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14+ teosta 348 jäsentä 5 arvostelua

Tietoja tekijästä

Kevin Coval is the founder of Louder Than a Bomb: The Chicago Youth Poetry Festival and serves as artistic director of Young Chicago Authors. He is author of L-vis Lives: Racemusic Poems and More Sh!t Chief Keef Don't Like.
Image credit: from Haymarket Press

Tekijän teokset

The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015) — Toimittaja; Avustaja — 171 kappaletta
A People's History of Chicago (2017) 62 kappaletta
L-vis Lives!: Racemusic Poems (2011) 25 kappaletta
Schtick (2013) 24 kappaletta
The End of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape (2018) — Toimittaja — 10 kappaletta
Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica) (2005) 9 kappaletta
This Is Modern Art: A Play (2016) 8 kappaletta
Everyday People (2008) 7 kappaletta
1989, the number (2016) 5 kappaletta
Pieces of Shalom 1 kappale

Associated Works

The Spoken Word Revolution Redux (2007) — Avustaja — 84 kappaletta
Rust Belt Chicago: An Anthology (2017) — Avustaja — 24 kappaletta

Merkitty avainsanalla

Yleistieto

Sukupuoli
male
Kansalaisuus
USA
Maa (karttaa varten)
USA
Syntymäpaikka
Illinois, USA
Ammatit
co-founder, Louder Than a Bomb slam poetry festival
Editor
poet

Jäseniä

Kirja-arvosteluja

Just bought this too - couldn't help it, the preview pieces in Poetry Magazine were so good...

Review:
Excellent, cannot recommend it enough. I don't know how to do it justice, so I'm going to quote one of the artist statements.

"The break is forever chipping away new labyrinths toward the place where the human soul goes to feed when nothing else will let it eat. The break is moving. It is a shape-shifter and a trickster. [....] The anthology here is peopled with writers who've paid their tribute to Papa 'Legba one way or the next. They've studied and lived in the liminal space from which the break emanates. They've pledged to the tradition of the break and the pilgrimage it demands. Each is chipping away a different maze to get to where the bass lives, and ensuring that his tracks can only be followed by those who pay the necessary tithes. It is why this anthology is a bible and a code-book. It is essential reading and trickster it is - offering several doors through which you may enter, if you have a clue about what you're travelling to."
-Roger Bonair-Agard

If you haven't read it... read it.
If you have read it... watch the videos, go to the shows, see the kids coming up in the next class that are building on this tradition.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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Kiramke | 1 muu arvostelu | Jun 27, 2023 |
Fascinating collection of poems that examine the history of Chicago from its Native American origins to its settling and unsettling. Each poem is dated and dedicated to a person (Jane Addams, Gwendolyn Brooks, Muddy Waters, Studs Terkel, etc.) or an event (The Eastland Disaster, Disco Demolition, The Day Harold Died, etc). Fresh voice, fresh perspective and layers of meaning, though a very anti-establishment tone. (People's History). No sugar coating here, but as gritty and unapologetic as the city has always been. Great insights and depth of history and meaning that deserve more than a cursory read. Not exactly text book material, but maybe should be.… (lisätietoja)
 
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CarrieWuj | 1 muu arvostelu | Oct 24, 2020 |

The End of Chiraq: A Literary Mixtape edited Javon Johnson and Kevin Coval is a collection of mixed literature describing the city of Chicago. Johnson is an Assistant Professor and Director of African American & African Diaspora studies and holds an appointment in Gender & Sexuality Studies in the Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University. Coval was raised in the suburbs of Chicago and educated at Ohio University, the University of Wales, and DePaul University. His brave, socially engaged poems weave together personal experience and calls to action.

Chicago was, and to many still, a city of pride, industry, and innovation. Carl Sandberg coined it the "City of Big Shoulders". It was to the meat industry what Detroit was to the car industry. It reversed the flow of a river to wash pollution away. The city physically lifted its city blocks to improve drainage and prevent flooding. Chicago was the midwest New York City -- Education, Art, publishing, sports, museums. The city had it all. In 2016 Chicago again entered the news as Candidate Trump made the murder rate a political issue to the point of wanting to send federal troops into the city.

Chiraq is a contraction of Chicago and Iraq. It signifies the violence in the city. Early on it is pointed out that in 2008, 314 soldiers died in Iraq and 508 people were murdered in Chicago. To further add to the statistics the City of Chicago spends 40% of its operating budget on police. Chicago also has the most militarized police forces in the country yet as violent crime has fallen all over the country it is rising in Chicago.

The contributors write in factual prose, narrative prose, poetry, and in rap. Hip Hop had a revival in Chicago in the 1990s and 2000s and that is brought up by several contributors. Kayne West, Chief Keef, and King Louis are all mentioned at various times. Spike Lee's movie Chi-Raq receives an unfavorable critique by many for what is called "Willie Horton marketing." Spike Lee should have stuck to writing about areas he knows about. One comment read to the effect that the use of the play Lysistrata might have been fine for Greek comedy but should not be repurposed on this side of 300BC.

Writers in this collection turn to treating the cause of the problems in the city. The city and its police force attack the symptoms and at times over aggressively when gunning down unarmed men. Schools are being shuttered and mostly in poorer areas. Race is an issue in a highly segregated city. It plays its part in education and opportunity. For the vast majority, being born poor means a lifetime of poverty or alternatively crime and gangs.

The editors assemble the book as a mixed tape from the 1980s. Various prose forms are mixed with poetry and lyrics. The mixed tape format of the book is compared to the mixed tape. It is a collection of freedom. It is not one album played in order. It is a kind of democratization where the user determines content and order and not a record company. This, of course, was in the days before streaming and shufflable playlists and perhaps a nostalgic view of what Chicago used to be -- a diverse, progressive city of industry, art, education, and freedom. A strong message from the people of a strong city.
… (lisätietoja)
 
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evil_cyclist | Mar 16, 2020 |
I took it literally when I heard that this collection has “77 poems, one for each neighborhood of Chicago,” and I was excited to explore “one something” about each area. While there are 77 entries, nowhere near all the neighborhoods are touched upon. Instead, it’s a curated, chronological history of Chicago from “before 1492” to 2017, in free-verse and hip-hop vignettes about injustice and social change, with significant anger. While I have grown eager to read about Chicago’s successes, it seems I still have much to appreciate about its other aspects. I will keep this volume.… (lisätietoja)
 
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DetailMuse | 1 muu arvostelu | Apr 29, 2019 |

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Tilastot

Teokset
14
Also by
3
Jäseniä
348
Suosituimmuussija
#68,679
Arvio (tähdet)
4.2
Kirja-arvosteluja
5
ISBN:t
22

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