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Olympic Butter Gold: Poems
Jonathan Moody grew up during the Golden Ages of hip-hop and listened to rap that was as adventurous and diverse as his military upbringing. When rap’s Golden Ages expired, the music’s innovativeness and variety diminished. Moody’s second book, Olympic Butter Gold, responds to Chuck D’s claim that "if there was a HIP-HOP or Rap Olympics, I really don’t think the United States would get Gold, Silver or Brass." From the poem "Opening Ceremony," in the voice of a heroin addict struggling to use Lady Liberty’s torch to cook "The American Dream," to "Dear 2Pac," an autobiographical account of teaching Tupac Shakur’s poetry to engage high school students indifferent to literature, Moody shares a worldview that is simultaneously apocalyptic and promising.
- GenresPoetry
112 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 2015
2 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Moody
4 books3 followers Jonathan Moody received his MFA from the University of Pittsburgh and is a Cave Canem alum. His poetry has appeared in African American Review, Crab Orchard Review, Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade, Gemini Magazine, good foot, The New Yinzer, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PLUCK!, story South, Tidal Basin Review, and Xavier Review.
He is the author of The Doomy Poems (Six Gallery Press, 2012) & lives in Fresno, Texas.
He is the author of The Doomy Poems (Six Gallery Press, 2012) & lives in Fresno, Texas.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 11, 2016
Really strong book of poetry, tightly written, mostly free verse but also a sonnet crown and a pantoum. Fantastic line breaks and wordplay. Great interplay between Greek mythology and hip hop and old school rap. I would've gotten more out of it had I been better schooled in my old school rap. This is a definite contender for winning the National Book Award
February 29, 2016
If poetry were a sport, Moody would be an elite athlete.
Come to think of it, poetry CAN be a sport, when it's got enough balls. Moody does, in that quiet-but-firm, confident way that grown men come to after many years of experience and reflection. The framing narrative here (what if rap were an Olympic sport?) brackets a series of comic-book inflused, rap-inspired lyric poems that you will not entirely grok unless you're familiar with all of the sampled material (luckily you can check the notes in the back and then go back to re-read, deepning your understanding / appreciation of what's going on).
As with the best rap, there's also a heavy dose of political consciousness here. The kickoff poem, "Chasing the American Dream," would make Langston Huges grin from ear to ear and Amiri Baraka laugh out loud with approval. "Operation Just Cause, 1989" and "Paper Shredding Blues" take us back to the drug wars and who is, arguably, ultimately responsible. "Telecommunciations Act of 1996, or Ode to Black Radio" is a great introduction to how entities like Clearchannel killed small independent radio by people of color. It's the quiet, fearful "Paranoid," however, in which Moody considers his infant son while sleeping, that really hits home: you cannot be a black man in America and NOT be political, because your body is politicized from birth.
There's a lot of clever stuff going on here, education by misdirection. Of the various comic-inspired poems, my favorite is "Spawn," which takes the by-now familiar scene of being pulled over by the cops and turns it into a meditation on masks, and the true faces under them. "OutKast Crown" is one of those poems you'll read twenty times, because you'll think you know everything going on in it, and then you'll read it for the tenth time and still find something new. "Regulate" calls out someone's ignorance in a much more effective way than pointing out his mistake ever could. "The Thief's Theme" and "Portrait of Hermes as a B-Boy" are delightful twists on Greek mythology. If we're giving out medals, though, I'm giving mine to "Dear 2Pac" and "2Pac Pantoum," which American teachers should jump on and work into their English lessons ASAP.
If you ever hear anyone bitching about how poetry isn't relevant, or that all rap is garbage, you'll want to give them this. Then again, you may want to just keep it for yourself. Recommended for people who like to consider old things in new ways, have at least an iota of political consciousness, or just can't stop listening to Wu-Tang Clan.
Come to think of it, poetry CAN be a sport, when it's got enough balls. Moody does, in that quiet-but-firm, confident way that grown men come to after many years of experience and reflection. The framing narrative here (what if rap were an Olympic sport?) brackets a series of comic-book inflused, rap-inspired lyric poems that you will not entirely grok unless you're familiar with all of the sampled material (luckily you can check the notes in the back and then go back to re-read, deepning your understanding / appreciation of what's going on).
As with the best rap, there's also a heavy dose of political consciousness here. The kickoff poem, "Chasing the American Dream," would make Langston Huges grin from ear to ear and Amiri Baraka laugh out loud with approval. "Operation Just Cause, 1989" and "Paper Shredding Blues" take us back to the drug wars and who is, arguably, ultimately responsible. "Telecommunciations Act of 1996, or Ode to Black Radio" is a great introduction to how entities like Clearchannel killed small independent radio by people of color. It's the quiet, fearful "Paranoid," however, in which Moody considers his infant son while sleeping, that really hits home: you cannot be a black man in America and NOT be political, because your body is politicized from birth.
