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Black Maria: Poems Produced and Directed by
Kevin Young follows his acclaimed exploration of the blues in Jelly Roll with another playful riff on a vital art form, giving us a film noir in verse. Black Maria –the title is a slang term for a police van as well as a hearse–is a twisting tale of suspicion, passion, mystery, and the city. Young channels the world of detective movies, picking up its lingo and dark glamour in five “reels” of poetry–the adventures of a “soft-boiled” private eye, known as A.K.A. Jones, and an ingenue turned femme fatale, Delilah Redbone, who’s come to town from down south (“Mama bent till dark / tending rows to send / Me to school . . . I wanted / To head on & hitch . . . strike it / Big”). We follow Jones and Delilah through a maze of aliases and ambushes, sex and suspicions, fast talk and hard luck, in Shadowtown where noir characters abound. The Killer, The Gunsel, The Hack, The Director, The Champ, and The Snitch are among the local luminaries and beautiful losers who mingle with Jones and his elusive lady as they stalk one another through the scenes of the poet’s dazzling “treatment.” Charming, funky, bleak, humorous, picaresque, and full of pathos, Black Maria is brimming with the originality and stark lyricism we have come to expect from this remarkable poet.
When we met her first request:
Got a light?
*
I only had dark
so gave her that instead.
*
Ashtray full of butts
& maybes.
*
The sound of her heels down the hall
to me means reveille.
(from “Stills”)
Click on the poem titles below to hear Kevin Young read from Black Maria.
When we met her first request:
Got a light?
*
I only had dark
so gave her that instead.
*
Ashtray full of butts
& maybes.
*
The sound of her heels down the hall
to me means reveille.
(from “Stills”)
Click on the poem titles below to hear Kevin Young read from Black Maria.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2005
5 people are currently reading
127 people want to read
About the author
Kevin Young
87 books374 followersKevin 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
May 12, 2012
holy sh*t, wow, i dont usually like novels in prose im like choose one or the other, but man oh man kevin young i want to steal this entire book and say that i wrote it... i won't, but still! Everyone go out and read some Kevin Young he will make your mind explode with the grace and subtlety of his words!!! when i was trying to describe this work all i could do was make exploding noises and indicate with frantically flailing hands that my mind was blowing up!
March 9, 2012
This is a noir movie in verse, in a spare, mattress-ticking-and-iron-rail style. The language is both gritty and playful. You never forget that these characters are leading lives of being a little too cold, a little too poor, a little too drunk. Even the sex scenes occur in seedy motels and the rhapsodies are about forgetting.
Collapse( some excerpts. I had a hell of a time choosing )
Rendezvous
[many awesome lines omitted, from now on represented by ....]
Her noble camisole
flees her body, wholly
And she is above me
floating, dyed
Hair caught
in stars & areoles --
Lingering cigarette light
Bolted-down seascape art
Peristent static radio
My growing, gibbous heart
The Alias
...
I drink a lot
about my thinking problem --
Nightcap,
noontime nip --
She my unquit habit.
.....
My good eye watched
all night the storm
Drown the street in worms
The Rushes
....
Planned she & I would meet
where the dead sleep, pretending
No one there knew me --
Beneathe the morgue moon,
blue light tugging at seas
One day, I thought, that
will be me
In the godawful ground --
Our kisses cemeteries
The suicides coughing in their restless deep
The moon autopsied
to find out if it waned
From natural causes.
Bulletproof hearses.
......
I snapped back to see
her hushed beside me
Soft-focus frame fading
The fedoraed darkness moving --
Our arms open
as fire, we embraced
While bullets ricocheted
off stone angels
Worn down by weather
& winnowed by tears
Of red-clad windows
in crocodile heels
Who visit just one hour a year.
Stills
....
Without her I am incomplete --
prehensible, licit, couth.
*
Wisdom this tooth
aching I want removed.
The Grift
....
His real home was six feet
beneath ground, he was just
up here renting breath
with the rest of us, short-term lease
he's fallen behind on.
*
Flimflam man,
two empty hands.
Collapse
In short, I really loved this book, and was strangely unsurprised when I got to the end and there was a heartfelt thank-you to Colson Whitehead, because while the voice wasn't that similar, this book and The Intuitionist could exist in the same world.
Read if: You like lyrical poetry featuring a complete absence of ladies, lillies, clouds, or joy. If you are in the mood for a long-form poetry book. If you love noir and the trenchcoated gumshoes and fallen chantueses that populate it.
Skip if: You really want straightforward beauty, you hate short lines, poetry seems inefficient to you.
Collapse( some excerpts. I had a hell of a time choosing )
Rendezvous
[many awesome lines omitted, from now on represented by ....]
Her noble camisole
flees her body, wholly
And she is above me
floating, dyed
Hair caught
in stars & areoles --
Lingering cigarette light
Bolted-down seascape art
Peristent static radio
My growing, gibbous heart
The Alias
...
I drink a lot
about my thinking problem --
Nightcap,
noontime nip --
She my unquit habit.
.....
My good eye watched
all night the storm
Drown the street in worms
The Rushes
....
Planned she & I would meet
where the dead sleep, pretending
No one there knew me --
Beneathe the morgue moon,
blue light tugging at seas
One day, I thought, that
will be me
In the godawful ground --
Our kisses cemeteries
The suicides coughing in their restless deep
The moon autopsied
to find out if it waned
From natural causes.
Bulletproof hearses.
......
I snapped back to see
her hushed beside me
Soft-focus frame fading
The fedoraed darkness moving --
Our arms open
as fire, we embraced
While bullets ricocheted
off stone angels
Worn down by weather
& winnowed by tears
Of red-clad windows
in crocodile heels
Who visit just one hour a year.
Stills
....
Without her I am incomplete --
prehensible, licit, couth.
*
Wisdom this tooth
aching I want removed.
The Grift
....
His real home was six feet
beneath ground, he was just
up here renting breath
with the rest of us, short-term lease
he's fallen behind on.
*
Flimflam man,
two empty hands.
Collapse
In short, I really loved this book, and was strangely unsurprised when I got to the end and there was a heartfelt thank-you to Colson Whitehead, because while the voice wasn't that similar, this book and The Intuitionist could exist in the same world.
Read if: You like lyrical poetry featuring a complete absence of ladies, lillies, clouds, or joy. If you are in the mood for a long-form poetry book. If you love noir and the trenchcoated gumshoes and fallen chantueses that populate it.
Skip if: You really want straightforward beauty, you hate short lines, poetry seems inefficient to you.
December 18, 2020
The dust jacket calls this, "Film noir in verse." These are stunning poems. Together, they tell a noir story--a film. Separately, each is packed with arresting images and beautifully rendered language. Young is a master of the pithy line: "She split so quick / I got motion-sick." "My car, that dinosaur, / runs on memories," "I was wrong as a sweater / on a sheepdog." I borrowed this from a family-member, but it's a good book to own. Read sequentially, hurriedly, it's harder to appreciate the craft of each line.
June 19, 2017
Kevin Young is a master of analogous styles, Black Maria showcases his short, staccato lines infused with noir-imaginary and voice. It's a poetry version of Dashiell Hammet tbut deeply steeped in African American history and poetry. This is an highly enjoyable and accessible, and yet borderline experimental collection. When read with the reset of Kevin Young's work, it shows his poetic versatility.
July 19, 2018
I wish I had this book on hand to say more, but I lent it to a student several years ago and never got it back. What I remember though is the clever wordplay and the interesting connections implied between film and poetry--how imagery can be edited in a poem in a way similar to that which happens in film, and how through that process, characters can be sorted into certain stock types.
July 22, 2011
AMAZING book of poetry. One of the most exciting things I've read in the recent past. Young blends jazz and blues with noir tropes to tell this tell of love, betrayal, etc. Gotta figure out when/how I can teach this.
August 18, 2008
Very, very cool. It's like reading a film noir, you could read it over and over and continue to find new things about it.
March 17, 2012
coolest poet in the game.
December 6, 2020
** 3.5 stars **
Very cool concept - a film noir in verse. The poems themselves contain some clever wordplay and feel reminiscent of Langston Hughes's jazz poetry. For me, none of the individual poems rise to the level of something extraordinary, but as a whole, Black Maria was certainly an enjoyable read. If you are a fan of either Langston Hughes or film noir, you will probably like this collection. Also recommended for readers with an interest in contemporary African American poetry.
Very cool concept - a film noir in verse. The poems themselves contain some clever wordplay and feel reminiscent of Langston Hughes's jazz poetry. For me, none of the individual poems rise to the level of something extraordinary, but as a whole, Black Maria was certainly an enjoyable read. If you are a fan of either Langston Hughes or film noir, you will probably like this collection. Also recommended for readers with an interest in contemporary African American poetry.
April 5, 2020
Harkening back to the film noir days with Bogie and Bacall, Wilson adds a modern day rift with his excellent rhythms and witticisms ("He say, she say, foreplay, amscray"). Accentuates all of your favorite stereotypes about these personas. Buy will he get the girl?
July 26, 2020
Second time read through ( first time when new.) Minimal poems in a five reel noir tale. Ending? You ask. Read on to the end of this marvelous poetic spiel from the pen of Young.
May 18, 2023
I was a little lost on the plot but I was along for the ride in terms of the language.
July 26, 2025
a decent poetic narrative
February 3, 2008
A novel in verse or, if you accept the book’s conceit, a film treatment in verse, Black Maria is a film noir told in bluesy verse. Young is extremely gifted and skillful in mimicking classic forms like the blues and noirish detective fiction chat. For a young man, he is a star in the world of poetry, getting prizes, major publishing houses, large hardcover printings, and plum jobs (he edited the Library of America’s volume on John Berryman). Reading him is fun but I’m not sure that he’s not more clever than he is interesting, more dexterous with ideas than with a real grip on a subject or purpose. Some of his lines stop you to allow for admiration or sharing; others stop you with their effort to get your attention. Here’s a mix of both: “Heaven’s a small town / slowly dying out // Hell’s crowded, an apartment / filled with folks who want / something better. // Fire / trucks trapped / in traffic, / backed up because / someone’s stopped / to watch. Stubborn neon. / Hell’s open / all night & dawn’s / an afterthought.”
September 10, 2016
Beautiful. The rhythms of these clever, original poems can't be beat. A must for fans of the hard boiled detective genre, which makes a miraculous transition to the poetry world in this book (lovers of Hollywood's Golden Age will love this, too.) I read Black Maria as a portrait of the lives of black Americans, personified as a film noir experience. Though its action appears set in the '30s, maybe '40s, its shrewd observations and insights feel entirely relevant for contemporary times.
February 13, 2017
I love his use of language in this one, his plays on words, double entendres. I reread poems just for the sound of his words. This book was like reading a film noir movie and listening to the blues at the same time. I must read more by this author!
July 30, 2008
Interesting project--Young creates a similuation to film noir by writing poems divided into "reels" rather than chapters, which all carry on chronologically, as if watching a film. Great characters and very true to noir archetypes.
October 21, 2014
Ambitious, noir-ish, hard to follow. I would say an atmospheric masterpiece, though I had a hard time following the narrative. This one would reward repeated readings. I read it straight through and once again a slow reading over a longer time would have been good.
May 23, 2008
Cliche-busting poetry in the form of a smooth pulp noir. Ingenious. If you've a love for poetry and for noir, you'll enjoy every line of this one.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews