Punks : new & selected poems

Punks New & selected poems

John Keene, 1965-

Book - 2021

A landmark collection of poetry by acclaimed fiction writer, translator, and MacArthur Fellow John Keene, PUNKS: NEW & SELECTED POEMS is a generous treasury in seven sections that spans decades and includes previously unpublished and brand new work. With depth and breadth, PUNKS weaves together historic narratives of loss, lust, and love. The many voices that emerge in these poems--from historic Black personalities, both familial and famous, to the poet's friends and lovers in gay bars and bedrooms--form a cast of characters capable of addressing desire, oppression, AIDS, and grief through sorrowful songs that we sing as hard as we live. At home in countless poetic forms, PUNKS reconfirms John Keene as one of the most important voi...ces in contemporary poetry.

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Subjects
African Americans > United States > 21st century > Poetry.
AIDS (Disease) > Poetry.
American poetry > 21st century.
Gay men > United States > 21st century > Poetry.
Poetry.
Genres
Poetry
Published
[Brooklyn, NY] : The Song Cave [2021]
Language
English
Main Author
John Keene, 1965- (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
x, 215 pages ; 19 cm
ISBN
9781737277521
  • Playland. Mission and outpost ; The angel of indifference ; The haymarket ; Playland ; Napoleon club ; The angel of desolation ; Lakeview sojourn ; Western avenue ; Straight, no chaser ; Je te veux ; The angel of necessity ; One revolution ; A sonnet to Tyson Beckford ; Nights of 1985 ; Serenade ; Elegy: Boston ; Night tea ; Herring Cove Beach, 1997 ; Suit ; on receiving a letter back stamped "deceased" ; Phone book ; The art theater, 1986 ; The angel of improvisation ; Lines
  • The Lost World. Try to remember that South African Man ; Oh little butch queen, don't try it ; You have smallish hands for a brother ; A jail cell, gin & tonic ; You again, under better circumstances ; Folks are right, my nose was wide open ; In the warm, sunlit room, talking of brotherhood ; Those sleepy eyes get me every time ; This is a kiki, not an interrogation ; On their knees in the whispering grottoes ; His serpentine tongue is a vein of joy ; The moon drapes my arm, he's drowsing ; How many times can you circle the block ; From one end of the room to the other ; Everybody sets it off live in here ; After what seems like an eternity, he reappears ; If I don't call my Basque friend ; These days, these days
  • Ten Things I do Every Day. Gift ; Ten things I do every day ; Why I love my father ; Tú no lo recuredas ; Postcard: ardor ; Postcard: decadence ; Postcard: the square ; Postcard: blue solitude ; Postcard: the march ; A report on the "What's American about American Poetry?" ; Conference at the new school ; Recuerdas ; Winter elegy ; Recuerdas ; "The sould is always beautiful" ; "Post-black" ; Punks
  • Trees. Tree ; Sun ; Song ; Scatter ; When ; Solitary ; Water ; August
  • Manzanita. Origins ; Manzanita ; Letter to my sister (St. Charles, Mo, 1885) ; Cecil's consolation ; The spotters ; Blues ; Portrait of the father as a young GI ; Vision: 1966
  • Dark to Themselves. Underground ; Field study: Banneker at 70 ; Martin de Porres ; Vesey on the eve ; Carver, one evening, in Tuskegee ; Alain Locke in Stoughton Hall ; Jackie Robinson in Sportsman's Park, 1949 ; Ionisation ; Apostate ; Blue gal blues ; Dark to themselves ; Hammering (April 18, 1974) ; Dear Trane (lecture on something) ; Blackness
  • Words. Words ; Ray Johnson suite ; Black(en) ; Pulse ; Mirror ; Grind ; Beatitude.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Divided into seven sections that span the writer's career, this brilliant, expansive collection offers panoramic insight into Keene's work. As the book's dedication ("in tribute/ to all of the writers/ who never lived to see/ their words and lives/ remembered and celebrated") suggests, Keene conjures a cast of characters and voices that celebrate Blackness, queer identity, art, and survival. These poems are full of reflections on the past ("This sweet rustling between the ears, like candy/ wrappers falling to the floor: memories"), which Keene makes both historically evocative and sonically alive on the page: "All the arrogant boys/ who recalled nothing of Scollay Square and the days/ when knees touching indoors could land you// in jail," he writes in "Playland." In the four-page poem "Underground," Keene declares: "The world is suffering/ a metabolic disorder./ What are you writing about?/ Nothing and everything at once." The poem ends by movingly asserting that "the art lies in the fight/ and the scars./ This is the sound of the weather/ that we live in./ Life at the end of the beginning of the world./ A song we sing as hard as we live./ Listen." This powerful book is brimming with energy and memorably phrased insights. (Dec.)

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