse is a pleasure to read. He wants to make sure the emotion of his work rings true, and he succeeds. This is an outstanding poetry collection.
• 
  Mike

  I read Book of Hours before this, which on the strength of that collection enticed me to read everything by Kevin Young I could find. This collection had its moments, but Book of Hours was so good that I treated it like a page-turner wondering if he could keep up the sublime pace and heaviness of subject. Book of Hours did. Dear Darkness had its moments but with a collection containing so many poems, it's bound to be uneven in spots. I thought it interesting in that it used food to explore the family and creates an important exploration of food and the culture of family.
• 
  Ashley

  I heard Kevin Young read a few of the odes at AWP Atlanta and have eagerly awaited the release of this collection since then. I found it heartbreaking and brilliant. The mixture of odes to food as remembrances to a time past mixed in with the longing that comes from the death of his father are just amazing. Young has such a grasp with language. He knows how to make a poem sing, and these definitely do. I never wanted it to end.
• 
  Ann Marie

  Where else can you experience an ode to chitlins, crawfish, and greens? Loved the poems about family and the 70s nostalgia of it all. A poem about riding your Big Wheel and hurrying inside so as not to miss The Love Boat and Fantasy Island is not to be missed. Poignant poems about family and loss as well.
• 
  Peter

  I really loved this book. I haven't read much poetry, much less modern poetry but I found this book delightful. I enjoyed the whimsical Odes to various Southern foods. I felt the emotion of the various refrains about the poet's late father. Together this collection of poems moved me.
• 
  Maughn Gregory

  I've read a lot of Kevin Young by now and this was the best so far. His autobiographical story poems are sad and beautiful; his many odes to soul foods and body parts are hilarious and touching. Count me as a huge fan!
• 
  Pamela

  Kind-hearted memorials.
• 
  Joseph

  Maybe not quite as good as his other books but still pretty great. Still my favorite modern poet.
• 
  Dennis

  If you like Kevin's work, you will love this! Wonderful odes!
• 
  Tracy

  Pretty good stuff. I didn't read all of them, but what I did read helped give me a feel for the poet's voice and the way he sees and feels.
• 
  kirsten

  hot damn! i loved it.
• 
  James

  I think I'm done with Kevin Young. This seemed like a book of poems that wouldn't fit in any of his other books.
• 
  Jeff

  Although individual poems, this is a beautiful memoir of his family - sights, sounds, tastes, and emotions. A great read some of which you'll return to for a second or third look.