There's a lot of clever stuff going on here, education by misdirection. Of the various comic-inspired poems, my favorite is "Spawn," which takes the by-now familiar scene of being pulled over by the cops and turns it into a meditation on masks, and the true faces under them. "OutKast Crown" is one of those poems you'll read twenty times, because you'll think you know everything going on in it, and then you'll read it for the tenth time and still find something new. "Regulate" calls out someone's ignorance in a much more effective way than pointing out his mistake ever could. "The Thief's Theme" and "Portrait of Hermes as a B-Boy" are delightful twists on Greek mythology. If we're giving out medals, though, I'm giving mine to "Dear 2Pac" and "2Pac Pantoum," which American teachers should jump on and work into their English lessons ASAP.
If you ever hear anyone bitching about how poetry isn't relevant, or that all rap is garbage, you'll want to give them this. Then again, you may want to just keep it for yourself. Recommended for people who like to consider old things in new ways, have at least an iota of political consciousness, or just can't stop listening to Wu-Tang Clan.
January 2, 2024
I started this a couple of days before the new year and stretched it out, in part to appreciate what Moody does with language, in part because this is a book I will be pedaling HARD during #thediversebaseline. It's so good. I had read a lot of poetry lately that doesn't actually care about poetic form, and that's fine--I don't think poetry *needs* to be structured, but I love when a poet uses the framework as inspiration rather than limitation. And I pretty much guarantee that anyone who finds structured poetry intimidating or pretentious won't feel that way about this book. The messages don't rely in the poetic form to hold weight.
Moody uses poetry to do exactly what poetry is for: to elevate reality into the kind of language that makes even the mundane beautiful. I haven't geeked out about poetry this hard since I did a deep dive into Dunbar last year, and there's a reason I'm thinking of Dunbar specifically. The 'English Canon' has a long history of claiming that poetry is interlinked with whiteness (see: the treatment of Phillis Wheatley). In some of his work, Dunbar specifically used a contemporaneous version of AAVE to lay claim to the form while still cleaving to the standard forms of English verse. Moody uses language differently, but this whole chapbook challenges the ideas that I hear a lot when I talk about poetry: that it's tired, that it's dead, that it's something for old people, that it requires the reader to be out of touch with reality. Not here. Moody's voice is political, relevant, heartfelt, and brutally honest.
tl;dr, Guys, just read it. 5 stars.
Moody uses poetry to do exactly what poetry is for: to elevate reality into the kind of language that makes even the mundane beautiful. I haven't geeked out about poetry this hard since I did a deep dive into Dunbar last year, and there's a reason I'm thinking of Dunbar specifically. The 'English Canon' has a long history of claiming that poetry is interlinked with whiteness (see: the treatment of Phillis Wheatley). In some of his work, Dunbar specifically used a contemporaneous version of AAVE to lay claim to the form while still cleaving to the standard forms of English verse. Moody uses language differently, but this whole chapbook challenges the ideas that I hear a lot when I talk about poetry: that it's tired, that it's dead, that it's something for old people, that it requires the reader to be out of touch with reality. Not here. Moody's voice is political, relevant, heartfelt, and brutally honest.
tl;dr, Guys, just read it. 5 stars.
December 5, 2018
I had Mr. Moody as an English teacher my senior year of high school. He read and discussed some of these poems with us. Though I don't have much rap/hip-hop knowledge, I was still able to grasp his meaning. A wonderful author and amazing teacher!
December 29, 2023
This is a great collection of poetry that borrows from (or samples, I guess) a library of hip hop legends to address the concepts of art, music, race, police brutality, love, fatherhood, and countless other topics. This is a solid read! Check it out.
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August 24, 2016This is a hip-hop/rap/spoken-word collection, and I'm insufficiently knowledgeable of that genre to discuss this collection in detail. I picked up a copy after hearing Moody read from it at the East End Book Exchange in Pittsburgh. The entire reading was excellent, but the poem I had to have was "Dear 2Pac," which relates the process of opening student minds to poetry through the use of lyric. That is an experience I know very well.
Some of the poems, and the title, come from imagining a Hip-Hop Olympics. That's an excellent conceit, and I enjoyed those poems, as well. The collection is strong, multi-faceted, and not confined to a single world-view. Lots of conflict, lots of internal tension, in these pieces, most especially in "2084 (From Ghetto Fabulous to Ghetto Fascist".
"Portrait of Hermes as a B-Boy" is certainly worth teaching, as are a dozen others.
Some of the poems, and the title, come from imagining a Hip-Hop Olympics. That's an excellent conceit, and I enjoyed those poems, as well. The collection is strong, multi-faceted, and not confined to a single world-view. Lots of conflict, lots of internal tension, in these pieces, most especially in "2084 (From Ghetto Fabulous to Ghetto Fascist".
"Portrait of Hermes as a B-Boy" is certainly worth teaching, as are a dozen others.
November 28, 2016
Olympic Butter Gold is a gritty subway ride through the boroughs of Jonathan Moody's mind. He takes a global look at hip hop in a collection where even the Green Lantern and Luke Cage are fair game to Moody's exploration of where the artwork started and where it fell off. What's Butts about this collection is how Hermes is reimagined as a B Boy in a dance battle, and how, in the midst of everything this collection holds, Moody manages room for love poems to his wife. What a beautiful response to Chuck D's indictment on American hip hop.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews