Brown Read online

  ALSO BY KEVIN YOUNG

  POETRY

  Blue Laws: Selected & Uncollected Poems 1995–2015

  Book of Hours

  Ardency

  Dear Darkness

  For the Confederate Dead

  To Repel Ghosts: The Remix

  Black Maria

  Jelly Roll: A Blues

  To Repel Ghosts

  Most Way Home

  NONFICTION

  Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News

  The Grey Album: On the Blackness of Blackness

  AS EDITOR

  The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food & Drink

  The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 (with Michael S. Glaser)

  Best American Poetry 2011

  The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing

  Jazz Poems

  John Berryman: Selected Poems

  Blues Poems

  Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

  PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  Copyright © 2018 by Kevin Young

  Photographs © 2018 Melanie Dunea

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Random House of Canada, a division of Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.

  www.aaknopf.com/​poetry

  Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Young, Kevin, [date] author.

  Title: Brown : poems / Kevin Young.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017029270 (print) | LCCN 2017030884 (ebook) |

  ISBN 9781524732554 (ebook) | ISBN 9781524732547 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: African Americans—Poetry | BISAC: POETRY / American /

  African American. | POETRY / American / General.

  Classification: LCC PS3575.O798 (ebook) | LCC PS3575.O798 A6 2018 (print) |

  DDC 811/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/​2017029270

  Ebook ISBN 9781524732554

  Cover illustration by Jason Kernevich

  Cover design by Kelly Blair

  Illustration by Mack Young

  v5.2

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Kevin Young

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Thataway

  HOME RECORDINGS

  ONE: THE A TRAIN

  Swing

  Rumble in the Jungle

  Open Letter to Hank Aaron

  Mercy Rule

  Slump

  Stealing

  Patter

  Flame Tempered

  Practice

  The Division

  Ode to the Harlem Globetrotters

  Ashe

  Shirts & Skins

  I doubt it

  TWO: ON THE ATCHISON, TOPEKA & THE SANTA FE

  Ad Astra Per Aspera

  Western Meadowlark

  American Bison

  Sunflower

  Phys. Ed.

  Warm Up

  Tumbling

  Dodgeball

  Bleachers

  Practice

  City

  Ice Storm, 1984

  History

  Dictation

  Booty Green

  Brown

  FIELD RECORDINGS

  THREE: NIGHT TRAIN

  James Brown at B. B. King's on New Year's Eve

  Fishbone

  Chuck Taylor All Stars

  Checkerboard Vans

  Creepers

  Doc Martens

  John Fluevogs

  Lead Belly's First Grave

  It

  Ode to Big Pun

  De La Soul Is Dead

  Ode to Ol Dirty Bastard

  FOUR: THE CRESCENT LIMITED

  B. B. King Plays Oxford, Mississippi

  Bass

  Triptych for Trayvon Martin

  Not Guilty (A Frieze for Sandra Bland)

  Limbo (A Fresco for Tamir Rice)

  Nightstick (A Mural for Michael Brown)

  A Brown Atlanta Boy Watches Basketball on West 4th. Meanwhile, Neo-Nazis March on Charlottesville, Virginia.

  Howlin' Wolf

  Repast

  Hospitality Blues

  The Head Waiter's Lament

  Reservations

  Booker's Place

  Waiting

  Death's Dictionary

  A Glossary of Uppity

  Pining, A Definition

  Sundaying

  Whistle

  Money Road

  Hive

  Notes & Acknowledgments

  A Note About the Author

  Thataway

  And the migrants kept coming.

  —JACOB LAWRENCE

  Was walking. Was

  walking & then waiting

  for a train, the 12:40

  to take us thataway.

  (I got there early.)

  Wasn’t a train

  exactly but a chariot

  or the Crescent Limited come

  to carry me some

  home I didn’t yet

  know. There were those

  of us not ready till good

  Jim swung from a tree

  & the white folks crowded

  the souvenir photo’s frame—

  let his body black-

  en, the extremities

  shorn—not shed,

  but skimmed off

  so close it can be shaving

  almost. An ear

  in a pocket, on a shelf,

  a warning where a book

  could go. So

  I got there early.

  See now, it was morning—

  a cold snap, first frost

  which comes even

  here & kills the worms

  out the deer. You can

  hunt him then

  but we never did want,

  after, no trophy

  crowned down

  from a wall, watching—

  just a meal, what

  we might make last

  till spring. There are ways

  of keeping a thing.

  Then there are ways

  of leaving, & also

  the one way. That

  we didn’t want.

  I got there early.

  Luggage less sturdy

  (cardboard, striped, black)

  than my hat. Shoebox

  of what I shan’t say

  lunch on my lap.

  The noise the rails made


  even before the train.

  A giant stomach growling.

  A bowed belly. I did

  not pray. I got there

  early. It was not

  no wish, but a way.

  HOME RECORDINGS

  “Of course I cannot understand it,” he said. “If your heads were stuffed with straw, like mine, you would probably all live in the beautiful places, and then Kansas would have no people at all. It is fortunate for Kansas that you have brains.”

  —THE SCARECROW

  The Wizard of Oz

  ONE

  The A Train

  Swing

  If, up early,

  an hour no jazzster

  never did see,

  my son & I—

  he’s three—

  jump up to accompany

  Mister Charlie

  Christian on his six string,

  listening to Swing

  to Bop (Live), a recording cut

  long after midnight—

  my son plucky

  on the tiny tourist

  toy guitar his big sis

  brought back from Fiji,

  tapping his feet

  while I rake

  the plastic strings

  of my ancient, resurrected

  racquetball racquet

  that showed up lately—

  strumming the sun,

  the morning

  into being—my son

  stopping to chase the dust

  we can suddenly see

  in the bright now falling—

  his skinny legs

  jangling—you’ll

  maybe understand,

  later, when he runs in

  & asks,

  Daddy,

  what’s jazz?

  I just point at him

  & laugh.

  Rumble in the Jungle

  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—

  he’s told no one

  his plan

  to rope-a-dope—

  to bend in whatever wind

  Foreman sends

  or knocks out of him.

  Haymakers & body

  blows. The thumbs

  of his old-fashioned boxing gloves

  upright like Ali

  hopes to hitch a ride

  to heaven. Instead he’s here

  in Zaire, stuck waiting

  for the monsoon—

  playing possum

  through seven rounds

  till it’s time to climb & jab

  his way off the ropes

  like Tarzan sawing free

  from a fishing net in a Saturday

  matinee—swinging

  till Foreman backstrokes

  to the floor. Seven whole rounds

  of reckoning—till a woman

  in a dashiki, stepping lightly,

  carries the card

  for the next round filled

  with what now

  appears omen, inevitability—

  for one moment

  the number 8

  knocked flat

  on its side—

  an infinity.

  Open Letter to Hank Aaron

  Your folded jersey said it

  best: Brave. A bounty

  on your head, last name a prophet’s,

  first a king, you kept swinging

  that hammer, Bad Henry, even after

  the threats fell like hail.

  Every barbershop’s expert

  already knew you would best

  Ruth’s sacred record, just

  like they knew the Babe

  was really black, ever

  see that nose of his?

  The hate mail you quit opening

  kept coming, scrawled or sutured,

  brushing you back more

  than a Hoot Gibson inside pitch,

  no return address—

  the newspaper with your obit

  already written, primed

  to run. Still you swung

  like a boxer in the late rounds

  hoping to change the Judges’

  minds—once you connect

  & the ball barely sails

  over the short porch in left,

  you don’t so much run

  as pace

  around the bases—

  nonchalant, nervous—a man

  with too much cash

  worrying his pockets, a windfall

  he may never live

  long enough to spend.

  Rounding second,

  two guys race

  up to you, friend

  or foe, clapping you

  on the back—

  I hear they’re doctors now—

  as if you’d just been born.

  Hopping the fence

  like that ball did,

  your mama

  bear-hugs you

  headed home. Think of it

  as money,

  the Bancard billboard

  you cleared in left

  field says. Not

  that you did—

  after, the microphones

  aimed at your face

  like arrows into a saint,

  your face less belief

  than relief—

  I just thank God,

  you say, it’s over with.

  Falling back

  into the crowd, unharmed,

  you wave your blue arms.

  Mercy Rule

  The true test of a man is a bunt.

  —TED BERRIGAN

  [ SLUMP ]

  The sting in your hands

  swinging

  a cracked bat

  in early spring.

  The anger of the one-armed boy

  at bat, whiffing

  at every lousy pitch

  tossed in the dirt, or air

  above him, eager—

  it was hard

  to watch. Swung out, he’d spike

  & splinter his bat

  into the giving ground,

  arguing with his hand

  & hook—cursing it,

  himself, furious

  as the sun that shined

  setting in all our eyes.

  [ STEALING ]

  Only time

  I ever heard

  my eyes were any good

  was watching a full

  count pitch

  just miss—

  I’d take my base

  before the ball’d

  been called. Lead-off man,

  righty, my strike zone

  small enough

  little squeezed through,

  the ball a camel

  needling impossible

  into heaven. Hell,

  I’d steal second standing—

  would wait till

  they tried throwing

  me out at first, my long lead

  a taunt, then head

  to second

  without a t
hought.

  In that game

  called pickle,

  or hotbox, I rarely

  got caught. I ran

  like only the sly,

  four-eyed can—to get there

  & to get away—

  to reach somewhere

  safe, where I

  never thought

  to stay.

  [ PATTER ]

  When I played

  in the Onandaga League,

  Coach wouldn’t let us

  patter like the others—

  no Hey batter batter

  Swing—

  no nothing.

  At the plate silence

  greeted all comers—

  prodigal sons

  returned to the farm

  & no arms thrown open

  in welcome. Or alarm. Chatter

  was rude, Coach said, & anyways

  unnecessary. We were above

  all those taunts—We want

  a pitcher not

  a belly itcher—

  instead eerie quiet

  met the Visitors

  whenever we took the mound,

  batters swinging into

  a calm that would undo

  most anyone who

  thought noise worse

  than its opposite,

  that the storm

  wouldn’t come.

  [ FLAME TEMPERED ]

  I only owned one bat,

  my favorite,

  Roberto Clemente’s name

  burnt into the wood—