In Brown, divine imagery and vocabulary appear frequently. Poetry is a hopelessly subjective enterprise, but Young models how to make it manageable and worthwhile.Ī couple of weeks ago, I bumped Young’s book Brown: Poems to the top of my reading list. In conversation with other professional poets, he mixes shoptalk, philosophizing, and personal reflection. He is The New Yorker’s poetry editor and hosts a wonderful podcast on the genre. Still, the above imagery resonates with me in this fashion.
Granted, Kevin Young is not writing poetry about Mormonism.
Even if one regards this belief as metaphorical, gesturing to Heaven remains a perfectly understandable action. Also familiar to me, the belief that the veil separating Earth and Heaven is thin. “If you didn’t know / better, you might think / Muhammad was praying, / not talking smack- / arms up, Ali / leans way back / as if trying to catch / a glimpse / of the Almighty- … The thumbs / of his old-fashioned boxing gloves / upright like Ali / hopes to hitch a ride / to heaven.” “Rumble in the Jungle,” from Brown: Poems by Kevin YoungĪs a Mormon, I’m old hat at endowing heroic figures with both mortal and divine potential.
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