Dear Darkness: Poems

by Kevin Young

Delivered in Young’s classic bluesy tone, this powerful collection of poems about the American family, smoky Southern food, and the losses that time inevitably brings “bristles with life, nerve and, best of all, wit” ( San Francisco Chronicle).

Genres: Poetry, Grief, Food

216 pages, Paperback

First published September 9, 2008

About the author

Kevin Young is an American poet heavily influenced by the poet Langston Hughes and the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Young graduated from Harvard College in 1992, was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (1992-1994), and received his MFA from Brown University. While in Boston and Providence, he was part of the African-American poetry group, The Dark Room Collective.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Young is the author of Most Way Home, To Repel Ghosts, Jelly Roll, Black Maria, For The Confederate Dead, Dear Darkness, and editor of Giant Steps: The New Generation of African American Writers; Blues Poems; Jazz Poems and John Berryman's Selected Poems.

His Black Cat Blues, originally published in The Virginia Quarterly Review, was included in The Best American Poetry 2005. Young's poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and other literary magazines. In 2007, he served as guest editor for an issue of Ploughshares. He has written on art and artists for museums in Los Angeles and Minneapolis.

His 2003 book of poems Jelly Roll was a finalist for the National Book Award.

After stints at the University of Georgia and Indiana University, Young now teaches writing at Emory University, where he is the Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing, as well as the curator of the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a large collection of first and rare editions of poetry in English.

Reviews

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first, I wasn’t feeling it with these poems, many felt too prosaic instead of poetic. There are nostalgic descriptions of days gone by, loving memories of relatives, farms, Big Wheels, and souped-Up Camaros, and they are interesting, but don’t reach me in the way that I want poetry to reach me.

Tuff Buddies
No sign or behind warming
could keep us from careening
down hills or popping wheelies;
the blue brake on our Big
Wheel only helped us peel
out, skid. Robert & I were Tuff
Buddies, friends for life, two kids
thrown together like the sandbox
& swings our fathers put up
in the gap between buildings.
We dug & played but mostly
sailed down Buswell Street
on those glorified tricycles souped
up our own way, ripping off
hokey handle-ribbons that fanned
useless, bicentennial. We removed
the blue, low-backed safety
seat, then conveniently lost it—better
able to stand for jumps, dismounts,
we'd hit the raised ramp at hill's bottom
then leap & pray the same way Robert,
Superdog, & I once spilled out a red
wagon right before it swerved, then
plunged through the garage
of my new house. Beyond
that patched hole our hides paid for
my Big Wheel still rots. I wouldn't let
them sell it with the yard; I still love
the wheels' blue click, black scrape
of plastic tire on the walk. I guess
I’m still holding on some to days
like that, still counting ten

like when D Doc would come over, greet.
Rob & me with a handshake, counting
out loud, clenching our fingers to what
we thought death. Whoever lasted
got a half dollar & we somehow always
made it, miraculous. What did I know
then of love but licorice & the slow
Sunday smell of the drugstore
Doc built up himself, his wife GiGi's
church-long hugs? It was years before
I heard his real name or learned
he wasn’t kin, more till someone
mentioned West Indian. Always
the gentleman, one of the first I loved
to die, his lean voice confessed that spring
the chemo was over – Don't know
son, this stuff, it's got me by the bones.
Mostly, I remember his hands large
numbing mine, numbering, at the end
sounding almost surprised – My
he'd say, you're quite the grown
fellow – then his letting go.

Although some of these reminiscing and almost prosaic poems did work for me, like this amusing poem:

Why I want my favorite band to break up
Reunion. Court
battle. Greatest
Hits Package.
Close call.

Possession trial.
Palimony. Alimony.
Best-selling
tell-all.

Obscure bootleg
worth more.
No last ditch
rehab record

with replaced lead singer
to endure.
Second
Farewell Tour.

Solo Projects.
Court Battle.
Underrated
offshoot band

by the rhythm guitarist
only I love.
The Early Stuff.
No more crowds.

No phoning
it in or selling out.
No slapdash
dwindling sales.

Christmas special.
Posthumous single.
Our long, never-final
farewell.

But then something changed. Maybe it was the death of his father, maybe it’s just the way he structured the book, or maybe I “fell under his spell” and finally got it. But I ended up loving this book.

Stay
These days I walk with Death
around the block like a dog

only I'm the one begging
on my knees, barking

questions to the quiet.
Can’t quit digging

for where your bones be

Burial
It's time for the tulips
to be placed
gently in the ground

their thick heads resurrecting
in spring.

Quick, before the cold.

Too late—
the white wanders
tonight over everything & stays

despite the sun.

They say the smoke
is what got to you—

It is never the fire.
Next time,

I'll tell you sooner
that your blues
were beautiful, and your own,

but I still cannot say
they'll ever go away.

There are a few different themes running throughout. There’s the “i was a little boy once” theme (this generally didn’t do much for me, probably because I didn’t grow up where he did?), there’s the “you’ve died and I am full of grief” theme (not just for his dad), there’s the “rhythm and blues” theme, and then there’s the food theme. The various odes to food are plentiful enough that they could almost make a whole cookbook all by themselves. Some of them are written to the food, others are directed at people who prepared or enjoyed the food; all of them involve how food is a central part of life and love and memory.

Ode to Greens
You are never what you seem.
Like barbeque, you tell me time
doesn't matter, that all
things wait. You take long
as it takes. Wife
to worry, you can sit
forever, stewing, grown
angrier by the hour.
Like ribs you are better
the day after, when all
is forgiven. Death's daughter,
you are often cross – bitter
as mustard, sweet
when collared — yet no one
can make you lose
all your cool, what strength
you started with. Mama's
boy, medicine woman,
you tell methings end
far from where
they begin, that forgiven
is not always forgotten.
One day the waters will part.
One day my heart will stop & still
you'll be here dark
green as heaven.

Elegy for Maque Choux
Long before I had any clue
about grief, and worse,
when I thought
I knew –
it was time
and the pain
of breathing –
I sure
couldn't make maque choux.
Still, no one can do
it like my grandmother
could – sweet and spiced
at the same time,
in well
seasoned black pots that saw
more than their share
of fires, saw smoldering
woodstoves & firstborns lost
& now my father
placed under
the earth, & just
months later, a lifetime,
even my grandmother
gone.
No more
maque choux.
No more gar
made to sing in a stew –
even tasting it I knew
no one else oculd lure
such a tune
out of bone.
I do not want
to get good
at grief –
just to know again
that Indian corn
scraped clean, & tomato,
its sweet relief.
I know
now that grief is more
mirror, or terror,
than the slow hands
of time,
my father’s watch
that winds itself
only when on your wrist –
on the dresser, lost
in a drawer, it grows silent
& still, even the date
stops –
as today, after
weeks of heat marooned
ir from my arm
I put it back on
to find the date, for once,
correct –
marking the day after
my grandmother fell
& four months almost to the day after my father
went into wherever
his watch does when no longer
in my hands –
its still
black face.

There are so many food stuffs given love in this volume! I want to list them all:
pork
chicken
crawfish
buffalo
wild game
homemade wine
okra
kitchen grease (okay maybe not a food)
grits
chitlins
greens
catfish
black-eyed peas
gumbo
maque choux
sweet potato pie
barbeque sauce
watermelon
turtle soup
crackling
hot sauce
pepper vinegar
fig preserves
cushaw
boudin

And so many blues:
black cat blues
short end blues
lost dog blues
hang dog blues
something borrowed blues
slow drag blues
flash flood blues
lime light blues
bling bling blues
dirty deal blues
up south blues
hard headed blues
may day blues
last ditch blues
deep six blues

Last Ditch Blues
Even Death
don't want me.

Spiders in my shoes.

Even God.

I tried
drinking strychnine

Or going to sleep
neath the railroad ties—

Always the light
found me first.

The Law.

Put me under arrest
for assaulting a freight –

Disturbing what peace.

(Turns out it
was only strych-eight.)

Tired of digging
my own grave.

Tired.

Spiders in my shoes.

The paperboy only
sold me the bad news.

And wet at that.

The obit page said:
Not Today.

The weather blue too.

Stones all in my shoes.

[Trin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poems written in, and reckoning with, the Black Southern (and Midwestern) Gothic and Blues traditions. I liked, at least in concept, the series of odes to Southern cooking, and there's a great deal of clever wordplay and individual poems I liked (especially, oddly, "Ring of Fire," which is about Las Vegas). I could have done without the instances of poetic "I hate my wife" humor, or the poem to his penis -- like, I respect where in Blues these things are coming from ("squeeze my lemon," etc.) but that doesn't mean I want to read them.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really lovely collection of poems, many of which circle around death in some way. Many, many odes—Young often uses odes as a way to memorialize a loved one (ode as entry point of elegy) and his language is crisp and sassy and right on.

[Jonathan Tennis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of poetry is dedicated to two close family members so it is no surprise that much of it focuses on the importance of family, the setting of his youth and the food that nourished his poetic soul so that he could one day make words do what he does with them.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it. It was a bit uneven as a collection when compared to _Black Maria_ or _Jelly Roll_: some poems were brilliant, others were so-so. But when he's good, he's very very good.

[Kara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am not the audience for this book. There were maybe 3 poems that I liked but the rest didn't speak to me, so I had to respectfully step away.

[B. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a relatively short book of poetry. Very quick read. That being said, while there were several poems that I enjoyed due to the imagery, most of it wasn't something that I could relate to. Being from Texas, I just don't really identify with Louisianan culture, and that's the bulk of the poems. So, while there are many who will appreciate this book, unfortunately, I'm not one of them. The poems themselves are quality, and the writing is great, it's just not my thing.

[Janée Baugher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection is almost 200 pages. Again, with the autobiographical arc--what is it about poetry this year (2008)? Easily digestible little poems, short-lines, most just one-page long. Although these poems are clearing about Young's family--see inscription and family photos on the jacket cover--there's lots to love here. Good imaginative leaps, precise word choice, and musicality. Ambitious work, very surprising.

[Jenesis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just, beautiful. Spare but world-building. Dark but playful. Deeply personal while keeping the reader a foot away with clever wordplay and metaphor, like these lines from "Bachelorhood": "Phone / off the hook, pretending / busy--better that, than this silence / what won't quit ringing." "Pallbearing" is a masterpiece. Just, beautiful.

Pallbearing
Ode to My Scars
Childhood
Bachelorhood
Slow Drag Blues
Ode to Sweet Potato Pie

[Nick Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would guess that in the course of my first reading I read every poem two or three times, trying not to miss a drop of all the goodness. I loved all the odes to food, the many blues, and the deep God-talk going on here too. And as this was from the library, I immediately bought it and his earlier collection, *Jelly Roll.*

[Bill Stutzman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Young's ability to take the most ordinary of experiences (like favorite foods, upon which he draws repeatedly in this volume) and seamlessly move in and out of expressing deeper grief, memory, and joy. This is a beautifully composed collection and a sweet invitation to enter into the sorrow of loss in a most human and personal way without getting lost in the muck.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is so much love in these poems. Love for Young's family, his heritage, for language. My only real quibble is with the poem "Ode to my Sex," because I really am not interested in reading a man literally compare his penis to a god. It's just . . . typical.

[Emily Matview · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd read a whole book that was just Young's odes to various foods. And then I'd get hungry and, subsequently, big boned.

[MacKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best contemporary collections of poetry I've ever read.

[BB]

A swift and lovely read.
Prosaic with an occassional WHOP of deeply poetic beauty.

[René · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection isn't as cohesive as the other 2 collections by Young I've read (Jelly Roll and Book of Hours). The poems in those other collections all revolved around one singular theme and there was more of a clear momentum that moved the reader along from start to finish. Instead, this collection has several different themes (music, food, family, death, grief, regional identity) that tie some of the poems to each other, along with a number of poems that are less directly related to any of the others. So this collection doesn't provide the reader with as much of a catharsis or definite emotional direction as Young's other collections, but on a singular level some of the poems here are among Young's best. A few of my favorites were "Ode to the Midwest," "Bachelorhood," "Aunties," "Ode to Gumbo," "Ode to Grits," "Ode to Greens," "Everyone Knows This Is Nowhere," "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart," "Daylight Savings," "Hang Dog Blues," and "On Being the Only Black Person at the Johnny Paycheck Concert."

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kevin Young speaks with deep love as a son of the African American South (and won't it be nice when the "conversation" gets to the point where we don't have to qualify the South). As you read through these poems you'll find yourself flipping to the back cover photo, discovering new details in the portrait of Young's father and grandfather. Here's a taste:
"...You dan't date/ the photo from either face--/ my grandfather baked/ dark from the fields, my father's/ baby fat holding up glasses/ the only giveaway of age." (Hurricane)
"I wake to the cracked pane/ of moon being thrown/ across the room--/ that'll fix me/ for trying to sleep./ Lately even night/ has left me--/ now even the machine/ that makes the rain/ has stopped sending/ the sun away." (Serenade)

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite the title, Dear Darkness is much lighter and more humorous than Young’s recent Book of Hours, which had already secured him a place on my Top Ten Poets list. Perhaps the other book has more universal appeal, but Dear Darkness sure did delight this Southerner. My favorite poems (and there were many) were mostly about family [“Aunties,” “Uncles (Blood),” “Uncles (Play)”] or about Southern food. I saw my own family in “Ode to Pork,” “Ode to Kitchen Grease,” “Song of Cracklin,” and “Ode to Hot Sauce.” When Young writes, “My father/never admitted anything/was too hot/for him,” I see my brother in a Chinese restaurant, popping the Sechuan pepper in his mouth that the waiter had just cautioned us not to eat.

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this heartfelt volume of poems, Young explores subjects that range from homage to his large, extended family and grief over the loss of his father to the solace he finds in celebrating the foods and meals that sustained the camaraderie of his family. Whatever challenges Young faces, his poems reach out with a questioning and yearning for answers. As he revisits painful memories from his past, he is never afraid to show his vulnerability, for he knows his poetry serves as catharsis. Young’s trademark style of smooth, accessible free verse is a pleasure to read. He wants to make sure the emotion of his work rings true, and he succeeds. This is an outstanding poetry collection.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Book of Hours before this, which on the strength of that collection enticed me to read everything by Kevin Young I could find. This collection had its moments, but Book of Hours was so good that I treated it like a page-turner wondering if he could keep up the sublime pace and heaviness of subject. Book of Hours did. Dear Darkness had its moments but with a collection containing so many poems, it's bound to be uneven in spots. I thought it interesting in that it used food to explore the family and creates an important exploration of food and the culture of family.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I heard Kevin Young read a few of the odes at AWP Atlanta and have eagerly awaited the release of this collection since then. I found it heartbreaking and brilliant. The mixture of odes to food as remembrances to a time past mixed in with the longing that comes from the death of his father are just amazing. Young has such a grasp with language. He knows how to make a poem sing, and these definitely do. I never wanted it to end.

[Ann Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where else can you experience an ode to chitlins, crawfish, and greens? Loved the poems about family and the 70s nostalgia of it all. A poem about riding your Big Wheel and hurrying inside so as not to miss The Love Boat and Fantasy Island is not to be missed. Poignant poems about family and loss as well.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book. I haven't read much poetry, much less modern poetry but I found this book delightful. I enjoyed the whimsical Odes to various Southern foods. I felt the emotion of the various refrains about the poet's late father. Together this collection of poems moved me.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read a lot of Kevin Young by now and this was the best so far. His autobiographical story poems are sad and beautiful; his many odes to soul foods and body parts are hilarious and touching. Count me as a huge fan!

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind-hearted memorials.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe not quite as good as his other books but still pretty great. Still my favorite modern poet.

[Dennis · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like Kevin's work, you will love this! Wonderful odes!

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good stuff. I didn't read all of them, but what I did read helped give me a feel for the poet's voice and the way he sees and feels.

[kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

hot damn! i loved it.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think I'm done with Kevin Young. This seemed like a book of poems that wouldn't fit in any of his other books.